Blame yourself or God! Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!

/Standing ovation

Eddie, this was goddamned monumental. Thank you for all of the effort you put into opening up one of my favorite games of all time, in a way that basically blew my mind over and over. I've put in hundreds and hundreds of hours into this game, and you still found things to teach me.


You deserve all the plaudits and praise.

Wow, Eddie, extremely well presented. You made the ending moving even in screenshot form.

Thanks a lot for the whole LP. You really gave one of my favorite games justice. Just excellent.

And no one noticed I left out part of the ending! NO ONE!

LP RUINED. Start over.

Absolutely fantastic LP, Eddie. Congratulations on finally finishing it!

<citizenkaneclapping.gif>

~Falselogic

I think my mind just supplied Alazlam's little monologue so I didn't notice it was missing. Besides, the real hits of the ending are Ramza/Alma riding by Oran and Delita's anguish anyway.

Now that I think about it, isn't Delita supposed to have cut out Balmafula's tongue, rendering her mute for the ending? I think I remember hearing that somewhere.

I always did like the "This game is complete!" message at the end.

Bravo!

Bravooo!

I liked that WotL made the tragedy of the ending even worse by having Agrias, Ovelia's most loyal and devoted guard, give her the very knife that would take her Queen's life.

Ramza will probably leave a Robe of Lords or a Bracer. I dunno what Alma was equipped with.

Cachusha and Red Shoes.

The PSX version made the epilogue hopelessly opaque. It seems like Ovelia might have stabbed Delita, but it's not really clear. We also don't know what Ramza got.

*standing ovation*

Well done, Eddie.

It's always the little things that make one smile.

• a bad reputation
• not murdered

I'd say he made out pretty well, considering.

That is the prevailing theory, yes.

Well done.

If some "Let's All Play" FFT ever starts up again, I might try out the "Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3" Mod.

But those seem to have fizzled out a bit, and certainly, FFT is not a game to casually pick up and play.

- Eddie

Good job, Eddie! Now that you've finished, I can start reading your LP again.

Well, I joined TT because of this post, and I guess now that it's over I sho

Eh Di Ee!
Eh Di Ee!
Eh Di Ee!
Eh Di Ee!

Congratulate yourself or God.

Congratulations Eddie.

In commemoration of this day, I shall reveal the secret to the "protect Rafa" fight on Riovanes Castle rooftop. Her AI is NOT random.

It is determined by how you arrange your units in the starting formation screen. If you leave a space down there within her initial move range for her, she'll move to it! If you don't, she'll attack every time (and probably die!) I'm serious, this works, try it!

I did because I was going to make a joke/observation about part of it. Part that you left out.

But that's a tiny, inconsequential price to pay for such an awesome LP. Thanks Eddie!

I used to think this about FF5.

I feel I should say something more than "FINALLY" now that this is all over.

On Life

Everyone tells you that an LP is a lot of work, but it's not really the work that I think is the "difficult" part. The "difficult" part is sheer momentum. The breaks in this LP often came from big changes in my life, and it's funny now to look back at them. When I started this LP back in 2009, I had just finished an undergraduate degree in Political Science at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia). I was working a crappy (pay wise, not work wise) part-time job, but I had a lot of enthusiasm for this project; after all, what else was I doing?

Of course, a crap-pay job is not what I was looking for out of life. In September of 2009, I made the move to the big city, Toronto. I was in a long-distance relationship with a girl I knew from back in 2000, and being near her (plus moving to a city with the largest job market in Canada for someone with an arts degree) was a big incentive. Once here, I spent a year once again in a crap part-time job, struggling as one does when the cost of living often exceeds the amount of income one has access to. The LP suffered a lot while I worked through both the move, and the changing relationship with my girlfriend.

It was Christmas of 2009 when a pseudo-relative (the kind that becomes such through various marriages) of mine turned my head towards Urban Planning as a field where my talents might be put to use. A hurried application to Ryerson University followed in the New Year. I didn't expect to get in, but I guess the selection committee took pity on me, and I entered into the world of graduate school. I can honestly say that grad school was rough at times; more than once I found myself pulling all nighters to get a stupid board done for my Design class. My LP slowed to a crawl; It has taken me about a year to get through three chapters and a third of the fourth chapter until I all of a sudden had to worry about school again. Once in, free time became a luxury (usually spent panicing over this forum's Mafia games). You can see as the LP crawls forward that it gets some steam around Christmas 2010, Summer 2011, and Christmas 2011, but is otherwise nigh-abandonded.

The first third of 2012 had be furiously working on my Master's Research Paper about the Ontario Municipal Board (let me know if you want to read 50 pages of sleep-inducing law), as well as trying to complete a study for the Regional Municipality of Halton here in Ontario. Graduation brought with it not free-time, but a kick in the arse that hey, you've got the education, now you need a job! I'm still working on that last part, but my hopes are high. I'm still with the girl I moved to Toronto to be with, and *fingers crossed* will put a ring on her finger once I land that planning position I'm looking for. I write all of this because this LP was much much more than a labour of love (and fighting the spellchecker for Canadian spelling); it encompasses a very volatile period of my life.

It sounds silly to apologize for getting a Master's Degree but here we are. I never intended this whole thing to take three years! Sorry 'bout that!



On Talking Time

Additionally, the forum itself has changed a lot since I first started writing my LP. No, I don't mean that in a "Talking Time is ruined!" manner! I can say professionally that "things change" (whether they be neighbourhoods, or internet forums). Change is scary, but that doesn't make it bad.

There was a certain level of naivety (and, thanks spellchecker, vanity) to this forum back in 2009. Let's Plays were something magical back then; I remember spending untold hours watching Deceased Crab play the Trilby series on Youtube, reading Breetai's hilarious Fallout 2 LP... and let's not forget some of the great LPs that were written on this forum! Here we got to see such magic as Brickroad's Final Fantasy LPs (and current superstar, Final Fantasy II), Alixsar's wonderful Ocarina of Time and Ogre Battle 64 LPs, Octopus Prime's LPs (too many to list), as well as Sky Render's work (which I believe at this point accounts for fully half of the LPs on the Internet). We've even gone through an administrative change, with PlatypusRope handing the baton off to FalseLogic. Both have tirelessly worked to make this forum great, and they both deserve kudos sent directly to their inboxes.

I think it sometimes feels rough to cultivate an LP here; the audience here is much smaller than what one would find on the Something Awful forums, and when you LP a niche game itself you sometimes end up with a pretty small audience! This is not a complaint; it's merely a reality! I was lucky to be able to claim and LP Final Fantasy Tactics, not only because it's one of the greatest RPGs released on the Playstation (and certainly ranks up there in "Best RPG ever" lists), but because it's also incredibly popular. Still, I couldn't get through this LP without the support of some of the more dedicated fans. So shout outs to everyone who read this thread. Special thanks to the following people, in order of number of times they've posted in this thread:

Coinspinner (the original rules guru in the thread)
shivam (this LPs #1 fan)
ThricebornPhoenix (Eventually killed Coinspinner and absorbed his crystal)

Guilty secret: it was hard to look at this sub-forum when I had fallen behind on updates. I'd feel embarrassed to click the link, knowing that maybe someone was waiting for an update that would never come (until much later). I feel like I've finally faced my fears and can be a proper member of this forum again, as weird as that might sound!

The plan back when I was updating regularly (i.e. 2009) was to move onto the Phoenix Wright series of games, but I think I've had my fill of text and screenshot-heavy games. I've some interest in bringing Sven's X:Com: UFO Defense LP back from the dead, but (as I mentioned before) I'm still job hunting, so... priorities. But I hope to make a new LP (if not X:Com, something else) in the future. Hopefully one that takes less than 3 years to finish.


On Final Fantasy Tactics

We've had an on-and-off-and-on-again relationship for the past 3 years. I know I'll come back to you again someday, because true love can never be apart.

I've linked them plenty of times in this thread, but shout-outs to the following things:

Aerostar's Battle Mechanics Guide. Indispensable for the game.
Final Fantasy Tactics, Ultima Edition (website). Most of the portraits used in the LP, along with some of the images, are from that website.
PeyserConley's Youtube channel, for being a place where I can link the wonderful music from FFT.

Finally, thanks to my brother, John. He was this LP's #2 fan after shivam, and without his support (re: nagging) this LP probably would have extended into 2013.

Thanks for reading everybody!

- Eddie

I'm so amazed and impressed that this is over and was so great all the way through. Applause dot gif.

I just finished replaying this game for the first time in years, and I've been using this excellent LP as a reference as I've gone. Great work! I tried out some of the crazy character builds that you recommended, which was great fun, although I never managed to get Ramza to stick (ha ha) as a two-handed staff wielder. Even so, it was great seeing the nuts and bolts of how everything works, and the ninja that I modeled after your speedy-thief build was a powerhouse, starting with 12 speed and getting faster every time she was attacked.

I had forgotten what a downer the ending to this game is, and I think that War of the Lions only makes things worse. Orran/Olan asks if his father died bravely when he visits Ramza's grave, which seems to confirm that nobody else made it out of the Necropolis alive. On the bright side, he speaks highly of Delita for sparing Balmafula's life, which might imply that he didn't have her tongue cut out? It's not totally clear, since she doesn't say anything in the new ending either, but you think he wouldn't heap praise on the guy if he had done something so barbaric. The final scene with Delita and Ovelia had been completely wiped from my memory, but man is it ever depressing.

Well, no matter, the rest of the game is fantastic. As was this LP! Thanks for investing so much in it over all these years.

Hey TT!

Mogri's trying to run a cool FFT "artificial intelligence" battle right here that you should join. It sounds like it could be fun!

I'm rooting for Sanagi.

Aw, that's nice, but don't get your hopes up. Bards and Dancers are very soft and squishy.

The last time I ran a tournament, a Slow Dance/Mime combo came in 2nd. I don't know how much an extra Bard will contribute, but I guess we'll see!

my guess is that it'll be a big liability, but who knows

This is me tonight. Amazing work, Eddie.