Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 35: Final Fantasy Tactics

(+) Yeah! (+)

Alright, one more I havent played before we get to ones I have, its time for Final Fantasy Tactics. How would you rate the story on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest?
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Previous Results:
Outer Wilds - 9.63 (20 votes)
Omori - 9.6 (5 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Xenogears - 8.75 (22 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.71 (26 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.63 (30 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.58 (12 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.35 (18 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.33 (52 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.26 (33 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.15 (38 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.91 (29 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.8 (21 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.67 (27 votes)
Bioshock - 7.6 (22 votes)
Celeste - 7.5 (23 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.34 (27 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7.19 (19 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (23 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (20 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.86 (19 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.6 (27 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.53 (28 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.25 (12 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.1 (13 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.75 (28 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.33 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.76 (25 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.39 (14 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name> <rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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9.5

Misses out on a perfect score because the final boss feels meaningless compared to most of what comes before, but this really is a complex game with a lot of interesting ideas about morality and politics especially in the form of the contrast between Ramza and Delita.

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8
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9

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9.75

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I'll go with 9. I waffled a bit between 8.5 and 9 but my chief criticism is more about the turn towards the Lucavi and all told it's probably integrated/handled better than average for that trope anyway so I tipped it towards 9.

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9.5/10

Excellent story. Detracting half a point for recruitable characters becoming virtually nonexistent after they become permanent party members.

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8.5 - I think the story weakens the more that the Lucavi become a bigger presence, but it's great throughout.

Leonhart4 posted...

Detracting half a point for recruitable characters becoming virtually nonexistent after they become permanent party members.

This would be my second-biggest complaint.

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7

Passable war story, with an extra half point for 'Blame yourself or God'

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Also I wait on bated breath for the day that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance gets chosen for this topic series

What a day that will be

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10

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5.5

Though really the first half is like an 8 and the second half is like a 2. Part of me wonders if playing War of the Lions would improve my impression of it, since right now the bad translation hurts the already awful second half (but arguably helps the first half by giving us raw fucking lines like "Surrender or die in obscurity").

And yeah recruitable characters disappearing from the story after recruitment is a very questionable decision, definitely should have gone the Fire Emblem route and let certain ones (Agrias, at least) get injured and still contribute during cutscenes.

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Really need to replay this one. Can't remember well enough to give a fair rating.

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6/10

Haven't played the PSP version, so I'm basing this rating off the PS1 game.

Tactics has some standout moments and memorable lines of dialogue, but the plot always lost me. I'm honestly not sure whether it's a translation issue or if it's because I could never connect with the characters, but I lost interest fast on both of my playthroughs.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Also I wait on bated breath for the day that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance gets chosen for this topic series

What a day that will be

We should do a double-header with Metroid: Other M

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8.5 sounds about right. Agree with the general sentiment that the first half is incredible and the second half is too much lol demons.
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Nominate:

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Zero Time Dilemma
AI: The Somnium Files


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7

Yeah it'd be amazing if it kept the style of chapter 1 and 2 the whole time, but it becomes actually a bit bad at times once Lucavi derail it. Not throughout, some high points like Wiegraf still exist but nothing great on the whole

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8.5

I don't mind the Lucavi stuff, honestly. The 4th chapter feels pretty rushed because you're just going from one Zodiac Stone to the next, but you still have great moments even then like the Dycedarg fight.

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9/10

nominate persona 3, persona 4 golden, and persona 5 royal

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I don't remember a fight against Dycedarg

Dycedarg's Elder Brother was quite a battle though

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UltimaterializerX posted...

You cant have characters matter in the story much in a game with perma-death.

Fire Emblem manages somewhat

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10

Amazing political story with lots of plot twists and intriguing individual character arcs. I loved the supernatural aspect of the game as well because it was fitting of "Final Fantasy".

2nd Golden Era Final Fantasy in these topica gets another 10 from me.

Leonhart4 posted...

I don't mind the Lucavi stuff, honestly. The 4th chapter feels pretty rushed because you're just going from one Zodiac Stone to the next, but you still have great moments even then like the Dycedarg fight.

The Dycedarg fight was so good because of the personal stakes for Ramza. The whole zodiac stones plot arc works because it is after all a Final Fantasy game otherwise this game might as well have been called Tactics Ogre 2.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

10

Amazing political story with lots of plot twists and intriguing individual character arcs. I loved the supernatural aspect of the game as well because it was fitting of "Final Fantasy".

2nd Golden Era Final Fantasy in these topica gets another 10 from me.

What he said. 10.

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Another 10

Agree with most of the takes here. I love what they were trying to do, and they do the war+class story really really well when it's the focus. But then they gradually abandon that narrative as the story goes on, and the last act is rushed and imo flat out bad in spots. I was especially let down at how Delita just stops showing up at all by the end (except the final scene of course, which is good).

I don't think the Zodiac stone stuff is inherently bad, there's some really good use of it earlier on when it's used to highlight the themes of the story and express character development and internal conflict in a fantasy way (most notably with Wiegraf). But then by the end it's just generic fantasy and there's very little subtext or meaning to anything going on. Even the Dycedarg confrontation was a disappointment to me, there's barely any dialogue and I got the impression the writers were rushing the game out the door by that point. It didn't feel like the emotional climax of Ramza's personal arc that it should have done, imo.

And yes the party members having nothing to say after recruitment really does hurt them, thankfully the antagonists in this game are far more compelling than in any other FF so it's not too egregious.

Overall I still want to give it a 9/10, just for how much I love the game when it's at its peak.

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Old ratings.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - 10
Xenogears - 8
Metal Gear Solid - 7.5
Final Fantasy X - 10
The Last of Us - 3
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.8
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 6
Mass Effect - 6
Super Paper Mario - 3.5
Dark Souls - 2
Chrono Cross - 3.5
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 9
Final Fantasy IV - 5
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 3
Final Fantasy XIII - 5.5

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8/10

First half is great but then the story forgets about what makes it great and becomes generic monster stuff.

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Nominate Phantasy Star IV

Nom Vagrant Story

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9

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10

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Other than FFVII (for which I have an impossible-to-be-objective bias), FFT has the best story in the series and I don't think it's particularly close.

UltimaterializerX posted...

The first half of 6 is up there. Maybe the second half of 10 and maaaaaaaybe parts of 4.

FF4 deserved far better from the voters in these topics

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I played FF4 when I was 7

Even 7 year old Lopen was unimpressed by the endless revolving door of self sacrifice to get party members out of your team-- he found better writing in his Goosebumps books.

FF6 and Lufia 2 were where it was at for SNES era storytelling. FF4 passes the bar for a passable video game story but that's all it is.

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FFIV got about what it deserved

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Oh, back-rating: Valkyria Chronicles 7.5.

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