Join Clemps as he slithers his way into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and enjoy the nail-biting trials he has to endure, such as whether or not to spell “defence” as “defense” due to his beautiful American following. Hopefully this video will shine some light on my opinions of this title, and hopefully it’ll spark some interesting conversations! If you want to help support me, then Patreon is by far the best way. I’ll soon be rolling out new rewards, such as the ability to watch a few minutes of my videos before its on KZfaq.

A game with moral complexity about things kids think about is awesome in my eyes. A way to backdoor the idea of perspective.

Marche choose to be an adult and deal with his problems instead of running away and I respect him lots for it.

So... its been more than a year, wheres the review for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2?

This game is basically what it's like to be the only sober person in a group of friends on drugs.

Really appreciated this video Clemps. FFTA is a really significant game in my life. When I played it, I was just on the cusp of becoming a teenager and here I was playing a game that was directly commenting on my own escapism. I identified with Marche SIGNIFICANTLY as the middle child of a large family in which my needs seemed to always come second fiddle to my more problematic siblings who received all of the attention of my parents as a result. I was the quiet child who did as they were asked so my needs went unnoticed but I was not yet aware enough to understand the "squeaky wheel" paradigm of problem solving. My parents can't solve my problems for me and they especially couldn't do so if they didn't know those problems existed in the first place. Here I am putting others needs first and doing everything expected of me as "the good son" but never getting anything in return and suddenly here's a character who I identified with almost entirely 1 to 1. Marche helped me to start speaking up about my needs and wants. Marche taught me to take better care of myself.

This kid invented the Viera? I don't see what the problem is. This is clearly one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time.

Tactics Advance was my first FF game. I’d love to see a HD remaster.

"Get in the robot, Shinji!" A father asking his son to neglect his problems by fighting monsters "Get in the wheelchair, Doned!" A brother asking his sibling to confront his problems by not fighting monsters

I remember the moment that I ragequit the game as a little kid. "Swords are illegal. That saber is a sword." Me: But you just said that sabers were diff-- "GO TO JAIL." I had no fucking idea what I was doing with the law system in that game. Should give it another chance someday.

I would say that Marche being so used to ignoring his own wants because he had to put his crippled brother first was the entire basis of why he was able to refuse the temptation of the fantasy world. Because really? The fantasy gave him everything he wanted, too. He had respect, a kind of family in his clan and even a replacement sibling in Montblanc. One who would prioritize his wants and needs.

This video says exactly what I have been telling a friend of mine for years, only, you did it far better than I've ever been able to. My only criticism of it is that you judge (pun intended) the judge system a little harshly. From a design perspective, it's a great concept that illustrates that the player must broaden their character's skill sets. Because in the future, they might not be able to use black magic (or even the fight command) they have to explore new jobs instead of just sticking to what works early on. The game goes out of it's way to give you a cop out skill for each of it's most obnoxious laws, it's up to the player to be smart enough to figure them out. And pretty early in the game (right after the first law hike) it gives you a means to flat out break those laws... As a mechanic. By mid game, if you prepared, there is no law you can't loop hole your way out of. Can't damage bangaas? Use the alchemist or red magic poison spells that don't do damage on the target, then stack a bunch of nerfs on the while healing and buffing your party, or charm you enemies to make them fight for you and eat the red cards themselves.

That kid came up with pretty bunny people, he deserves a medal!

You missed a joke, clemps. "They kept all their memories in tact.....ics" *Que seinfeld bass theme*

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was actually my intro to Final Fantasy a few years ago back when I was in high school, bumming around on TV Tropes when I found a entry comparing it to my absolute favorite children's novel, "The Neverending Story" (Which, I'm going to going to get to this), and it's still one of my favorite Final Fantasy games and I wish it either got remade or ported. I absolutely agree that Marche was right, even if a good chunk of the writing explaining WHY he was right was either kind of poorly done (like the Doned subplot, which can dip into Yikes territory at times), or just not as explicitly stated in canon as it should have been (such as how Mewt and the gang were dragging people from St. Ivalice into the fantasy world with them, warping them into monsters to fit the fantasy Ivalice). I also think that if the game ever gets remade, they should at least rewrite the whole "The world is a dream that stops existing if Marche wins" thing to reassure people that no, Marche is not destroying worlds, and the kids going home is just as beneficial to fantasy Ivalice as it is the real world St. Ivalice. Especially since, of course, later Ivalice games such as Final Fantasy XII and Tactics A2 confirmed that there is a real Ivalice that goes on existing regardless of the dream one (I wouldn't mind a rewrite of the plot where Dream Ivalice is a forced hybrid of St. Ivalice and fantasy Ivalice, and fantasy Ivalice is being warped just as much as St. Ivalice is). I mentioned "The Neverending Story" earlier, and I think my exposure to that book (not the movies, the movies are Bad) prior to finding FFTA is what helped me get FFTA's point better, and I have a strong suspicion it may have been an influence on FFTA's creation. I originally wrote a much longer comment going into detail about the book and making comparisons, and I can go back and do that if anyone's really interested, but the long and short of it is that The Neverending Story is how FFTA's story SHOULD have been. The protagonist of the book, Bastian, is basically a proto-Mewt - he's bullied at school, he's overweight, he does poorly with schoolwork, his mom passed away, his dad's in a deep depression out of grief, all Bastian really has going for him is his love of stories. Like Mewt, he gets pulled into a magical fantasy world in a book (in his case, the world of Fantastica in a book called "The Neverending Story", same as the IRL title), and when he's there he's a hero and cool guy who everyone loves. Except, like Mewt, he ends up turning tyrannical, eventually trying to declare himself emperor, and when his friend Atreyu (the Marche of this story, if Marche was a native of the fantasy world instead) tries to stop him, Bastian nearly succeeds in killing him. Bastian falls and he falls HARD, and it doesn't help that that making wishes in Fantastica costs him his memories of the real world and just progressing through the fantasy leads to the fantasy consuming him. He DOES make it home in the end, but only just barely, and getting his memories back and being able to leave Fantastica required giving up everything Fantastica gave him AND Atreyu (who survived) offering to stay behind and clean up Bastian's mess in his stead. Mewt and the gang in FFTA are honestly pretty lucky Marche was there to hold an intervention for them before it got to the lows that Bastian hit. I feel like FFTA could have benefited from making more of the same storytelling choices The Neverending Story did, and I highly recommend reading it if you can find a copy, since it's a very good example of what FFTA *SHOULD* have been and its shared themes can offer some perspective on exactly what's at stake in FFTA's story and WHY the escapist solutions that fantasy Ivalice provides to the gang's problems are unhealthy and bad (just don't watch the movies, I mean it when I say they're bad). But overall yeah, i agree with Clemps here that FFTA's story is pretty severely underrated or misunderstood, and the most I can fault the game for is occasionally shoddy writing or worldbuilding. I'd love to see the game get remade precisely in order to fix some of its writing hiccups so that people can see just how good it actually is.

Doned: I can walk again! Mewt: My mom is alive and my dad's not a drunk! Ritz: My hair is pink! Shut up, Ritz.

This video reminds me of the pic, "Being a child is siding with Jimmy Neutron, being an adult is understanding Skeet is right."

I actually enjoy Marche's hardcore commitment to dispelling the illusion.

Honestly, I don't think Marche even needed a reason to go home that was justified in the eyes of others. His reasons could be as significant or as insignificant to others as he wanted. Maybe he missed a place, a certain food, a person, the nature of his life or the comfort of familiarity. Maybe he preferred real world lifestyles to the somewhat war-like nature of his clan life. Who knows? One person's reasons can never mean the same to anyone else, no matter how much empathy you throw their way. I care about my computer more than I care about someone else's mother. That's just how it is. In the end we all have our own concerns. Marche was justified in fighting for his desires just as his friends were justified in fighting against him. I disagree on the notion that being in a "dream" is inherently "wrong", but if Marche prefers a life out of it, I can't fault him. It was MEWT's dreamworld, not his. At least he paid some mind in thinking that it might be better for his friends outside of the dream as well. And to be real here, I too would prefer the life in reality than the one in Ivalice. For starters, in the world of FFT Advance, the only video game you can play is... FFT Advanced, and it's not even from the comfort of your own room. You go out onto the field and get punched in the face. Powerful or not, clan life is still a soldier life. Alternatively you can take the less interesting careers of the universe, but all in all, it's unfamiliar territory, and without having been born there, it would be a hefty adjustment to make. For all intents and purposes, Ivalice is a world of our past. A lack of technology, made up for by only magic yet still with a rather primitive feel. I personally would opt for reality too. Even if home-life as a child wasn't that glamorous.

I was about 11/12 years old when I first play this game so I related to the kids in the intro. I also received the game on a snowy Christmas morning so opening up the game in a snowy playground felt amazing. Playing the intro 16 years later hits me right in the feels.

Sorry Marche, but you said the L word.

Good one Clemps! I always really enjoyed FFTA and thought that it got an unnecessary amount of criticism. It's just very different from War of the Lions and there's nothing wrong with that.

*Waiting for Square Enix to make a 3rd FFTA game* Perhaps for the Switch, pretty please?

loved this as kid, montblanc moogle died on me back then in a match where the judges were not around and i was littel bit shocked that that can happen.

Vagrant Story also takes place in Ivalice.

FFTA doesn't need a defense, it's pretty amazing for a GBA game. Unless you're one of those Marche haters.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the Judge system isn't complete garbage (though, it kinda is) but was but a really badly excecuted idea. I feel like it could have been good if it had been better thought through. As much as I dislike it, the sequel did well with pre-decided laws for battles. If they had, for one, thrown away garbage laws such as forbidding damage against certain races, and had introduced broader laws like forbidding blades and magic later, I could see what they wanted to do. I think what the had in mind was for the player to build a huge clan with members that could handle each and any situation. So that you could say "Oh, blades are forbidden in this battle? Guess I will use only mages and archers this round." But the problem with that is, that it's way too tedious to train up and manage that many characters. Even if a character needs to do an average of ten actions before leveling up, it grows tiring fast.

When you finally get to Tactics A2, please give a shout out to best zombie waifu Frimelda

1:37 "And seeing the hero Ramza going from a well respected member of a noble household to a heretic opposing the church and its *vawues* was fucking fascinating to me" so cute

Dam Clemps that turn around time for this video was fast. I love your videos :D

that game's ending seemed wholesome af. thanks for covering this Clemps

Somehow I never picked on the bullies being turned into zombies part. :o *mindblown*

Really the only problem I have with the story are how the Ritz and Doned side of the escapism spectrum are just underdeveloped. I get Mewt was the main "antagonist" for the story so his side gets the most attention, but it feels like the other two just get brushed off near the end. Ritz's whole ordeal is fine enough, but the story doesn't build on it. She just scolds Marche as soon as he decides to destroy the world, and never really does... anything after that. No sense of fulfillment for her arc, no sense on whether or not she's still against Marche, there isn't much to it, and it feels hollow because of it, especially since she already has the contrast thing with her Viera friend. But Doned is by far the weakest. His whole handicap ordeal is probably the biggest out of the three, yet it ends immediately after it begins. He tells Marche that he's selfish and (understandably) throws a big tantrum to him, then just one or two encounters along with a speech later, he's totally OK with Marche destroying the world and having Doned be handicapped again. I'm sorry, what? Where did THAT come from, all of a sudden? It seems like a few cutscenes were just omitted. I'll admit that most of these are probably explained in the game and Clemps cut it down for the sake of having a more cohesive and shortened video (it has been a while since I myself have played the game), which if that's the case, then good. But if the game really did skimp out on those two's struggles, then I'm saddened by that decision.

I didnt realise it needed defending I loved that game as a kid. 300hrs+

hey watched your videos from 2 years ago and the content was coming up just short, decided to come back and watch this and by the heavens you've improved a lot!

I like the judge system :-p it FORCES you to have a varied army.

MARCHE DID NOTHING WRONG

Oh my! This too was one of my introductions to SRPG! Great video, Clemps!

I laughed so much when the judge put a dead body in the river in my game

I think its important to note that by the end of the story, not only Ritz is eventually convinced that Marche is right, the beat down father Cid, now a judge, also agrees with you by the end of the story. In a lot of ways its a dark story about everyone around Mewt betraying his dream, even though its for his own good.

Watching this video made me remember how much I loved this as a kid and how I never really could appreciate this game's story when I was younger. I never realized how deep and kind of mature this game was. It makes me want to go back and replay this. Also Clemps reminded me how much i want a viera race in FF14 even tho i know it will never happen lol

Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well.

this is hands down one of the most touching, relatable and overall well written stories I have experienced over the years. Especially considering the target audience. Even though I haven't touched it after my initial 150h playthrough (50 hours in I discovered how to learn new abilities, gosh kid-me wasn't smart) the game, its story and motifs and thematic just come to my mind ever so often. Really one of my all time favourites and one if not the game that shaped my perception of story driven games to this date

To this day, EVERYTIME I find myself in the snow, that opening theme will start playing. Without fail. It was a day like any other...

Thanks for another fantastic video. As someone who did enjoy it, it's nice to see a well thought-out perspective on it. As a fan of the original, I do think Advance does have some gameplay issues where it falls well short of the original, though. Not even the Judge system, which is just shooting fish in a barrel in terms of obvious criticism. I'm talking more about the lack of a proper charge-time system, which added phenomenal depth, and the departure from FFT's concise, intuitive statistic system, in favor of the more archaic system seen in Tactics Ogre. Another thing is that many job abilities are blatant copies, making much of the variation apparent in the job system a lot less impactful by comparison.

Something I still don't understand is why the moogles look so different in Tactics (at least Advance, I haven't played the original yet).

Excellent video. Marche is definitely one of the most mature child characters I've gotten to play and the story is way deeper than given credit for. You have done justice sir.

Everyday i wake up wondering what FFXII would be like if Matsuno never left SE The first half is so good

THIS was my first FF game, I was 6 years old when this came out. Still remember using cure on the enemy goblins on my first real mission.

My engineering teacher loves Tactics. He’s a big fan of FF 1-6.

I love this game, I love the music, the characters, the animations, the atmosphere, the gameplay everything about it, it's one the best games ever released for a handheld console and I just have sunk aome serious time into it, I think it's a classic

Just wanted to let you know that this video convinced me to make it past the first 2 hours of the game for the first time ever. I'm now 5 hours in, and loving it.

I don't think it is incorrect to say, but hearing someone being "assigned to a wheelchair" made me laugh way more than it should.

Lost my sh*t when Clemps censored the word "l*zard"

The judge system adds another level of strategy to the game. It forces you to tackle battles in different ways instead of using the same tactics over and over. I can see how it could be annoying to some. But I learned to appreciate it, since it pushes you to really understand each job and use more of your team. imo it was a nice addition to the game, as it keeps you on your toes. It is a strategy game after all.

I liked the law system in the game and loved that the J'aagd areas were lawless and that the deaths in these areas were permanent made them a little scary. The laws added some variety to a game I played for more than 300hrs.

Marche did nothing wrong...

*Games like FFT* Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark JEANNE D'ARC (PSP) Shattered World Beneath A Stone Sky tactics ogre vandal hearts vandal hearts 2 Disgaea

This is legitimately one of the best videos I've seen on KZfaq! Please keep doing what you're doing! Subscribed.

I've been replaying this game every now and then ever since it first got released! In fact, I'm going through another playthrough right now. I don't know if you were just being facetious with the "judge decorating with corpses" thing, but the game does that so you can't build a fort of corpses around you and mess up melee enemies' AI.

I was about 12 when Tactics Advance came out and I was enraptured by it from the get go. I would stay up many nights playing it in secret in my recently moved into room to fight off nerves of going to a new school and I did enjoy and somewhat understand the issues it tackled. Flawed like all games but it's not the worst thing that Square has put out with the Final Fantasy name.

This game was awesome. I loved all of it. No idea why people hate it.

Thankyou ouo this is one of my fave childhood games and it spoke to me from a level that I could understand about topics that were shown as adultly complicated in a way I wouldn't get the hang of til years later. Nice tribute~

I'm playing this Game again now in my 35. I never had a Game Boy Advance as a kid or teenager, but as Final Fantasy fan I played in on emul4tors back in late 2000. I had the same response as most people when I read about the game on magazines: "Kids? Judges? Cartoony?" and stepped away from playing it for years. Now I realize: It's an amazing game. I think maybe Marshe's would be more likeable if his relationship with his mom was showed before entering the magic world, because we only get to see Mewt's familty and his reason to want to stay in the world. For most of the story, until the confrontation with Doned, Marshe doesn't have a clear palatable reason on why he wants to go back to the real world, he just says because "It's the Right thing to do" - course it is, but how do you expect me to believe that a 12 year old came to this reasonable stoicist conclusion on his own? He doesn't mention his mother anytime until he confronts Donned. As for the Judge System, I totally disagree with most people. The Original FFT had LOTS of garbage classes which you only would use and get to grind it to unlock other classes. You can beat the entire game with a full party of monks using Ninja's Double Weapon ability. And having to wait 6 turns for a Wizard to cast a spell is bonkers. Tactics Advance has a far better class system, though the evolution of abilities being the same as FF9 is the real garbage in the room. But the Judge system forces another layer of complexity that forces you to diversify your troops. You need to be ready when something that you have been cheesing on becomes forbidden. Sure there are antilaw cards, but there's a limit on how many you can have so that you don't simply wipe the Judge out of every battle. I have a far more diversified party in FFT Advance than I ever felt like using in the original game. Certainly there are better ways in game design to force your players into using diferent strategies, but this has worked to a point to make cheesers really HATE the game, and that's an achievment because you really have to try out diferent classes in order to progress in the game. But I also can't defend the Dmg2 Beasts Law, it's totally stupid. The rest is fine.

Clemps: *makes joke about PSVita* Me, playing my Vita at that very moment: Wh-UUUUUUUUUH

When are we getting that a2 review?

I really do enjoy the kind of comedy you use Clemps. It's actually very influential to my own style I use when I make videos.

Subscribing to this channel after the first video I watch. I already love your content. But to indulge myself I just want to talk about my Tactics Advance experience for a minute. I played the game on an emulator as a kid (even thought I had a Gameboy Advance, idk my dad loved downloading emulators for me.) Eventually I had the settings so that no one dies, but I didn't know that... So I don't use the in-game save since the early stages, and I get to the second Totema fight. I use up all of my emulator save slots during that fight when I was going to lose no matter what. I thought everyone would die so I stopped playing to keep them alive. Years later, probably a literal decade later I pick up the game on my phone (via emulator) again. I play through the game and like when I was a kid the first thing I did was make my character a hunter, but then I decided to model him after a character in my favourite Issekai anime (Haruhiro) as an assassin. I did well in the game, eventually the law system became incredibly annoying, I had to keep googling how to unlock the different classes, etc, etc. But god damn did the game get so repetitive near the end, I was bored out of my mind since I had 3 different characters that could 1 shot even a lot of the tanks I came across. The story was more spaced out at this point and less engaging for me. But I finished it, it only took me a decade and I am super glad I did, but it was a bit of a grind in the end. I have a habit of finishing very few games, I need to decide and focus on a game in order to ever finish it. It is also normally years after I played it as a kid and got stuck somewhere because I was dumb. But as I take a screenshot of every game I finish now, I am glad to say I have Tactics Advance on that list. Now I just need to try the original Tactics which is available on mobile for $20.

I played Tactics Advanced after trying out the PS1 game when I was younger and Advanced sucked me in way harder probably because it was aimed at younger kids like me. Then when I got older like 21 I got into War of the Lions. I've put hundreds of hours into this series.

My God! I missed this game. The background music gives me goosebumps

This was awsome! Final fantasy tatics advance is one of my favorite games. And i loved your intro. keep the good work

My copy just came in today cant wait to dive into it thanks for making the video and showing me this game

I still really like Tactics Advance, but boy am I glad that I played it before the original. The story is good, but judges are obnoxious and some of the gameplay changes make it weird to go back to after playing Tactics. Also, the Jagd are nightmare fuel, I was always terrified of losing my units.

7:14 will always be my reason for following his channel

I love this game so much, it was a tremendous part of my childhood! Nice one Clemps.

Yet another great video. I love how you put best points of games up front and letting me love the games itself. And the OST you choose. MMM. Also - as for the Vita - with the henkaku it has received a second life and it's great that you can have all these portable games in 1 handheld - perfection

Also the game's soundtrack hath been declared legendary

..but the mc looks cute af. A+ character design.

Woooh! Loving your reviews clemps. I'm waiting for you to do a review on Valkyrie Profile!

I really wish you did more story reviews separate from game reviews. I loved that set with Nier; my husband and I went threw a lot of your videos trying to find more. It suits your style. GOODLUCK

Wow. I played this game as a kid for years and was so hooked on it, I never knew it was this unpopular. My mom got it for me and I wasn't exactly thrilled but the moment I figured it was pretty good, it turned out to actually be incredible. As a kid who was bullied myself it brought me a lot of perspective, it's probably the reason being bullied didn't stuck with me as much as other people. Thanks for great review :)

While I adore the original, in fact, it's one of my all time favorite games, I also love Tactics Advance almost as much. It's story is so fresh and, in its own different way, also very dark. But the judges can go jump into ravine :]

I have no idea who you are or why you are in my recommended videos, but I'm always happy to find fellow FFIXV players :3 That was a lovely breakdown of the story. I think FFTA is at fault that I pretty early on started going "nah, I'm good" whenever other children were fantasizing about which video game or anime or comic they'd want to live in. Despite feeling like I could relate much more to Riz than Marche at the start of the game, by the end of it, he had definitely changed my mind. In fact, in a world in which gaming disorder is now officially a mental illness, I think this game has a valueable lesson to teach about using games as an escape from reality.

Massive props for being a fellow Elezen player and also enjoying the Ivalice raid. FFXIV's references got me into exploring FFXII and the related games, and I'm glad I did.

Oh, that's right. It came out in 2003 huh? Damn, why do i feel so old all of a sudden... T_T

I'm a casual and it's one of my favourites.

I'm finding myself really loving Montblanc. He's a friend who's always there to support you even if your goal is to make him his world disappear. He's loyal because he understands. And I am still glad he appears in a lot of Ivalice stuff like A2 and XII.

loved the video so much bought the games. love the games so much hoping to see you do a video on the other tactics

I've got a bittersweet memory of this game. On my first fight in a lawless tile where death is permanent, Mewt fell. And before I could run over to revive him, the battle ended. And then he was just dead. Gone from the story. Never came back. He was a Time mage by that point and I never managed to replace him in my party with another. The rest of the game just felt like running the paces to get it done because I didn't care anymore.

Still, to this date, I still dream that one day, we will get a 4th installment in te Final Fantasy tactics series FFTA2 from 2005 seems like forever ago already

The entire plot of this game was the quest to get your addicted videogame nerd friends to touch grass and i love it

Played this game as a child and didn't realise all the depths about it, since I also lived as someone who was trying to escape real world. Thank you Clemps, you made me crying.... again

I can’t wait for the A2 video. I never had a PS1 and this was one of my favorite RPGs and handheld games. I look forward to your take on A2, especially the Gria.

Dont mind me, just leaving my favorite moment here for later 8:12

Great video! This is a topic I have a lot of passion about, as FFT is my favorite game and Advance/A2 was so very bittersweet. The best parts are mostly parts I agree with (Viera

Great video as always. I do hope you get to A2 at some point!

0:27 Them's fightin' words!

*SNIFF SNIFF*

Okay after binge watching all of your videos. I’m convinced that we might be literally the same person when we are playing games. Weirdly you’ve also made videos of all of my favourite games too. Except FF IX (my apologies if that video already exists). Keep up the great work. Btw your thumbnail artist is amazing.

Great video Clemps. This was one of my first favourite games and before I hadn't even realized it needed defending. I completely agree with you on just about every point. While I never saw the example you mentioned in your Judge criticism, I always appreciated the restrictions because they forced me to be more creative with my class and skill choices.