DS Review: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift

[DededeCloneChris]

Final Fantasy Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift
"Well, may as well give it a shot, this is my first review ever, so please be positive if I did it right."

Hello, welcome to my first review on a DS game from a popular franchise, this time, Final Fantasy, but not the typical Final Fantasy, but instead, this game:

Players: 1
Genre: Tactical Role-Playing Game
Developer and Publisher: Square-Enix
Platform: DS
Series: Final Fantasy and Ivalice Alliance

FFA2:GotR is the direct sequel of the previous game, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, although it is a sequel, it doesn't portraits the same characters (Marche, Ritz or Mewt), instead, however, this game takes place on the real Ivalice and not someone's dreams of fantasies, and so, let's get a quick review of all the things.

Story: 8/10

The story's protagonist is Luso Clemens, a prankster and energetic boy who was going to enjoy the summer vacation, but since he did many jokes on class and other kids, he was assigned to clean the school's library before he could go to his house, at first he doesn't likes the idea since his aunt gets mad at him if he ever gets late to her, but when he looks around the library, he finds an ancient book full of warriors, wizards and such. However, as he gets to further, the pages of the book are blank but also he finds something weird...

Luso and the book in the library.

"One is fated to fill these barren pages.
Know you his name?"

Luso decides to write his own name on the page, but after that, the place suddenly changes into another place...or world to him...

New features and more:

More different laws, new jobs, new weapons, returning characters such as Montblanc, Ezel, new characters, 2 new races, the Seeq and Gria and a new storyline.

The Seeq and Gria races, new to the Final Fantasy Tactics series.

Gameplay: 8/10

At the beginning of the game, you can select the difficulty, Normal or Hard. The gameplay is the same as the previous installment, to those who are new, here is an image to let you see how is this game played.

But with the new add for the second screen, comes new ways to play.

On the upper screen, you can see the turns in which an unit (character) takes his or her turn to do whatever action you want to do, like Fight, Move, Stay etc. It also displays the law, a privilege (new to the game) and the status of any unit when it's the turn of him or her, the laws on this game have changed drastically from the previous game, you can't know the law of a battle until you get inside the battle (before starting the fight), if you manage to win without breaking the law, you get extras like loot or items, however, if you break the law, your clan's privilege will be lost for the remainder of the battle and you can't revive KO'ed units either, putting you at risk of losing.

Yes, there are now killer tomatoes.

Now on the lower screen, is where the action takes place, on this, you need to guide your unit to another location to attack, first, you move, then you decide to attack, after that, you need to put the direction in which the unit is facing to take less damage, the facing's accuracy has been affected greatly here too, instead of a 75 percent of hitting the target, it will stay on 99 percent, but that's not all, if you attack an unit from the front, he or she will receive less damage, but if you attack from behind, he or she will receive more damage than usual, sides also work too.

Player's unit about to move.

There is also magic, which sometimes will take the middle square is standing or an "X" area, taking 5 squares at once and possibly 5 units if there are. Speaking of magic, there are new animations for the new "totemas" or in this case, Scions, Scions doesn't requires the forgotten "Judge Points", because they need the Smash Gauge.

The Smash Gauge is the vertical bar of the right of the Viera.

The bar goes up every time an unit takes an action that is not "Wait", when the gauge gets full, the unit will perform another action command, such as "Flurry!", 2 hits if the unit is close to an enemy, "Tough as Nails!", if the unit stands alone to cast protect and shell, or "Battle Shout!", which will add the buff Resilience on 2 members if they are close.

A Scion, a powerful summon that will attack all the enemies on the field.

To cast a Scion, you must first equip an unit with an special accessory which can be found on special quests, such as tourneys.

World Map

The World Map is now different than the last time, the places are already decided to explore, but some areas needs to be unlocked first by finishing a main story's quest, the areas looks small, but inside of them, they have 3 or 4 places to investigate, moving to the places won't take a day, but if you go to another area, then it will transcur a day (a day will transcur also when you complete or fail a mission), on a side note, if you fail a main story's quest, then it's a Game Over, if it's not, then the game continues.

Places that contains an area, displaying Targ Wood area. (It should be noted that if there is a mission on the path to somewhere else, you're going to accept it automatically instead of taking it by your own decision, the clans are also optional because they will not move but stay in one place, so take this in mind.)

To get new items on any shop, first you need to gather the necessary loot to make a new item.

Replay Value: 8/10

Once the game is cleared in the main story, more quests can be opened, but will be harder to pass.

However, there are such problems as the new laws, some of them may seem stupid like "Not harming Males", meaning you need only to harm the Viera or Gria races, and it seems the job's list keeps getting more jobs, becoming harder to complete in time.

In resume...

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift is one of the best-looking games on the DS, with a story that has some mystery and drama, a gameplay which takes more than 100 hours, special characters from other games (like Vaan or Penelo) and tons of different ways to clear missions, in short words, this game is an improvement to its prequel.

[Nayrman]

Some constructive criticism of your review style:
Try not to elaborately explain the game. If you're bothering to read the review, there is no doubt you've at least heard of the game/movie/etc. in question and just looking for opinions on it.
Actually state your opinions on it...we could just read a preview or guide and figure out how to play the game.

Hope that helps.