Final Fantasy Tactics. Uninitiated, run after the first two paragraphs.

[r0sew00d]

It seems the old attention span is what it usually is, focused intensively on what's up now, forgetting what might've been catching the ol' interest last week or a couple of days ago. Later I remember what's been neglected, going "Aw damn!" and turning back to it. Thus the return to the LJ after a couple of enthusiastic initial posts and absolute

Comments

[sabrecat]

As you know, FFT's one of my top four favorite games of all time--Diablo II being the first non-turn-based game to rank among those. It's really a great design, and pushes buttons in all the right ways, if you'll excuse the pun-metaphor. ^_^

Don't worry about the ending spoiling things for you by unraveling the mystery of Delita's heroism/Rosewood II's obscurity. It's just as inscrutable of gibberish as the rest of the game's narrative. Those poor overworked translators...

"So... do you reset when you know you're doomed, or do you play through to the bitter end even when you know you're toast, and what does that say about you?"Heh heh... well, I play Nethack, and I play Diablo II on "hardcore" mode, so that should say something at least. ;) For strategy games like Master of Magic and Warcraft II, though, I've been known to bail out--it can be such a long, humiliating plunge to annihilation once you realize it's over, in games like that. Usually in FFT I only reset if someone in my group's been "crystallized." It seems the

Crystallized compatriots

[r0sew00d]

I've never pressed on when one of my team crystallized. I could see it if they were an unspectacularly-statted part of your initial group, maybe, then again, it costs 1500 gil or so to hire a new one, and it would take a random battle to recoup that soldier's "value." And once you've gotten to a certain point, of course, any given teammate represents a significant investment of time and gil. In any case, it'd take someone more hardcore than me to play it that way.

So, aside from FFT, and, I'm presuming, Front Mission 3, and Diablo II, what's the strategy favorite of yours I haven't thought of?

Re: Crystallized compatriots

[sabrecat]

I suppose it would lend more sense to keeping a stable of more than five characters up-to-speed, so someone could step in if somebody's lost... but how would you know who's likely to die? It would have worked, perhaps, if the recruiters' offices kept pace with you, allowing you to hire higher- and higher-level characters as the game went along (maybe with the ability to choose a character with a desired "main" Job?). But as it is, I'm with you--it just wouldn't be very fun to keep going after somebody got crystallized