Most of the people who would be excited about this will have already found out about this elsewhere, but I’m excited and wanted to spread the news!
The Final Fantasy Tactics Advance game that was announced a while back is actually going to be a new game, not just a port of the original to the Game Boy Advance. As many of you know, the original Final Fantasy Tactics is The Best Videogame Ever Made ™, and while there’ve been plenty of similar strategy/RPG’s released since it came out, none have been able to quite match the near-perfect game design of that one.
There’s more info at The Gameforms website. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do a little happy dance.
I don’t know if I quite share your same enthusiasm over the first FFT even though it is a phenomenal game. That said, I am really excited about this game. It looks to be very interesting with a slightly different story. Most FF games exist solely within their world but this one transplants 4 modern day kids into a fantasy setting. A fish out of water story supposedly.
Don’t know all the details with job classes but there are some differences with other parts. The “Judgement” system replaces the AT/CT. You can form Clans. I think this means you can stockpile people that join your party but it might be more complex. And the really cool feature is desiging your own maps. I’ve always enjoyed games where you design stuff areas for you to play on like Excitebike for the old NES or map design with PC strategy games.
Unfortunately I don’t know anyone that owns a GBA to do a link battle. That sounds like fun.
So far the biggest concern from other people online is that all the characters look like girls. That and there was a car in one of the pictures.
Tactics Ogre for the GBA was a lot of fun but I expect FFT to do better. Long live tactics games!
At least the characters have noses this time.
And I’ve heard more than a few people complain/comment on the cars in the screenshots; but I don’t get it. The FF games that I’ve played (7-10) have all combined technology with fantasy stuff, so cars didn’t seem that out of place. The only concern I would have is if the “real world” setting is an attempt at the real real world instead of a fantasy-type setting; that never seems to work.
Even with the GBA version coming out, which I’m going to buy the hell out of, I’d still like to see a 3D game with the same type of job classes and battle system.
I just hope this time the game is longer. The first FFT was way too short.
There’s an article at IGN that pretty much explains FFT for dummies. But in the article it connects the name of the town the kids are in, St. Ivalice and the kingdom Ivalice that you existed in in the original. (I hate using in twice) There’s not much new info there but this is the article.
http://pocket.ign.com/articles/370/370071p1.html
I don’t have a problem with what I’ve seen so far. It’s better to reserve judgement until after the game comes out. Some really hokey ideas can become cool as well as really cool ideas can become hokey. Though I don’t think the original world in FFTA is the real world. It’s just a world without magic like ours.
Epimetheus… way too short? My god man, I’ve spent more hours playing that game than any other I’ve ever owned, including board games like chess. Getting everyone to be masters of their jobs, trying to collect items from the propositions… The Deep Dungeon, Cloud, Reis… GAH! That game routinely takes me 80 hours to play before I get sick of it… for a few months.
Best…game…ever.
I’m worried this sequel won’t live up to the original, though. Square has a good track record on console RPGs IMO, but some of them (VIII, anyone?) have left me sorta cold.
The fact its on the GBA automatically limits how long it can be. It can’t be an epic 60 hour game minimum. (Not that FFT was that long) Many long drawn out battles wouldn’t work with a system designed for portability and convience. I’m expecting a 25-30 hour basic game with hours upon hours of side stuff. I believe they also have a quick save feature to interrupt battle, a necessary trait for tactics game on the GBA.
Hmm, I just distinctly remember the game being very short. What I mean by that is that the Plotline is very short. Getting extra things, side quests, mastering each of the classes and such aside. It took me around 20 hours to beat the game, and that was the first time. In comparison, it took me 40 hours to beat FFVII. Short, IMO. 
I have to go with erislover on this one (of course, I’m inclined to agree with anyone who says FFT is the best…game…ever). Even if 20 hours qualifies as “short,” I figure that since I played through the game 4 times at last count (!!) I figure I got 80 hours out of it. The only other contender, replay-value-wise, would be Diablo II, which I’ve played through twice.
Now, if you’d said that the final battle was anti-climactic, I’d have to agree with you. But since I’d already experienced videogame epiphany (seeing the robot attack for the first time) after videogame epiphany (seeing a ninja with a mace in each hand do a successful counter-attack) by that point, I figured it was all just clean-up work. Downer ending, though.
I’m sure they’re going to have an in-battle save feature; Tactics Ogre and Advance Wars both had that.