Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is the game of the year... and maybe the best RPG ever.
Every gamer has a genre that absolutely sucks them in no matter how crappy the gameplay or inane the storyline, you have to have that game just... well... because it's in your genre. In my case, that genre is the RPG and not only did I have to have Final Fantasy Tactics Advance but I actually broke down and bought a Game Boy Advance SP just to play the darn thing.

Simply put, it was one of the best purchases I ever made.

First of all, the GBA SP itself is a remarkable system. Light, compact, convenient with beautiful graphics and sound and a wide variety of titles already on the market. Game Boy Color, a fun system in its time, had its downside, most noticeably the lack of a back-lit screen (making it impossible to play in the dark) and not incorporating a cell-phone like battery charger. Nintendo corrected both of these oversights with the SP creating a perfect portable gaming system. The battery lasts for 10-15 hours too - perfect for whittling away travel time. But enough about the system, the real star here is the game.

Hate your life? Get sucked into a fantasy world...

Life suck? Play a game.

The story of FFTA revolves around four friends, all of which are unhappy with their various roles in life. One is new to town, one is crippled, one is always picked on and has an alcoholic dad, and the fourth... well, she has a secret which I won't reveal here. With the help of a magical book, the four of them and the town around them get sucked into a world based on the Final Fantasy video games. Some of them forget who they once were, some remember and just don't care, and our hero, despite the fact that he's enjoying the alternate world, is desperately trying to get back. Thus the whole game becomes a long debate on the escapism of video games and how some people can get sucked in a bit too far sometimes. It's an interesting line to throw at hard-core gamers and some will certainly roll their eyes a bit but it's heads and tails better than all the Gaia crap that these storylines usually try to pass off on us (if you truly want to experience what I'm talking about in nauseating detail, rent Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and see if you can sit through the entire thing).

Na, Na, Why don't you get a job...
Once in the alternate world, your character joins a clan made up of random members of the five races present in FIFA. Each character can be assigned a "job" such as your typical FF standbys like black mage, white mage, fighter, and ninja to some truly cool stuff like juggler, summoner, sniper, dragoon, and the gunner (who was one of my faves). Each race has a select number of jobs it can perform and each has its specialty. For example, the moogles (another FF favorite) are the most technologically advanced race, the Nu Mou, large cow-like bipeds, are best at using magic. You learn different abilities by equipping characters with certain weapons or armor. They can use the ability while the item is equipped and after a while they will learn the ability permanently. The sheer volume of information is sometimes cumbersome to navigate through at first but most gamers will be able to pick it up fairly quick. Once you have several members of your clan together, you can accept "missions" which serve to both power up your party and advance the storyline. The tactics portion of the game involves the battle rules whose primary credo is "Thou shalt always hit your opponent from behind to obtain greater damage and accuracy". It's this rule in particular that makes me love the gunner - there's nothing more satisfying than shooting someone in the back at point blank range especially since the gunner is always a harmless looking moogle (yes, I know I'm sick *sigh*).

I fought the law and the law won...

See ya: This dude is off to prison.

The most innovative aspect of the game is the law system which essentially forces you keep a balanced party or really be screwed over later on. Each area has a set of laws restricting the types of abilities you can use in battle. Color magic, katanas, items, skills, and damage to a certain race are all various examples of law types and they change as the game progresses. Early on, you only have one law in place during a battle but that number increases to three as you become more powerful. If you break a law the character either receives a yellow or red card (no, this really isn't a soccer game) and can receive penalties ranging from a minor fine/warning (monetary) to a major fine (an important item or weapon) or being transported instantly to *gulp* prison (if we only had a real system like this in place). Once in prison, you first have to pay a hefty bail to get your character out, and then have him sit voluntarily in jail for a certain number of battles to get his slate wiped clean. There are "antilaw" cards that can nullify a given law for one battle but they're rare enough that you can't rely on them throughout the game. The best way to handle the laws is to have a diverse party that's able to get around them.

The good, the bad, and the simply fantastic...

Time for some burnination!

The graphics, gameplay, and storyline are all top notch but what really blew me away is the sheer depth of the game. Most RPG's offer somewhere in the area of 30-40 hours worth of gametime - I played this for nearly ninety before I finally beat the final boss (and what a great battle that was). The game has three hundred missions you can complete with your party -- with my ninety hours of gameplay I "only" finished 230 of them, potentially giving me *shudder, drool* an additional thirty hours of game time. The game keeps a high replay value as well by giving you lots of hidden items, characters, classes, and missions that you most likely will not find the first time through. Oh, and the ending rocks too, by the way.

One annoying thing about the game, really the only thing I have to quibble over, is the awkwardness of sorting through all the different inventory screens. For example, it took me forever to figure out how to use an antilaw card during battle which basically requires shuffling through several different screens ONLY if the character hasn't done anything at the start of a turn. The instruction booklet isn't too helpful on this matter either. On one hand, it's understandable given the limited number of buttons on the system and the sheer number of different screens the game has but would a nice, easy-to-follow flow chart be too much to ask? Still, that's a minor detail compared to the amount of attention that went into the game.

The bottom line is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a beautiful, astoundingly fun, addictive game that will give you not hours, but days, of gameplay with a stratospheric replay value. It's the best RPG I've ever played and quite possibly one of the best games I've ever played period. It's rare when a game comes along that engrosses you so thoroughly. Perhaps the real reason this game preaches about video game escapism is because the developers knew how many of us wouldn't want it to end.

Rating: 10/10