The Blue Fox Alley

This game is one that is filled with flaws, yet so good and so addictive. It will be unfair to give this SRPG an overall rating hence I’ll split it into parts.

What is an SRPG?

Well, this game is an SRPG as i mentioned and these spawned famous titles like Bahamut’s Lagoon, FF Tactics and Disgaea. Good titles are not limited only to the DS as PSP itself had several impressive SRPG titles like Jeanne D’Arc. Basically your battle ground is in grids. Some what like playing chess, except your pieces do more things than just move, hence the name Strategic Role Playing Game. You get to customize your chess pieces and make them have special abilities, such as different magics. These is done via the system of classes, such as black mage, archer, ranger, moogle knight, paladin, bishop, dragoon etc.

The bad: lets start out with the bad parts of the game.

The Story 6/10

The story is too simple for my understanding. To summarise, it is about a boy, named Luso, who was an ordinary student. Like all students, he dislikes doing homework and reading and as punishment, he was made to clean up the library on the last day of school just before the summer break. What happens is that Luso finds a particular tome that has its pages empty, but with a question on the first page.

It goes something like, “Who will be the destined one to fill these pages”

Of course, the sucker excuse for a hero writes his name, as usual, and gets sucked into the world of Ivalice. In various FF games, the world of Ivalice has been used and this is pretty similar. He enters a middle of a fight between a giant bird and a group of people belonging to a clan called Gully. Right on that spot, he swore to join Gully and became one of its important members. The ‘leader’ of this group is called Cid, who somehow decides to help this boy find his way home out of curiosity. As he travels, the pages of the book fills up automatically.

This story is obviously to help a boy grow up by forcing him to ‘write’ his own adventures. However, his shallow-minded decision making and reckless adventure attitude makes the story seem pointless. Whilst being true, he is only a boy and it was impressive of him to show maturity at certain points such as questioning Cid’s reasons for helping him and praising Cid. I felt that that was the high point of the story. Other than that, its adventuring recklessly all the way.

The Battle Menu System: 5/10

One think i disliked was not the loading time of the menu but rather the number of menus. Sure there were loads of options but it took forever for enemies to perform their actions. Whilst this was relatively fast compared to certain SRPGs, I believed that the Square should have done a better job by removing enemy from showing their possible move spots and target spots and get striaight to the action. The terrible control of the stylus makes things worse. Thankfully, the D-Pad serves as a wonderful alternative. Still, i use the stylus sometimes when i got a hand full.

Difficulty: 5/10

This is more of a guide to SRPGs. As I have played several SRPGs in the past, this one was much easier to play due to my experience. There is also no hard mode. This may proved to be at normal difficulty for people who are new to SRPGs but too easy for those who have played SRPGs for a long time. Whilst I may not like it, people who are new to SRPGs should pick this up before more difficult titles hit the DS, such as Disgaea.

The Good Points

Since its SOOOOO bad, why do people spend hours playing it? Well, even if a rose has thorns, its still a rose.

Side Quest Stories: 10/10

This is probably the only game that goes into this aspect at such detail. Whilst the side stories aren’t THAT deep, the game allows you to play them extensively, making the game last several hours longer. Also, the side quests stories are nice to read and are necessary to achieve a certain level so as to complete the mains. The story of the giant bird which you would have fought in the first battle would only be revealed if you played the side quest. By having so much optional storyline, I suppose the creators had a reason to have a shallow main storyline.

Strategy Gameplay: 9/10

Did I mention the game was too easy? Well controls are easy to handle too which is a plus point. Whist easy to handle, there’s a lot of decision making involved, such as choosing the races and classes of your chess pieces. This adds a lot of customizability. The changing of attire of your units according to job class and their respective portraits adds additional eye candy to the game. The terrain height and distance is pretty huge and movement/jump is a relatively important part to consider besides power and magick.

Sometimes the game also forces you to take a class that is relatively useless in order to form an uber powerful main character. An example is that my Luso has the passive ability ‘Learn’. However to be able to learn several skills like ‘Mighty Guard’ requires a beastmaster to control the enemy units somehow. Sadly I still can’t take control of drakes yet and the beastmaster is always a burden to my party.

Sound: 8/10

Whilst the sound wasn’t preparing for an epic battle like the first FF Tactics, the sound tracks were pretty catchy and enjoyable. Not something you would set to mute at least. Attacking, spells and other effects also have good sound detail. Of course you can only enjoy it with a earphone or headphone. Its nothing too flashy but its good.

Graphics: 7/10

One might have noticed that FF Tactics A2 has graphics that is similar to that of the GBA, except better in its animations and sprites. The town map graphics are pretty ordinary. However, the graphics suit the game. 2d on the DS always never seem to fail. Spell casting and skills are eye candy and the colours used are just magnificent. Background and terrain is just perfect to display the ground levels accurately and beautifully. I would say the graphics is superior when compared to many DS games.

Take a look at these summons.

Incentives: 10/10

This is the biggest reason why one should play the game is because it seriously screws your mind with greed. Since it has a bazaar system, monsters and quest reward loots can then be exchanged. Many items and weapons require you to accomplish the side stories in order to be unlocked in the shop. Tactics A2 uses a system that teaches skill only by equipping an item for a period of time, exactly the same as that of FF9. Difference is the Job system which requires you to achieve certain reqs before you can access a more prestigious class, like that of Neverwinter Nights.

An example is getting the Ninja class that requires 4 thief action skills. Whilst you may not get the 4th skill early in the game, completing side quests may help you get the item. However, it took me quite a while till i got the 4th skill and it was via side quest. I struggled hard to achieve it!!

Anyway, this forces you to play with almost every weapon in the game, even if its weaker than the one you have. Fighting with a weaker weapon however can be overcomed thankfully because of the game’s low difficulty. Now the tables have turned, have they not?

The part that seriously screw your mind is the Judge system. The Judge System can be treated as additional difficulty to the game. Completing it gives you plenty of goodies. Who knows it will unlock an important item for use in the future. Sometimes however, the Judge System becomes annoying at certain points of the game when it requires you to fufill a really unrealistic rule such as not knocking back. That means not scoring a critical or by placing characters on either side of the opponent, wasting several turns and getting a few hits. This little system may cause you to lose.

Economy: 9/10

As I explained, the game forces you to use all the weapons in the game, which means you will be forced to spend your money too. While you earn a few thousand per quest, be sure that it is never enough. Weapons for prestige classes tend to have absurd prices. While having a huge clan can be beneficial because of diversity, having a small clan just means all the characters will have better levels and items. =)

No screwing up

A last point I want to make is that the game does not require a perfectionist to play. Even if you screw up, you can always kick members out of your clan and recruit new ones. Kicking those at lower levels allow you to recruit others at a higher level. =) I only train Adelle, Natasya and Luso to higher levels. The rest are give and take. I am thinking of recruiting more girls. Imagine a party of 1 guy and 5 babes. Kekeke.

Enjoy the eyecandy.

Conclusion

Whilst being filled with flaws, the flaws are required for the game to be fully enjoyed. The only unforgivable part of the game is the menu system which I thought was slow(though only via several split seconds). Still, there is no spell casting delay like FF Tactics and the gameplay has improved tremendously. I recommend all players who wishes to try an SRPG or wishes for a new gaming experience to touch this flawed yet amazing game.