Friday, November 21, 2008

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, part 2

Fascinating addendum to my FFTA completion/beating post: I finished the storyline of the game yesterday, and discovered that the game continued after that. In fact, there were significant parts of the game available afterwards, as I discovered in some Gamefaqs research, leading to an alternate/second ending.

My mental response to this was to think that I hadn't played the game well enough. First, I was having trouble making any kind of progress on the side quests, which have a certain order and logic to them. Second, I didn't like my character selection very much. Alchemists were bleh, I wanted a Mog Knight, Sniper, and Elementalist, etc. So even though I had finished the storyline, I felt that I was not able to complete the game, and thus I felt compelled to start over.

This was an interesting compulsion. First I complain about my inability to finish these kinds of games, then I do so, and feel the need to do it again? Second, what if my current party was already pretty good, and starting over was a waste of time? Well, that required research - which I did, into character stat growth, item finding, etc. Finally, why should I start again when acquiring Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - likely a superior version of the same - was a possibility? I remember how I got so excited about the new version of Sid Meier's Pirates! that I played the old one to get myself ready...and then got quickly bored of the new one when it did come.

Then I thought "so what? I feel like doing extra research and starting a new game. Why the hell not?" So I did. This is a rare reaction to me finishing a game

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