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

The animation blew my mind back when I played it. I think the first one that stood out to me was the opening to the Dorter Slums battle.

You are correct! I'll have to update that... I don't know how I missed that when I was going through the list.

There is some really nice sprite work that screenshots fail to showcase. What's impressive is that it's not just the unique characters that get some sprite loving... if I remember correctly, there's one scene where an enemy Thief actually takes off his hat and tosses it at the ground!

- Eddie

I love Oracles so much. This game is so wonderfully broken.

Oracle + teleport + black magic, all the way, baby. Rods are the secret best weapon in the game.

It sounds like you've played WotL before but maybe not the original, so just wait until Chapters 3 and 4. Honestly when I was playing the game again recently I didn't mind the translation very much; there's some weird turns of phrase and bad typos here and there, but the characters come through very clearly, especially Algus and Delita.

Eddie, this LP is one of my favorites. I kind of skim over the cutscene talky-talky, but I love the hardcore in-depth mechanics nerd shit. I bet you collapse from exhaustion after each update. =)

Woah, I totally didn't know this. Contextually though, it makes perfect sense: If they're brave is too low, they become cowards and abandon you, and if their faith is too high... I guess they become enlightened pacifists.

Over ten years and hundreds of hours later and I'm still learning new things about FFT.

I loved all the BS rumors about how you could get those characters back later from random battles.

I'm all about the hardcore mechanics nerd shit.

True story:

There used to be this guy named Tatsushi Nakao who ran had this "Final Fantasy" virtual town thing named Illucia. Some of the older folks on the board might remember it, it started this crazy amount of imitators to spawn their own FF inspired town, each one ripping the same sprites from Final Fantasy VI, with the same music and artwork that everyone else had.

(Nakao inspired my brother to create a virtual town named "Abilene." Me and some interweb friends were inspired by Nakao to go in a completely different direction, but that is another story involving a character poll, a fat man getting hit by a truck, and a lot of free time...)

But anyway, I started getting into this e-mail thing with Nakao. I don't know if I'd call him a friend in retrospect, I think it was more him being too damn polite to tell this stupid 16 year old kid where to go. But regardless, occasionally he would let drop little hints of stuff that had been well mined in all the strategy books in Japan. Here in North America, FFT was new and exciting but no one really had any sort of clue about the mechanics of it all. I remember there was this great looking FFT Strategy Guide, that had beautiful maps but was just riddled with errors, and absolutely no information about any of the mechanics.

Anyway, Nakao ended up telling me the formula for calculating the success of a Time Mage's Teleport skill, I think completely offhand in some e-mail he sent me.

This would have been at least a full year before such information was really appearing in great guides like aerostar's FFT Battle Mechanics Guide. I was now in possession of a 'secret' that barely anyone else in North America knew. I was the kid at the proverbial playground who knew this one thing about this one game that no one else knew.

Of course I was telling EVERYONE. If people were talking about FFT, I was putting on my 'look at me I am so smart' hat and dishing this luxurious piece of information. There was this one letter that sprouted up on The GIA website that I think ended up complaining about how Teleport worked (since the writer didn't know) and BAM I got a letter printed and felt all like hot shit.

Yeah, I was the king of the internet for like, six months. And it's all thanks to Tatsushi Nakao, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

- Eddie

The mere mention of Tatsushi Nakao and Illucia has taken me back to 1995. ;_; I'm now hopelessly lost in a sea of nostalgia!

I was down in Akihabara last weekend and decided to do myself some good...



Although my feelings are still a little hurt over the no-accumulate thing (sniff), this is one of my favorite LPs yet. Keep 'em coming.

ok TK flash, here's the deal. you're going to get a full set of those, and hand them off to Kat, who will pay you for it when she comes next month. i, in turn, will pay her for them.
end result, i get statues.
make it happen!

This link is relevant to your interests.

Also, randomly, I well remember the Square Soft town craze, and I lived in Abilene TX at the time, so I had a slight soft spot for the imaginary Abilene.

Andore Jr. is back? This really is the best thread ever, just for telling me that.

*WHAM*

That was the sound of the nostalgia truck hitting me. Oh man, yes, I remember Illucia. Good times, man, good times.

Also, I have Delita and Agrias from that figure set. Wish I could get more of 'em.

I actually used to be part of this weird Star Trek/Final Fantasy VI mashup with Ragu and Sak (of AndoreJr). The details are perhaps too embarrassing to mention (its name was "Freedom RPG") but I became friends with a guy on that board named Austin. We created the aforementioned website about a guy getting hit by a truck.

I had a Political Science professor once ask my class if any of us have "digital herpes."

"Digital Herpes" is when you say or do something really stupid on the internet, and someday way down the line it is dredged back up for your own personal loss/embarrassment. Well, Palmer Election HQ is my virtual STD. But hey, we all did stupid things way back then, right? Okay, a fanfic about the Borg invading the world of post-Final Fantasy VI was more embarrassing but at least I don't still remember the URL to THAT incurable infection.

- Eddie

Sorry Shivam, I'd like to help you out but I snagged the only ones I could find. Delita was 350 yen and Ramza was 1300. They must have made a run of figures back when WotL came out.

In other crazy figurine news, my buddy found a Megaman X4 figure of Ultimate-armor Megaman. That was pretty sweet too. You can get a lot of stuff in Akihabara, but usually not older than two or three year-old games/anime.

Igros Castle
Beoluve Residence

(Scene: Ramza, Algus, and Delita have just learned that
Dycedarg was attacked while they were fighting Weigraf's
sister, Miluda. While Dycedarg seems to be stable, the trio
also learn that Delita's sister Teta was kidnapped during
the assault...)



Dycedarg: Leave the rest to Zalbag and relax for a while...
(Dycedarg turns to face Ramza). No need to worry.... It's
not that bad of a wound.

Ramza: Teta.... what about Teta....?





Dycedarg: Wiegraf will be caught... It's just a matter of
time.



Dycedarg: Don't worry. Everything's all planned. We won't
attack until Teta's returned. For certain.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(Scene: Outside the building.)



Ramza: Just calm down!





(Delita grabs Ramza violently by the neck.)



Ramza: Remember, Dycedarg said... He'd never abandon
Teta... So.... don't..... Ugh... I... can't breathe.

(Delita releases Ramza from his grip.)



Ramza: Y... yeah.... ... cough... cough...

(Algus enters the scene from the building.)

(Ramza moves and restrains Delita, as Algus wipes his
mouth.)











(Algus gets up off the ground.)





Algus: That's exactly the point. Don't act like friends. You
are the son of a distinguished family. You cannot be with
him. I'm sure your brothers would agree with me!

(Delita shakes Ramza off.)



(Delita exits off to the south. Ramza moves to confront
Algus.)



Algus: Don't say that. We're friends, aren't we?

Ramza: I won't say it again! Get lost!!

(Algus shrugs and moves past Ramza, heading towards the
exit, but turns when he gets about halfway.)



Algus: There are several cordons, so you can't attack
them from the front, of course. The only way is to attack
from the rear.







(Algus exits.)

That's my favorite story section in the entire game. Every time I see Delita later in the game, that's all I can think about :'(

That was gorgeous. I'm glad you're giving the story scenes lots of attention, in addition to the awesome mechanics details.

ProTip: if you size your browser to just the right vertical height, you can use Page Down to make that last post animated, and it's totally awesome.

As an aside, I really really loved the FFT PV trailer that features that scene at the end and has an awesome piece of music that remixes the crystal theme with various FFT themes. The "Blame yourself or God" one. I guess it played at the beginning of the original game if you left the title screen alone? I forget.

You can see it in the middle of this video. It features several scenes that have already been featured in this LP, minus one which flashes by so quickly I don't think I could even call it a spoiler.

There's a neat job roundup at the end too, although they skip some of the classes and there's a typo or two...

Mostly tho, you should watch it for the AWESOME music that I'm incapable of rendering in screenshots

- Eddie

The third one that goes through the job classes and monsters is my favorite. I was incredibly dismayed that it was nowhere to be found in War of the Lions.

A few things:

I got a full set of the SE figurines last year at Anime Expo. Worth every penny at whatever I paid for it, which I can't exactly remember. Maybe $65. Aside from Ramza and Delita, the set has Ovalia, Mustadio, and Agrias. Love!

Speaking of love, Hitoshi Sakimoto is one of my favorite game composers. His music is much of what makes FFT a great gaming memory for me. But Eddie's screenshots of the scene between Ramza and Delita remind me that there's a lot more besides the music that makes this game great.

And for anyone who's new to FFT and feeling nervous about not knowing enough, don't sweat it. My brain doesn't have the level of detail and/or memorization to make the zodiac, brave, faith, etc. information of any use to me, but I was able to get through FFT despite that. (Using Orlandu/Orlandeau, but he is included for first-timers I think.) The screenshots of the battlefields and descriptions of the layouts and enemies are helpful, because the game itself doesn't give you a preview of the battlefield before throwing you into it.

I am amazed at the amount of time and effort it must be taking to do this LP. Even to the point of formatting the message board pages a little. Excellent, keep it up. I'm looking forward to more!

I'm pretty sure that the figure is Balthier and not Mustadio. I bought the set from the US SE store a few 1-2 years ago, but it only came with 4 figures. For some reason we did not deserve Balthier.

Just a small status update: while I've done the battle/taken the screenshots, I've been pretty busy, so unless I get a lot done tomorrow (unlikely) the next update will be sometime next week.

I'm being selfish! I'm going to a water park and visiting a friends this weekend. Don't judge me! Judge yourself or God!

(Okay that was pretty unnecessary).

- Eddie

Judging? Who'd be dumb enough to combine Judging and Final Fantasy Tactics?

Anyway, have storming the castle Eddie.

Hey Eddie. Looking forward to your next update on FFTactics. I personally have not ever made it very far in this game, so I'm looking forward to the rest of your LP.

i just want to say that after 10 years, 90+ hours on the psx version and 85 hours on the psp version, I FINALLY GOT ULTIMA. FINALLY.


also, fuck nelveska temple, and fuck the fact that you can't steal from elmdore.