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I don't know if anyone here strays outside Ivalice for their tactics fix, but
if you want another game with drawn-sprite animé settings and characters
and a grid system with gameplay similar to FinalFantasyTactics, LaPucelle
Tactics is down to $19.99 and undergoing deletion/discontinuation from
most retailers. EBgames/Gamestop stores still have new copies. I thought
the price range for this gem had moved into the collector's item extortion,
and was thrilled to get it for such a price.

With FinalFantasyTactics constant allusions to christian mythology and the
question of fate&destiny versus providence versus determination, I wonder
if that's why LaPucelle (with an exorcist main-character) and Disgaea (with
demons) take a completely different turn and focus on anything but. Like as if
Atlus was determined they could do more than just shine with Square's
brilliance.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

Moved to correct forum, awaiting "already played them" responses. I, sadly, have not.

What's up with your posts having hard line breaks in them?

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 14th June 2006 19:43)

Moved to correct forum, awaiting "already played them" responses. I, sadly, have not.

already played them.

And yeah, LPT and Disgaea are both great games, especially Disgaea. However, neither of them were made by Atlus. Disgaea was published by Atlus in the US, LPT was published by Mastiff in the US, and both games were developed by Nippon Ichi Soft, which makes Rhapsody, the Marl Kingdom series, and several supernatural-themed tactical games, like Disgaea, LPT, Makai Kingdom, and Phantom Brave.

Oh, and for those interested, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories comes out this August, with a mostly-new cast of characters. Etna joins early on, and Flonne and Laharl both join later, but it stars two new characters, Adel and Rosari (which are two of several English interpretations that I've found for the names of those two characters).

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Oh, doh; didn't realize where the topic should have gone; sorry about that. I
didn't know about the Atlus disconnections, Laszlow: what was Makai Kingdom
like? I also picked up Phantom Brave but the lack of a grid totally lost me, and
felt too alien. Like a zoomed-out FF Crystal Chronicles. I love the main character
artist, CowbellTiara, but I was reluctant to buy a game that would bite as much
as Brave did.

Sorry for the hard-breaks---my hardware is limited and it doesn't wrap text very
well. It has a tendency to allow lines to extend past the actual dialog box, which
means I can't see where things go after about 60characters.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

I played Hoshigami, a enemy/player turn based Battle (pretty common when not considering FFT in the lot). I found the story not that bad, but the main character is really confused, how much the one playing the game is about: Why the hell do they want to fight me?
I stopped about 20 story battles because fighting was taking way too long especially when you solo 1vs20 (Makes me glad that the max number of units in FFT is 16).

I also played Disgaea, which I really loved the story, although I find the battle system with many holes in it. Some things are next to impossible (like always relying on the gifts to convince the senators) while the game itself is ridiculously easy. I remember fighting a dragon in the forest and I was gaining 20-2 levels until I stopped with Laharl on solo of course (leveling in this game makes you UN KILLABLE and makes you 1hit everything of course).

I'm going to try La Pucelle soon, but I really doubt that in at least the 30 next years, anything would come close to FFT's story/plot and battle system.

After playing 40 hours of Disgaea, I needed 30mins of rehabilitation in order to play FFT again; Circle <---> X, and my brain had a lot of trouble to adapt again with the turn by turn battle system.

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Sayonara

While I enjoyed Phantom Brave, I have yet to sample Disgaea, but I have pre-ordered Disgaea 2 at the local Gamestop. I would like to play Lapucelle, seeing as how I have heard several great things about the game. I also enjoy Suikoden Tactics as well as Tactics Ogre.

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This is a webcomic and gaming blog where I rant about nonsense. Enjoy.

I was a soldier, now I just play one in video games.

i played disgaea, after being fooled into thinking it was "like fft." it was an absolutely terrible game. the graphics were WORSE than tactics' (and on ps2??), the battle system was so limited and so much less elegant than tactics, the jobs were stupid and the ability system was even worse, and the music was incredibly cheesy and repetitive. the plot was so bad, i can't even remember what was going on in the game, and i finished it almost all the way through. the *only* thing i liked about the game was the humour. it was stupid most of the time, but the kind of stupid that still makes you chuckle, because you wish you would have thought of something that stupid to say first.

tactics is one of those rare diamonds that will never be matched again. it was a bizarre and risky undertaking for square, given that front mission sales have never done well outside of japan, and they product the fft team turned out happened to be one of the greatest games to ever bear the ff name, whether a part of the numbered series or not. the plot, while well-written and well-storied, is a bit blase, and the music, while fitting and reinforcing, can get a bit repetitive, but no tactical battle system has come close to reproducing the elegance of tactics' algorithms.

Personally, I found La Pucelle very slow going. Each time you attack something, you're taken to a cutscene where you attack and can get counterattacked -- this applies to enemies, too, and it can double or triple the time battles take. It features a grid system and is quirky enough to placate Disgaea junkies, but the game just seems to lag for me. Not in that it's isn't working, just that it's drawn out too much. I still plan to beat the game, but it doesn't hold my interest as much as other Nippon Ichi games have.

I bought it with Phantom Brave a few years back, and I enjoyed Phantom Brave much more, even though it features a radial-moving system, not the familiar grid squares.

[EDIT] - After spending 200+ hours on Disgaea, Phantom Brave seemed more fun, too. Although, now they're both kind of in the same department. Both are fun, but I kind of dread playing them because once you do 'everything,' all you have left is leveling up and maybe a small sidequest, and a pure leveling mentality isn't very good for post-game excitement.

This post has been edited by Shotgunnova on 19th June 2006 21:53

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

I'll admit, I don't know why NipponIchi would think the grid-to-scene
transition was a good idea. Trying to preserve tactical gaming with
dash of old-school side-scrolling presentation? It was definitely a
confusing slowdown; it's actually fun to watch the on-battleground
animations unfold on the Ivalice map. Maybe NI was trying to show
they could establish their own style. Hard to improve, though.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.