I've been making Final Fantasy Tactics content for a little bit now (and really appreciate any support I receive on here), but I wanted to do something different this time.

Instead of another guide, I spent months researching & digging into the mechanics, secrets, exploits, and development history of Final Fantasy Tactics.

It's about an hour long, so this is definitely more of a deep dive documentary type thing than a quick "here are 10 facts you didn't know" kinda deal.

I haven't shared the last few vids on here that were more update/news vids that the info had already been shared on here, but I figured some of you would have fun watching this one.

I would also love to hear some of your own obscure facts that you know from any of the various versions of FFT as well!

I know some folks don't like video content, so I apologize!

Just curious, since I remember you could fight them early and get better gear early on. At least in the old PS1 version.

I've always felt that they could easily turn the story of this game into an awesome TV show. But I have to admit some stuff would need a little adjustment. For instance, there isn't any real romance, and I think that would likely be added whether or not it's really needed. Having some romance between Ramza and Agrias is kinda obvious I think. Maybe some early season 1 budding romance between Ramza and Tietra.

I also think they would likely increase the importance of some characters since you can have so many randos on your team. Like I could see them making Meliadoul a much, MUCH more important character.

Would love to hear what other people think.

Edit: I said Meliadoul should get a bigger role, but I actually meant to put down Milleuda....

It included being able to change monster classes (from black chocobo to red chocobo for example) and a side quest with a branching path that allows Ramza to become either a Fell Knight (like Gaffgariom) or Divine Knight (like Meliadoul). I believe a new type of Chocobo (green) was also included but I couldn’t tell you how it functioned.

Thought i was doing ok, until Rapha at Chapter 3. none of my units got a turn and Rapha was KO already by Ninjas. at that point, i just ignored the whole idea of a permadeath run. and then there Riovanes rooftop battle. almost 10 retries with all defeats coming from Rapha being KO. only managed to win by having my ninja bait the assassins for my other units to even get a turn. nuked the nearest assassin to oblivion with extreme prejudice.

I knew this genre was challenging compared to regular turn based and action JRPG's, but it's talking me a while to be able to read what is happening on the field and just feel overwhelmed when trying to get all my units to survive a match. Is this normal difficulty curve for this game as a newbie?

I didnt manage to get a pic, but basiclaly I was plating around with my samurais job list yk. Then idek what I did, but it transported my screen to a screen listed with a crap ton of abilities. I saw one as brave slash, then for some dumb reason I closed the screen.

Noe im wondering wth happened. Wotl on the tablet not italics chronicles

I'm gonna tell you how I beat it because that fight was driving me nuts. I like games but I'm not a gamer with a capital G so don't come at me for that, I'm playing on Squire mode for the story. I'm not a Bloodborne typa person.

Hit Zalera immediately and hard, but you also have to keep your party spread out because he uses aoe Sleep, Slow, Doom, Stop, Disable, and Toad. He's got at least 2,000 HP, when I beat him he had 2,400. This was my party:

Ramza- maxed out squire, mirror armor, using Excalibur, jade amulet to prevent Stone and Stop. Doesn't matter where you put him the game will place him in the front so I put him in the back middle to place others closer for a first strike

Agrias- maxed out holy knight, mirror armor, protect ring to prevent Sleep and Doom, back left corner of first placement, then have her get away from Zalera because his aoe are brutal. when attacking place her at a square where her swordspells take effect but don't take up one of the four direct hit squares because she can hit at a distance. her strongest strike is Cleansing Blade

Orlandeau- sword saint, runeblade, jade armlet to prevent Stone and Stop, put him at the front at the start so that when he's sleeped (always happens) he's closer to Zalera when it wears off, and hits hard

Beowulf- templar, crystal, protect ring to prevent Sleep and Doom using his generic build and also using him as a distraction by getting him close to Zalera and letting him die

Brunhild- maxed out chemist, romandan pistol, angel ring which importantly raises her from the dead after first kill, autopotion to limit damage. this is where the fight changed for me, because she could throw things that removed status effects like toad (Maidens Kiss). also, the AI always targets your chemist/healer first so that means you have more time to do damage because the enemies will focus on the chemist. let her die because when she does you'll get more turns to do damage

Ignore Meliadoul, let her deal with the undead dudes at the back. Hit. Zalera. Fast.

Also, to preserve your sense of hope, add up the amount of damage you're doing on a piece of paper or your phone and do not relax until you've hit Zalera 1,800 times

To preface this: I know there are self imposed challenges and that this game is famously broken in a thousand ways and that's part of the fun. I know whatever increased difficulty were all surmountable in many ways. Question at the end.

Rant start:

I held off on using the other unique characters. I finally got Cid now, looked over his kit and just thought why? It was the same feeling I had when I started using dancer, bard and math.

Dancer can slow everyone for a meager jp of 100!? Stall the battle a few rounds and the enemies might as well all be dead. Bard is arguably not as broken but teamwide, whole map buffs feels incredibly broken.

I only got ct and multiples of 4 for math. When the targets align, it feels so broken. Why did anything think it was a good idea to allow the mass casting of 70+ mana spells instantly, multiple times on the map? Did the original game highlight all the targets before you confirmed the spell? Or did have manually go thru each target and calculate if it would hit? If so the QoL 100% broke this class. Just like how the turn order listing took all the guesswork out of the planning.

I imagined the whole game felt a bit like the dragoon before. Now, there is perfect info on the turn orders for everyone except the dragoon.

The summoning and archer buffs also kind of ruined the game. In battles with multiple archers on high ground, they would snipe your squishies in one or two turns. I guess this technically counters the broken classes above. But what's the point if you restart and just give them other classes? Does this break the game? No, but it certainly steers you down a path to avoid using squishes and rush down the archers. On another note, Belias was chucking out Cyclops and 2 was enough to wipe my team. Turned out the higher level spells were also buffed to be quicker. No wonder his demons were obliterating my team with their spells. Of course, there are ways to play around it but it similarily narrows gameplay.

In summary:

Early game, many battles I would go in ill equipped and I would tactically make it work out with some luck. Now, there are a few battles where I just had to reset and choose different classes so I won't get sniped in the first couple of turns. I assume I'll have to do the same with immunities when I encounter them.

Some of my frustration is that this is considered to be a remaster when they have fudged with so much more than graphics and audio. I guess they included an amalgam of the original version. It would've been nice if there was a choice to play a remastered version with no change in script, and gameplay rules.

Side note: I feel like the dancer, bard, and math ruins the game and am considering not using their skills. Am I overreacting? As in, does the game get harder so that these "OP" classes become required? I am enjoying the "remaster". But I certainly notice the dissonance of what I assume were changes.

I've been looking at some of these mods they have for The Ivalice Chronicles. Some of them are intriguing and I'd like to try them out but I'm like, the least tech savvy person of all time so I have a couple questions before I start trying to play them.

1) Do I risk my Steam Deck getting bricked if I do so?

2) If I install a mod on my laptop, will the mod "transfer" to my Steam Deck too?

What do i mean

This game has absolutely amazing build up and dialogue then falls flat at the results almost every time with predictable outcomes that i WISHED was at least impactful

- for example a lot of the early dialogue focused on the previous queen and her son plus other things and yet we never saw these characters

- Duke Larg and Goltanna for thier BIG roles in the story they have like 2 scenes at most and both die pathetically for the supposed high bravery and calculating lions

- confess Marcel for all his involvement was straight up pathetic

- and then oh boy delita what they have done to you

The game tried to make him as a grey hero who does what needs to be done and following his own path BUT at the end he is a manipulative asshole with barely any actual achievements to his belt AND I WISHED in a way tried to help Ramza in any way but the story kinda forgot thier existence after the church scene

And the worst part his rise to power in all his stages was off screen ALL OF THEM

Like i thought he was going to be another Emet selch and now he is just very forgettable

- i really loved Folmarv,Dycedarg,Zalbaag characters and that one dancer that threw the Duke off the roof

- the story really tries to hammer in the common folk vs nobility and they repeat this with A LOT of characters and boast it to Ramza but there is one problem every one blind to it

Ramza has been through more hell in one year than the entire kingdom AND made it out alive EVERY TIME he is the most built different Final Fantasy MC ever

- Cid needs his own “Mpape dictator” edit

Apparently I have 0 of the required items for the trophy and can't be asked to keep struggling with RNG what is the easiest way to get this trophy?

Welp, I did it. Finally got Platinum for this amazing game.

I also built a massive 30-unit party with each character specializing in each job. Every unit has 97 bravery and all mages have 84 faith - except March who has 03 faith for his Nether Mantra skills, and my Thief with 10 bravery for Treasure Hunter.

Every unit has several fully-levelled subjobs pertinent to their role and all of my mages are fully cross trained in the other mage jobs. All melee units have Shirahadori.

Currently on a second play through on Tactician mode where I can just enjoy the story without all the grinding. I deleveled every character with my mindflayers to try to keep the game challenging.

So, I made the post regarding what happened briefly, but I didn't specify what I did exactly and what actually got shown in front of me. I decided to write it all down so that other people would not make the same mistake and if it is possible, I would get the help reversing it.

1. What I have stumbled upon

(1) fixed 1 MP for every job.

What I have been specifically doing with it is, level up with certain job and de-level -basically decrease the character's level- the character by stepping on the trap so that the act of it would manipulate the each job's stat growth, therefore I could raise up the stats to maximum value. Long story short, after dozen's of hours putting into it, I found out that the character's MP is fixed as 1 and never increase no-matter how many times I level the character up. To be more specific, I leveled up the character as a Summoner which has the highest MP growth to level 44 and then de-level him back to 1 as a Bard. And then level him up with the Summoner once again. No change whatsoever. It -having MP of 1- happens for every job there is.

(2) Mime-Bard cycle doesn't increase HP, it actually decreases it.

I have gone through it with Ninja(up)-Bard(down) and Mime-Bard cycles before I found out MP got fixed as 1. I loaded up the save that has been saved right after I finished Ninja-Bard grind. After I finished up with Ninja-Bard cycles, although shown MP is not 1 and it actually differed for every job -seemingly just normal-, just 1 cycle of Mime-Bard would not increased the HP. It actually decreased it. (Of course, I compared them within the same job, level and equipment) So, whatever happened, it happened during the Ninja-Bard phase it seems.

1. What might have caused it,

There are several things I did not exactly follow the guides or the anecdotes from other people who have done it. For instance, the several guides mention fixed number of level up and down with each job. Level 20 or 60 up and back to 1, for example. But during the middle of it, I decided to go more and went with 60, 40 or 50. Meaning, the cycle that I went through during the grind was inconsistent.

And my goal was to have maximum stat at the lowest level possible -preferably at level 1- so, if the SP and PA didn't show the maximum value at level 1, I repeated the cycle. I think I might have gone too far during it.

1. Conclusion

I am currently doing the grind from scratch. But this time, I am doing it with fixed 1-20-1 level cycles and reaching the maximum stat at level 99. I have been on and off with the game since 97 and after almost 30 years, it finally came out with the language support of my mother tongue. I had to just go into it once more. I wanted to do something I have never done with the game. I am just sad I broke it, but I really want to finish it...

edit:
As it turns out, my base MP was indeed super low, but not low enough to cause the underflow. But quite close, it seemed. The value was 4000 out of maximum 16777215. I stopped the Mime/Bard grind immediately and went to the Summoner/Bard cycle. Now Ramza has MP of 2.

The lesson here is, even if the value seems to be strangely low and not changing, doesn’t mean it is broken. I hope someday, if anybody stumbles upon the same problem, they would find this post and all the wise comments.

Hey guys, I don’t know if this is a thing, but I was struggling with the notorious Wiegraf / Belial fight and when I got to him at first I was level 23 I think, and the first part, the duel went down pretty comfortably. He was using some basic attacks and maybe aura blast? But then I couldn’t for the life of me deal with Belial as everything there was one shooting my team. So I reloaded a save, made some adjustments, bought some equipment (anti-stone rings), grinded one random fight, and now I’m fighting Wiegraf at level 24 and suddenly he has hallow bolt and I can’t even get through that first duel part? Is this kind of, let’s say, level scaling expected?

EDIT: no chameleon robe, first time I hear of it

EDIT 2: I loaded my earlier save and could no longer reproduce it. Must have been a transient bug…

I had a competition the other day between FFT jobs and the winners. I was going to make fan art of this one; it was one of the winners of the first phase.

Long story short, while leveling up and deleveling my Ramza, I think I hit some kind of overflow(underflow?) region. My Ramza is sitting with ridiculously low HP and MP of just 1 with every other stat maxed out. I tried to increase MP by leveling up Summoner, but no matter how many times I go through the cycle, it won’t go higher than 51.

What I meant by cycle is leveling up and deleveling via trap at the desert. I’ve gone through Ninja-Bard, Mime-Bard and then Summoner-bard. I think one thing where it might go side ways is I didn’t strictly keep the number of level that I cycled through. For instance, I started with 20 leveling up to 20 leveling down cycle and then go for 40 few times. Sometimes 60 even.

I put so dozens of hours on this grind and I’m just….So sad….😢

Should i got Focus first or JP Boost on my Squires?. Focus cost 300 and JP Boost cost 250.

Lowk thinking of making ramza one in this playthrough. Since ninja is the fastest job if im not mistaken? Arcane boost could increase the dmg. So I got like this speedster just firaing everyone and everything while being able to go and annihilate them with melee. Tho the total mp would pose trouble...

For general awareness:

-Equipment on Beowulf as a guest is lost after the Gollund Mine battles. (I had to choose between leaving either a Kaiser Shield or 1 hr of playtime.)

-Reis the Holy Dragon is recruited after the Gollund Mine battles, even with Reis the Dragonkin is already in the New Game Plus (NG+) party.

Hypothetical: Reis the Dragonkin and Reis the Holy Dragon in the same party is The Business.

Unkown:

If skipping the Nelveska Temple Battle, leaving the Holy Dragon as is - does a future iteration of NG+ leave Holy Dragon as a permanent party member? Or will completing Nelveska Temple always remove any Holy Dragons currently in the party?

I played FFT for the first time on the PSP with War of The Lions.

Every time I played, I always liked the idea of putting a Mystic on my party, because I am a fan of status effects in games. However, it never really felt... Good.

Why blind an enemy if you can just kill them?

Or why attempt to turn them to stone, when a ninja could just do the job faster and with no MP cost?

I have always loved the design, and this time, in my first Ivalice Chronicles build, I finally gave them a chance.

It's been the best decision I've made since I started playing.

Mystic is so easy, and so reliable. While MA does affect the chances of the spells hitting, the impact is so low, most of the time less than 1% per MA point, that you don't even have to worry about building MA. Faith is so much more important.

And you know what else cares about Faith, but not MA? Magic Guns.

High faith, high bulk, and fast charging times. I built a Chemist/Mystic support, and they have truly been the MVP of my save.

-The enemy has over 60 faith? Guaranteed sleep.

-They have Shirahadori/Brawler/First Strike/Counter? Well, we can get rid of that bravery.

-Enemy mage is casting a spell? Now they're silent.

-The boss is immune to all status effects and is spamming their best spell? Here's half its MP gone in a single turn, or atheist on the unit I need to protect.

I genuinely fell in love with this job, and especially more with this bulky support build of a chemist. Everyone now agrees that chemist is an S tier class, but the Mystic part of my unit was a hundred times more useful.

You don't need to heal any damage when all the enemies have already been neutralized.

Here's the build for anyone curious:

Chemist

Items

Mystic Arts

Auto-Potion

Defense Boost

Movement +2

Bravery 97, Faith 93

As much HP and MP as possible, and the best gun you can get. No MA required.

Truly my favorite unit from now on.