We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!

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Things go a bit smoother the second time, since I know to spread out more, bring quicker healing (you'll note Hampsten the Chemist, lower-left) and maybe get Ramza to not whiff five attacks in a row.


So Leviathan still happens, but only KOs two soldiers and not the Chemist. We're back on our feet in no time.


STOP THAT.

I know you're out of MP and can't actually cast that again but STOP THAT ANYWAY.


Aww, Ramza was doing so well. He managed to oneshot everything in the fight except this Thief.


hahaha Holy Lance gonna Holy, guess he oneshot everything after all.


Fuckin' A right it is.


Ramuda (best girl) picks up Teleport (best Move skill)

Anyway blah blah Mustadio has seeeeecret motives, Princess lets him come along anyway despite that being the worst possible idea under the circumstances, etc. etc.

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Chapter 2, Battle 4: Bariaus Hill


Before we can get where we're going there's a filler battle on a hill.


Surprise, it's more Summoners.


I know anything truly random is going to have what look like patterns appear, but sheesh. Final Fantasy Rocket Tag is getting kind of dull.


Anyway Ramza can oneshot anything in this fight except the Mediator and the Lancer,


snrrk okay just the Lancer then


If only because I don't think you can get a spell proc on a Jump attack.


Huh? One of those summoners was on my side? Whoopsie.

Uh, well, she can come along too I guess. She's no Ramuda; she's got the first five summon spells and nothing else.


In a carryover gag from the previous LP I still can't get a screenshot of a Zodiac stone when it does its usual sparkle.


Mustadio has the support skills of... a Samurai?


He can't even jobchange into Samurai what the hell

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Chapter 2, Filler 2: Zigolis Swamp


"At least they're something other than Summoners."


Oh yes, you're very clever, casting Berserk on the guy with the Holy Lance, good job, Mind Flayer for MVP


Dumbass.


That's really the most interesting thing that happens to report, I'm afraid. It's nice that Mustadio can walk on the water surface, but it's not exactly a game-changer. Normally Mustadio cleans up this map with Seal Evil, but there's not a spook or haunt in sight.


Anyway, Tia tipped my party into "this is way too many people to keep leveled and trained up". So I get into a couple fights, intentionally KO one of my guys, and wait for them to crystallize.


Hampsten bequeaths most of his studies onto Ramuda. Hampsten hasn't really done a great job since I passed over him in the Gariland Magic City fight and he never caught up from that. I'm also tired of typing his stupid name.


Accidentally stabbing Tia in her introduction fight was a pretty good indicator of where she would end up. She wanted to come with anyway. I dunno, casual existential despair seems very fashionable these days.


I manage to poach a Wildbow...


Score! Not like I can afford it, but score!


Let's go raise a bit of cash, then.

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Chapter 2, Battle 5: Goug Machine City


On to Goug, and all the plot "revelations" therein.


*ting*

missed it


There seems to be a definite bias toward "change nearly everything on the map to a _____" in this randomizer.


It's a whole bunch of Monks, so some ATATATATATATATATATATATA was expected.


"Omae wa m-- oh."


A bit of Protect, a bit of Haste, and Ramza cleans up.


Alicia gets the last whack, though.


HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS I GOT ONE WOOOOOOOO


I don't think I'll be using Mustadio much, unless I permanently lose one of my guys in a story battle.

I'll keep him around to unlock the sidequests later on, obvs

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Chapter 2, Battle 6: Bariaus Valley


I like this woman and her pet Ochu. I like to think this is the person who asks you to go find her pet Malboro in one of the bar propositions.


Ramza picks up the last Lancer skill I bother with.


Which means I need new Holy Lancers. Both Jessica and Rad sign on for the job.


After getting rerolled to join the party Mustadio has traded his Samurai skills for... Arithmetician skills?


Anyway, Barius Valley, or Belias Swale, or whatever you want to call it.


Randomizer or not, Agrias takes the low-hanging fruit for her first turn every time. Two mooks side-by-side are just too good a target for Stasis Sword. She even manages to proc Stop on the Time Mage, which saves me quite a bit of headache.


A Lancer with Bushido doesn't even come close to the annoyance of even a beginner Time Mage.


Ramuda provides sniper support for Jessica, the two handily clean up the far side of the river.


nbd


"JOIN UP!" is secret code for "this character no longer has any bearing whatsoever on the plot".

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Chapter 2, Battle 7: Golgorand Execution Site


I'm hesitant to maintain this strategy of bringing in my troops based on who's furthest behind in levels. This could get ugly.


I like the Geomancer uniform palette-swapped to the white-and-red ensemble this group uses.


For the record, the Geomancers are in the white miniskirts with red trim. The White Mages are in the white robes with red trim. The difference is whether you can see their knees.




Mimic Daravon for sleep, and wow look at how often the enemy Geomancers proc the added effect on their geomancy.


Yeah, this isn't going great.


Alicia is far enough away that I can't point a spell at Gafgarion directly to see the damage output, so I choose Blizzaga over Thundaga mostly arbitrarily.


It was a bad call to make. Look at the shield he's carrying.


Mmhmm.


Oh, eat a thousand dicks.


Oh yeah, this is over. Never mind.

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So let's go get this...


Let's get Lavian out of Time Mage...


Let's try again.


By the time Gafgarion finishes gab-gabbin', all my guys are still up and we've taken out two of theirs.


Oh, eat a thousand dicks.


COME ON


There's a bit of the revive shuffle to get Lavian the Chemist back on her feet long enough for her to throw a Phoenix Down at Jessica. It takes a few turns but both are in fighting shape eventually.


Lavian picks up some talkin' skills from a dead White Mage.


Down to only Gafgarion and one Lancer, things are under control enough that Ramza can start undoing some of the damage that one nameless mook did.


Ivory Rod is base power 11, better than the non-Holy Lance weapons I have from any category. Even better, it uses Ramuda's MA instead of her PA to calculate damage. Even better, this is the leg of the game where I've got Triangle Hats and Wizard Robes as the best mage gear available, and that's +1 and +2 MA respectively. Throw in one of those Wizard Mantles for another +1 MA and Ramuda can't whap enemies for around the same damage as the Lancers.


For comparison, this is Lancer damage boosted by Jumping. That's a wrap for the execution site.

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Chapter 2 FINAL: Lionel Castle


Why? Everyone's already inside.


In vanilla, the horrible ambush is neutered because all of the enemy soldiers are carrying Coral Swords and Lightning Bows. Equipping everyone with lightning-nulling gear -- a cheap accessory at any shop -- takes most of the pain out of it.

In this randomizer, the horrible ambush is neutered because all of the enemy soldiers are on the wrong side of the wall.


With his support troops unable to join in, Gafgarion doesn't last long in the face of a full-party beatdown.


Cleanup is only slightly more difficult.


Alicia is now eligible to jobchange into Arithmetician, if I'm ready to crack the game wide open.


Man, you thought the fight outside was anticlimactic?






Cuchulainn got to move once.

That's that for chapter two.

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Chapter 3, Battle 1: Goland Coal City: The Stars Align


Chapter 3 opens with cutscenes about what's going on in Goltana's court, and my party just sort of appears in Dorter a few steps away from the new locations in Goland and Lesalia. That means I'm not stuck in Lionel cut off from the rest of the continent anymore, so I run around to every city I can to complete bar propositions for the free cash and JP. Since the JP is free, I try to keep Alicia, Lavian, and Ramuda as the ones who go work those jobs. Anything to keep from having to train an Arithmetician in actual combat.

Discovery: the randomizer removes random encounters from the map if you go directly from one city to another. If you go to a battlefield it will prompt an encounter 100% of the time. So that makes bar propositions easier.


Anyway, Goland Coal City. It's the "Wow, Baraius Valley and the Gate of Lionel and the first Lucavi fight were really tough, huh? Here's a nice easy cooldown fight" to start the chapter.


It doesn't really matter what the enemy party is and what they can do, because Olan has his all-battlefield Paralyze/Immobilize/Stop ability that he can do whenever he wants. They were mostly Time Mages, for the record. One of them had Bardsong.


:shrug:


OH COME ON

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Chapter 3, Battle 2: Lesalia Imperial Capital: Just Got Back from the Auto-de-Fe


Just call 'em "Inquisitors" my dude


All pay heed! Now enters his holiness, Zalmo, the Grand Inquisitor!
Zalmo! Do not implore him for compassion.
Zalmo! Do not beg him for forgiveness.
Zalmo! Do not ask him for mercy.
Let's face it! You can't Zalmo him anything!

...hmm. The bit loses something in the conversion.


The party stars on the wrong side of the wall like they do in vanilla. Like in vanilla, this is easily circumvented because nearly everyone knows either Ignore Height -- like Rad here -- or Teleport.


I put Geomancy on Jessica to see how it'd run. I didn't realize I'd be stealing the enemy's strategy of inflicting a thousand status ailments on everyone by doing so. Maybe the randomizer included a patch to make Geomancy proc more often, too.


Not that the enemy party is slacking off on that tactic either, many of the monks know Geomancy and Zalmo himself has Yin-Yang Magic.


I get a lot of mileage out of Stigma Magic in this fight. Thankfully they don't try to inflict anything Stigma Magic can't fix.


Alma isn't doing much this fight, to the point that I had to go look at her skillset to see if she jobchanged to something useless. She hadn't! Aegis is right there!

Aegis costs 30 MP, and Alma only rolled in with a max of 17. So that's why she's not casting it.


Since Paralyze stops you from using both Action and Reaction abilities, Ramza hasn't been Auto-Potioning the damage away, and they chipped him down to critical HP. Alma couldn't prevent that with Aegis, but she can patch him up a little with Wish.


Hey! They're stealing my strategy of curing the onslaught of status ailments! The bastards!

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*teleports behind u*


"Nothing personnel k-- er. Hold on."


"Nothing personnel kid."

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Close! It's all a big misunderstanding and Ramza is thickheaded enough to think sitting down and talking it out will work. With the Inquisition.

Yeah I know this is a plot-related detail and I've skipped over very nearly all of those but I think it bears mentioning how naive Ramza is even at this point in the game.


After tons of back-and-forth with Paralyze and Stop and Stigma Magic, Zalmo tries to retreat back into the city and Ramuda manages to whack him down to critical HP with her pole.


Ramza's adamant refusal to let his sister go with him on his journey is better justified when she doesn't have enough MP to cast her best spell.


Red Shoes give a boost to Move and Magic, which always struck me as kind of a weird combination. But improving Move means Teleport reliably works over greater distances, and improving Magic means improving magic. One of the girls swaps out her Wizard Mantle for these.


To keep Ramza from leveling too much, I've had him using his party-buff superSquire skills on everyone else instead of directly engaging the enemy. It means he always has something to do, so the JP keeps flowing in, but since they're all lower level than he is there's not much Experience to be had and he isn't leveling as fast. Win-win-win!

Next time he does engage the enemy, though, he's got a self-Brave buff, a self-PA buff, Martial Arts, and Dual-Wield.

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Chapter 3, Battles 3, 4, and 5: Orbonne Book Storage: A Three-Parter


No reason to futz around, let's go back to Orbonne.


Alma what the hell are you talking about, two-thirds of my troops are women and they're badass. Here, pick one, she can stay here as a bodyguard while the rest of us keep going. That might prevent some trouble later!


Well, they're not all the same thing this time. This battle is a pain in the ass in vanilla, since Lancers backed by Time Mages can prove needlessly difficult to take down by setting up a shield wall at the chokepoints. Here I don't have to worry about chokepoints since the magical artillery can just pelt me from the next level down.


The game concedes to give me another Guest for this fight, but spoilers: he's no Ramuda.


Man, that's a lot of summoners, hang on


oof


oof


And Rad is aaaaaaaall the way over there, with his Revive skill. And he ain't movin' too fast. Can he make it over to Ramza and revive him while the others hold off the enemy forces?


(No.)


Okay, new strategy: don't send the Ninja in to facetank summon spells.

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The battle begins as the last one did: with a thrown rock by the enemy AI.


I try Geomancy to see if I can get some status ailments to stick, but they don't.


I feel like I'm back in Zaland, one of the Summoners has a powerful spell that she has the MP to cast exactly once before she's tapped out. In this case it's Richard the Lich. "Rich" to his pals.


This is already going much better than last time!


Ramza has spent the last few fights doing mostly support, but in this case I'm willing to huck a shuriken at this Mediator to prevent him from doing whatever it is he's doing.


Jessica manages to prevent what happened to Ramza last time from happening to Ramuda this time.


But Rad isn't so lucky,


And Ramuda is too slow. Rad's gone.


No Game Over this time!


I managed to get a Frog to land on the last Summoner, so I spent a little while building JP and Brave before knocking her out and moving on.

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We head down and meet Izlude/Isilud/Jiffylube on his way back up, Virgo stone in hand.


I honestly couldn't tell you which corner of the room is the start position in Vanilla, but I'm pretty sure it's not this one. There's a stairway in the very back, on which a Monk waits to Earth Slash through the wall. Given her positioning I thought maybe I had another Guest for this fight, but nope! That's an enemy. I can tell from the HP damage.


So I have someone teleport through the wall and whack her with a stick.


Jiffylube has foregone his usual tactics of using bullshit Jump abilities in favor of... well, it's status ailments, but I'm totally cool with it.


My magic has a bit more punch than his. Example: Flare.


Bro's got Auto-Potion, which is bothersome but since he's tied to the weakest sort of healing item it's not a major deal.


Things are getting... I dunno, not dicey per se, but certainly complicated.


Alicia has a straightforward solution, and the battle is won.

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I've been dreading this fight a little.


Alma, holding Taurus and Scorpio, is dragged away by Izlude, Since Izlude has the Virgo stone it's weird that there isn't plot spoilers right now but maybe Izlude just isn't paying attention.


Wiegraf is here, having sold himself out to the church to get vengeance for his sister. That random Black Mage/Summoner is still out there, somewhere... War of the Lions gave him an extra scene with one of the Templars that explains the shift in allegiance, but I think it works better as a surprise.


Wiegraf still blames Ramza for killing his sister, though, and even manages to proc a Stop with his Stasis Sword.






Dude can take some punishment.


He's not, but you should probably get while the gettin's good. I still don't have a Zwill Straightblade, and those poach off of Plague Horrors.


JIffylube dashes off with Alma and three stones, and the one stone Wiegraf is holding turns him into a four-armed sheep monster, who then leaves. You know how it goes.

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So, here's the thing. I've been avoiding level-grinding as much as I could, but it's a Final Fantasy game. Part of the reason I'm losing so many soldiers is that I'm actually underleveled. Ramza is level 22 at this point, Lavian is laggian' at level 16, Wiegraf was level 30. That's a big enough difference to get me looking for random encounters. I'm also kind of curious which monsters show up where. Nothing surprising at Baraius Valley!


Couple of Oracles at Zigolis Swamp, but on the other side of the map so they're not shown here. They were not in any way noteworthy beyond "hey, a human opponent in a random fight."


A bunch of chocobos on Baraius Hill...


Hey! Fuck you!

The other problem I'm trying to solve is getting everyone's Brave up to where it belongs in the mid- to high nineties. The girls are using Accumulate to build JP, then fighting monsters for the boosted EXP since all the monsters are higher level than they are. Ramza needs fewer levels than they do, so he targets his allies that are all lower level than him with a shitton of Cheer Up/Steel for the Brave boost and some JP, but not a ton of EXP.

Once everyone has over 97 Brave, I end each fight. Every four points in difference is one point permanently!


Did I mention all five soldiers have Poach equipped for these fights? Because I'm hoping to score some sweet gear off of them. That Porky, for instance...


That's the good stuff.


Eventually I head back to Mandalia Plains because the fights on the southern half of the continent weren't all that novel and while I'm here I can maybe get some more Ribbons and Chantage.


Ramza dips into Time Mage, making him the final one in the group to pick up Teleport. Now no one actually walks anywhere. It's like a whole party of Sanses Undertale.


Was hoping for some Behemoth and maybe Dragon drops here, but all I got was this load of bull.

Ramza is level 33, Brave 97, Faith 70. He's explored virtually none of the magic-using jobs, but has mastered his own super-Squire job, Monk, Geomancer, and Ninja. He's on the cusp of mastering Samurai and Knight.
Ramuda is level 32, Brave 95, Faith 65. She started as a magic-user like Alicia and Lavian, and so hasn't mastered as many jobs as Ramza and Jessica. She's got Squire and Samurai under her belt, and makes a pretty solid Ninja and Geomancer. Her primary goal is to go on Propositions to finish out Arithmetician, though.
Alicia is level 30, Brave 95, Faith 69 (nice). She hasn't mastered any jobs, not even Squire. She started as a Time Mage, picked up all the useful Time Magic (Haste, Slow... uh, Teleport...), then moved on to fill out her spell list. She's got all the Cure magic, Raise, Esuna, Protect, Shell, and Holy from White Mage; all the -ga magic, Frog, and Flare from Black Mage. She could still use some training as an Oracle, and is studying to be an Arithmetician along with Ramuda.
Lavian is level 30, Brave 94, Faith 55. She's even more of a dabbler than Alicia, with fewer spells from each job but more variety in the jobs she's trained in. She's mastered Squire and Monk, for instance. With that middlin' Faith I might go ahead and commit her to being a physical-oriented job rather than a magical one... but since she's also mostly trained as Arithmetician it might be one that still has a decent innate MA, like Geomancer. Lavian is the only member of the group who hasn't picked up the two best Lancer Jump skills, but she's only a couple hundred JP away.
Jessica remains a powerhouse, at level 32, Brave 97, Faith 67, and having mastered Squire, Knight, Monk, Thief, Geomancer, and NInja. Which means she's going to be a Dancer or Samurai for the foreseeable future, damned if anyone's going to get stuck as an Archer, and everything else is a magic job. She's got a better Faith than Lavian and could be an Arithmetician if she wanted to, though, thanks to shared JP... hmm.

Everyone's up to level 30 or more, and up to Brave 94 or more, so I'm done grinding for now and can pursue the Templars and Alma to stately Riovanes castle.

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Chapter 3, Filler: Grog Hill, Yardow Fort City, Yuguo Woods: Speed Bumps Ahead


There's some conversation here but nobody cares even if they're following the game plot.


I've gone ahead and equipped the girls with their Math Skills, so this battle is over almost as soon as it begins. Three Arithmeticians will do that.


Hey, Olan rides a giant bird instead of an eyeball monster. What a crazy guy.


Pictured: Duke Barrington's Poor Judgment.


Did you know that every enemy on this map starts on a raised platform with Height 3? Did you know Math Skill can target anyone standing on a Height multiple of 3 with spells?


I actually did some waiting to see if I could pick up some Summoner soul crystals, but Rafa decided she was done and zapped Malach with a Heaven Thunder. Lest we think she's suddenly at all useful please keep in mind: a) I didn't want her to do that and b) she also KOed Jessica with it.

I know the emerging plotline with Rafa and Malach isn't strictly "filler" but honestly everything about these two counts as filler IMO.


I would, but pointless battles keep slowing me down somehow.


Rafa completely loses her mind at the sight of some ghosts in the woods. I guess there aren't a ton of different monsters that can be swapped in for the undead versions of Black Mage and Time Mage that are usually here. That the ghosts are still ghosts is kind of a surprise, though.


Alicia gets a little too aggressive and is left by herself on the side of the map with all the ghosts, pelted relentlessly by Throw Spirit. I'd left Shirahidori on everyone as their Reaction ability, and you can't blade grasp blobs of ectoplasm.


Whoops. Can I finish the rest of this battle before Alicia is crystallized?


(Moot point.)

By the time I wrap up after this fight, all of the girls are wearing a Ribbon and two have Chantage. Ribbon makes them immune to status ailments, and Chantage makes them immune to dying by giving them Reraise status every time they revive. Unless an enemy can KO Ramza and I let him crystallize, or manages to knock out everyone in the party at once, I'm functionally immortal.

Or will be once I can get a Chantage for the other two girls.


Jessica is practicing at being a Dancer. Here she is shown dancing the Wiznaibus, a dance so whimsically named that it's actually kind of hard to realize it's just "with knives" run through a bad translation process.




Okay, not everyone has Shirahidori. Jessica has Sunken State, and vanishes from sight when struck for HP damage. Now the enemy AI will ignore her completely. Normally the invisibility goes away when Jessica does something, D&D style, but since she's already dancing I don't have to put in a command for her to keep doing it. She can keep plinking away at the enemies' HP without them ever being able to target her back.

Between Chantage immortality and invisible Dancers there are enough ways to break this game without using Math Skill, so I don't intend to use it much moving forward. Maybe if I do Deep Dungeon, that's tedious enough as it is.


Rafa manages to bonk the last enemy down and wrap the fight.

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Chapter 3 FINAL: Stately Riovanes Castle: Three-Parter Trifecta Complete


Okay, let's roll. Make sure to backup save!


Sheesh, that's a lot of mages. There's one extra in blue, though. That's Doris! She'll be accompanying us on our breaking into Riovanes castle for some reason.


I hope Doris is more competent than Rafa, shown here slowing herself.


Yeesh, that's not great.


The White Mage dumps a potion down onto his Black Mage buddy, hidden behind a wall here. I can only imagine part of the potion splashes into the water, eventually running downstream, polluting the water table, devestating the ecosystem with unnaturally healthy salmon.


Rafa manages to make enough of a human target out of herself that she flees the battle, and Malach follows. Good riddance.


I can either KO the Black Mages to keep them from blasting my party, or I can KO the White Mages to make sure people that get KOed stay KOed. There's no easy answer, leading to a couple of Raise spells getting thrown around on both sides.


Eventually the girls handle things down in the moat and Ramza manages to disembowel the last White Mage on the ramparts. So that's a wrap.


Hey, free Wizard Rod and Black Robe. (Doris has better Time Mage skills than Black Mage skills -- not even a single -ara spell! I take her stuff and kick her out.)

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"Which, I feel I must remind you again, I had nothing to do with."


In vanilla, Wiegraf supplements his Holy Sword skills with Earth Slash and Wave Fist from the Monk skillset. Here he's swapped out for Elemental, which... ugh, I'd rather take Earth Slash.


Well, let's get started. Yell Yell Yell Yell Yell Yell Yell


That's real bad. If he procs Frog, this fight is over.


Well, it's not Frog... Wiegraf does get a few hits in while Ramza can't dodge on account of sleeping outside the flow of time.


But Ramza manages to survive Stop and run away, eventually managing to get Wiegraf to walk back and forth helplessly along the far wall trying to keep up. It's not long before Ramza is getting two turns for each of Wiegraf's, then three, then four.


50 Speed ought to be enough. I hope so, since it can't go higher than that. Time to switch to Accumulate and get his PA up to a non-mage level. Martial Arts punches deal PA times (PA * Brave as a percentage) damage per hit, so I throw in a Steel to get Ramza's Brave to 100 too.


A few more turns and Wiegraf is cowering behind his shield.


But remember, I'm getting four or five turns to each one Wiegraf has. One hit is all I need.