Let's Shatter: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance!

[Parrhesia]

Hello and welcome to my and eclipse's dual-LP of FFTA! Between us, we intend to show you all 300 missions of this damnable game, and by god I will go through with this.

Anyway, we're gonna do it this way!

The two of us are gonna set up a playthrough, and then we'll go update-by-update showcasing missions and such... anyway, it's gonna be great. Eclipse is of the opinion that Marche is heroic, and that this game has a plot. I think that Marche likes seeing the bloodshed of innocents, and I am behind him 100%. If you haven't played this game, which is understandable, you will be left to decide for yourself.

But first;

IT WAS AN INTRO LIKE ANY OTHER

in fact I would go so far as to say it was tedious and boring. Let's skip it because like all of this is covered in the game itself!

Let's hit New Game, shall we?

... HIGH FANTASY, EVERYONE!

Guy: We're just gonna lose. Where's the fun in that?

This is Colin or Lyle or something, and he's bitching about being with a modestly attractive teenage chick and two losers with dorky haircuts.

I really fucking wish this kid was Mewt, alright... instead we get to hear his bitching and tantrums all through the game.

This is Mewt, and nobody loves him.

His banter is legendary

Purple Dude: He didn't want his precious bear to get wet in the snow!

Hat Bro: Aww... did your mommy give you that bear?

These trio will show up as zombies later. In Mewt's escapist fantasies. Jesus christ.

ANYWAY PROTAGONIST STEPS FORTH

Hat Bro: Leave him alone. He's not going to say anything anyway. He's like a little girl!

Ritz: And I know some 'little girls' who can kick your butt!

This is Ritz, and to be perfectly honest she's pretty cool except for all the angst over her hair colour. She dyes it. Or something, fuck if I care, but yeah, she's actually an albino who angsts over having white hair instead of, you know, dangerously low melanin levels or whatever.

Ritz: You don't want to be on that team, right? How about we switch? Would that be better? Let's start already!

They switch.

Ritz: You should speak up. Tell them your name, at least. You can't be the 'new kid' forever!

The default is Marche, by the by.

Belf: You don't have to apologise, Mewt. You haven't done anything wrong.

Annoying Loser: ....

We shift positions a bit and get ready for THE TUTORIAL OF YOUR LIFE

Leslaie: Then let's get this snowball fight started. (or something, I kinda jumped the gun and missed the line here)

Did I mention this school has sanctioned snowball fights or something? 'Cause it does that.

fuck offfffff

Anyway yeah Belf is an out-of-town kid from somewhere it never snowed and I really don't care this is seriously the worst tutorial.

I can't be bothered to explain it, I mean, fuck, 'move' and 'action' and 'wait' aren't difficult concepts

This is why Ritz didn't care what team she was on.

YEAH FUCK YOU MEWT

PARTY HARD

SPRING BREAK

Mewt will turn around to his snowman (and only friend) and start sucking his thumb.

RITZ HAS NO PITY.

And the day is won. With Mewt vanquished, the next cutscene can happen. Or something.

(Note: Mewt didn't dodge either 60, any of the 80s or that last 90. I like this.)

Also all the enemies target Mewt automatically and the battle ends itself really quickly anyway. Like, automatically by the end of the second turn or something.

Purple Dude: But that's what Mewt does best! Hah hah!

Twat: ....

it wasn't really so much running away as standing and dying

Then everyone starts targetting him exclusively again. The teacher... does nothing. Ritz walks in and starts bitching at them... eventually. Slight hypocrisy there; need I remind you who threw the finishing, uh... snowball?

Not against the rules: Blatantly bullying the odd one out with a dead parent, an alcoholic father and

Will be against the rules later: Self-defence, using spears, hurting animals when being employed by the government to hunt animals, healing...

Ritz: Sure! You've been aiming at Mewt this whole time!

Belf: Are you okay, Mewt?

dude you have like -3 HP by now

but hey, he's okay, let's just keep doing this, I'll roll with it if he will-

Fuck you, Mewt.

Belf helpfully points out that he's bleeding; THE SNOWBALL HAD A ROCK IN IT

THAT MUST BE LIKE FOUR DAMAGE

CHRIST

Purple Guy plays it cool.

.... Sure, I can accept that.

"Like hit points! In the sense that we actually have to knock all of you unconscious."

Pretty much.

Ritz: You guys are horrible!

Blue Guy: Whatever you say, whitey-locks!

Ritz: What did you call me?!

Hat Bro: We know you dye your hair 'cause it's really all white!

Purple Dude: Yeah, just like an old grandma! Hah hah! Little prissy grandma!

Ritz: Step over here and say that again!

Ritz steps closer to him BUT IT'S TIME FOR THE ADULTS TO DO SHIT

(Also this exchange is like the worst thing about FFTA)

"Look, kill the ugly green kid if you want, nobody honestly gives a shit, but how DARE you stand up for yourself!"

Harsh, man.

Leslaeiei: Lyle, Colin, Guinness, I want you to come with me. Mewt, how's your forehead?

Loser: It's okay... I'm fine, really.

Leslaei: That's it for class today. The rest of you can go home.

Sweet, we should let snowball fights break out into open violence more often! (Lyle/Colin/Guinness are the three idiots who are still smarter than Belf and better than Mewt at everything).

They call him Mewt the Decisive!

Brittle Twat: Thank you.

Ritz: I can't stand bullies who pick on little kids! Those jerks!

Annoying Git: So Belf, what are you doing after this?

Belf: Huh? Why?

Irritating Prime Mover of Plot: I was gonna go buy this book... and I was wondering if you wanted to come along?

Belf: Sorry, I can't. My little brother's getting out of the hospital today.

Belf's little brother, Doned Raiden, is a cripple. Belf is determined to keep him this way. I wish I was joking.

Ritz: Hospital? Was he sick?

Belf: No, it's something he was born with. We have to take him to the hospital every now and then.

Ritz: Wow, that's rough.

Belf: What kind of book will you buy?

Why Is He Still Here: It's about monsters and magic and stuff like that.

Belf: Why don't you bring it to my place? I'm sure my brother would love to see it.

Stop Talking: Well, if you're sure it's okay...

Belf: Absolutely! Why don't you come too, Ritz?

there are a thousand reasons

Ritz: Me? Um, gee, I guess I don't have any other plans... Okay!

Belf: Great! You two know where my house is, right?

Dude, Belf, they didn't even know your NAME before I inputted it.

Ritz: It's the yellow house, right?

Idiot: I'll come over as soon as I buy the book!

Belf: I'll be waiting!

SCENE CHANGE!

Okay, seriously, this bit is so fucking inane I'll skip it. This guy, Cid, is apologising to these two guys for unexplained reasons. Ritz is like "Fuck that guy's shit at life, man, I'd hate him to be MY father hahahahaha what a loser hahahaha" and then Cid turns around and he's like "hi i'm mewt's dad" and tbh he's pretty cool and it's a pretty awesome faux pas

Anyway, Belf wanders off and the others say he doesn't have a father (they're wrong, he does, he's just apparently working all the time and moved out and always fights with his mother).

Also Cid's apparently a drunkard in the Japanese.

BACK AT THE SABLE LAIR

Well fuck you too, kid! Oh, that kettle's wobbling ominously and I can't capture it. And that television is kinda ugly as shit.

Belf gets his revenge by mentioning the snowball fight. Raiden's like "well i'm sure that's all well and good for you AND YOUR LEGS >:("

that fucking kettle

Belf: Tell them to come on up!

Raiden: You invited over some friends?

Belf: Yeah, one of them said he found this awesome book. I thought you might want to see it, too. You like books, don't you? You're always reading them.

Raiden: Only 'cause I DON'T HAVE LEGS >:(

Someone knocks at the door.

Raiden is a man of many words.

Belf: You get that book, Mewt?

"Something like 'eld-rich coh-dex? What does that mean?"

"I think it's a breed of dog."

So we open the book and it's trippy and I caught like nothing on time so yeah uh hm

Belf is illiterate.

Belf: Maybe they're some kind of magic spell!

Ritz:You might not be too far off. Look, a magic circle! Maybe this is in Latin or something?

maybe you're all idiots

And this is the part where Mewt dooms the world. Nice job, chucklefuck.

This right here?

This is where our story begins. Fuck the rest of the dialogue, it's insignificant, they leave and nothing happens.

Edited July 3, 2012 by Furetchen

[Parrhesia]

So we open the book and it's trippy and I caught like nothing on time so yeah uh hm

Belf is illiterate.

This happens.

The kettle unleashes its arcane powers...

AND GIVES RAIDEN LEGS

THEN EXPLODES HIM

The kettle works its deadly spell...

And finally has its revenge on Marche, turning him into a soldier, a shitty class, with a shortsword, which is a shitty sword, wearing a cuirass, which is shitty armour!

Also the kettle became a new and slightly more fucked up tree.

Er. Here comes trouble.

Bangaa are experts of GO UP.

The civilians scatter. They see this isn't gonna end well.

Then Belf helps matters by calling them the L-word, with all that implies.

Monk: What did you say?! (I'm omitting the usual plurality of esses the Bangaa have because I think it's stupid.)

Belf: I, um, erp.

Monk: You said lizard! Takes a lot of nerve to call a bangaa a lizard!

And a bad situation gets, somehow, worse.

This is Montblanc. He is going to be our guide for the first half of the game until he meets an unceremonious and faintly hilarious death later in the game.

Montblanc: Yes, guv! He's just come in from the countryside, you see.

Belf: ...

Montblanc: Apologise to the bangaa, bro!

Belf: Um, uh... sorry!

Montblanc: Please excuse him. He's not used to seeing bangaa.

We turn to leave, crisis averte-

FUCK. Well, I guess we needed an ACTUAL tutorial. Kinda.

[Parrhesia]

Montblanc: Mate?

Monk: Those clothes... you're a soldier, aren't you?

Only until reclass!

Belf: A... soldier?

It's a shitty class, Belf, don't get used to it~

Monk: Yes... so you wouldn't mind a little engagement?

UH I'm not really into that kind of thing and OH GOD someone blew a wolf whistle and uh slightly faster placed music played and uh

DON'T QUESTION IT, RUN BEFORE THE CRAZY GUY ON THE EMU CAN MARRY YOU

Fuck you, Montblanc!

"Kill all sons of bitches. Them's my official instructions."

GET READY! it flashed by really quick don't sue me

This battle introduces us to the classes and races we all know and love! Specifically, we're a human soldier and a mascot black mage against a couple lizards, a warrior and a monk.

Now, various races each have their own classes that they can become. Some classes can be used by multiple races (Archer, Black Mage, White Mage, Thief...) but most are strictly for one race. I intend to give you an idea of what each entails, mostly using anecdotal experience.

HUMANS

An extremely versatile race with a lot of options. The most well-rounded, and they don't lack for power either. Humans have the most basic classes at five, with Soldiers, Archers, Thieves and both Black and White Magi.

SOLDIER

Soldiers are the most basic class in the game, and honestly they aren't bad. Slow as shit, but with a full four movement. Their strength, HP and defence are all very high, their speed is bad but not deplorable, and they get decent defences and equip options. Their skills (such as Powerbreak) revolve around debuffing, but honestly it's usually better just to use them as straight-up beatsticks. Overall? Eh, use them if you like their stupid hats.

BANGAA

Objectively the best race. The Bangaa are not versatile, with a mere seven classes. They are not magically talented. They are not fast. What they are, however, is unmatched at the art of beating their enemies into a bloody pulp. I will be using many of these motherfuckers to murder the enemy into a bloody pulp. The Bangaa have two starting classes open to them, the Warrior and the White Monk.

WARRIOR

Soldiers with dress sense. They have marginally better abilities (aka still shit), are pretty dismally slow, have slightly more HP and strength and slightly less defence. They use broadswords instead of greatswords, but the difference is pretty marginal. You'll see lategame ones with improbably high HP; other than that, they really aren't notable.

WHITE MONK

Now THIS is a class! One of the few basic classes you'll never really feel bad about keeping to the end, White Monks have a wide set of abilities that all revolve around killing people! They can; attack all sides, attack from range, attack in a straight line, attack from range in an area, and oneshot the undead. Hell, they can even revive and self-heal pretty decently! In FFTA, there isn't much more you need. They're on the faster side of average, with good strength and defence and no real weak points.

MOOGLES

FFTA's stupid mascot race with a lot of gimmicky classes and exactly two gems. Their starting classes are Animists, Thieves and Black Magi. Even though we have Montblanc now, I'll be ditching him as soon as I'm able, because Montblanc is approximately as fast as a pocky-snorting neckbeard. There is exactly one Moogle of note in this game, and he will suffice for our Moogle detachment.

BLACK MAGE

Here's your basic mage that sets people on fire, and guess what, they come in three (!) varieties! Just like their magics! Yay! Trinities and shit! But yeah, your garden variety black mage is pretty slow, made of paper, doesn't absorb spells that well and has a shitty 3 move. Fortunately, they hit resistance and blast with area of effect. They're pretty cool, but their speed prevents them from being truly exceptional.

Moogles are as fast as humans but not as blasty. They still make for a decent black mage, though. Nu Mou are the slowest and the best at explosions, and humans look cooler than everyone else.

Monks are fast, so Lunais (I think the monk and warrior are always called Lunais and Euver, even though they're also generic names) walked up and slugged Montblanc.

Thank christ.

Montblanc: You sure are a keen observer of the obvious, dude! There's the judge, and the laws for today are all set.

Belf: Judge... ? Laws... ?

The laws do things like imprison you for using items. It's a yellow card (small penalty at the end of the fight) for doing something that doesn't involve life or death, red (large penalty and they're sent to jail in the middle of the fight) for something that does (aka an attack that breaks the law AND kills a guy, Raising the dead when there's no healing allowed), two yellows make a red.

Fuck laws, basically.

Items are against the law today, so whatever.

This is Belf at the start. His speed is... unfortunate, his magic power nigh unsalvageable. He will always be a tank, however.

I wasn't exactly singing the praises of Belf's speed, and here's Montblanc, seven slower (that's quite a lot for this point) at a level one higher. Unsalvageable physically. Worse speed... and Moogles don't really have that many uses for high magic.

He's also controlled by the AI, and decides to smack the heavily armoured guy with the worst staff in the game rather than kill the heavily wounded monk AND injure the warrior heavily with a spell. Idiot!

Montblanc: The new Mewt.

Lunais is toast.

Anyway, when he died a small cutscene about judge points (which don't matter atm) happened and MONTBLANC FULLY REGENERATED. THAT MOTHERFUCKER.

Units have their full evasion from the front, can sometimes avoid the sides, and back attacks will usually hit. 50% is alright, so-

NINETY-ONE DAMAGE

okay no it's 19 FFTA just has a weird way of displaying numbers, and if I want to include the Belf-smacks-a-dude frame I don't have a full-formed number.

Montblanc knows what's up. Kinda.

And with that we're done. Lunais tries to use a potion after the battle and gets jailed for it, mostly to show how stupid the law system is. But more importantly Belf and Montblanc go for a drink to find-

oh yeah belf explains the whole situation to monty

"dude your world is TOTES fake"

"okay"

Monty deals with it well.

But yeah, to the pub!

"They're all alcoholics and I'm gonna be firing most of them now."

Basically clans are bands of mercenaries that hire themselves out to do inane bullshi- uh, 'quests'. Yes. Right.

The Monk in the right and the viera, soldier and ugly dog guy. That's our clan. Few of them will be staying, and that depends mostly on how good their names are.

Jesus wept, Belf, they're fucking sellswords!

Anyway, he wants in on this whole clan thing, and that's okay, because Belf is honestly an okay fighter.

Belf pulls out a stirring speech.

What are the beastmaster, the other mascot black mage and the enemy animist looking in for... ?

Final important piece of dialogue;

Belf: Say, Montblanc, does this clan have a name?

Montblanc: Well, it's kind of a small clan, so no, not yet... oi! Why don't you give it a name, guv?

Belf: Me?!

Montblanc: To commemorate you joining the clan! Make it a bodacious one!

The default name is 'Nutsy', but I'm pretty sure these scrubs canonically become Clan Centurio in FF12. Me, I'm going with...

Alright! So let's take a gander at Raw Steel, shall we?

Well, I'll leave that to Eclipse. For now, I've some... things to prepare.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Furetchen

[Akagami]

Human is the best race. Just think about what Nosada gives. I'll let this to continue, though.

*sits in a corner and reads*

[Naglfar]

oh hey it's that game I don't like

maybe if I read this I'll learn how the basic fucking mechanics work

[eclipse]

This is a notice that I'm not at home, and won't be for like 24 hours. Once I'm home, and have something noteworthy, I shall start!

After comparing notes with the great and wise Furet, I have come to the conclusion that we have different ideas of kicking ass. Dear readers, you'll see the difference once we can start telling the starting guys what complete and utter failures they are!

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Will either of you be using a Gunner?

[Parrhesia]

I will if Eclipse doesn't. Gunners are pretty cool but I don't really want a second moogle...

(Montblanc doesn't count, fuck Montblanc)

[Klokinator]

you should make montblanc your primary fighter

f'rsrs

[Dr. Tarrasque]

I will if Eclipse doesn't. Gunners are pretty cool but I don't really want a second moogle...

(Montblanc doesn't count, fuck Montblanc)

Just ditch Montblanc. He's best as a Mage and the Nu Mou race is much better at it.

[Parrhesia]

Montblanc... won't trouble us very long. My magic will be handled by a human and by Eldena, everyone else is going physical.

... Oh, and there's Quin, even though he joins with like three speed. I feel obliged to use the prick for once, though.

[eclipse]

I intend on using a Gunner as. . .tee-hee~! You'll see what I do when I play this game!

[Samias]

I actually kind of like FFTA. It's not the best game but heck if it doesn't feel good to have a team of concentrate assassins who basically trivialize the game. Archers/gunners with concentrate break the game in general. The plot stinks (LET'S CRUSH THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF THESE LOSERS BECAUSE F ESCAPISM) but the gameplay was good enough for me to hold out for the 300 missions and a lot of misc skirmishes. Barely. But I'm looking forward to this anyway.

[13th]

Hey I love this game. I need to play it again!

Let's watch Furet and Eclipse suck so hard turn this game into a legend!

[nano]

This game is pretty awesome. I prefer FFTA2 though because its laws are not as annoying and are actually interesting at times.

[Parrhesia]

FFTA2 was pretty much universally better. The only real exception was that Luso didn't go on as many murderous rampages as Marche, and his outfit was ugly as fuck.

[eclipse]

I'm BACK~! Sorry for the late start~! This is eclipse speaking. Time for me to do my thing.

Here is the brave story of. . .uh, who the heck are you?

Hello, the voice beyond the fourth wall here~!

Uh, what?

You are in a Square game on a Fire Emblem board!

Is this supposed to mean something?

Yeah, sweetcakes. You look exactly like. . .

Excuse me, I thought my name was Marche!

Give Lucius a haircut, and he'd be your older brother.

So after a fight involving Snow and maybe something denser than him--

That's MY line!

--Lucius and his buddies are warped to some weird dimension. One lizard tangle later and we've got a clan!

Yo, Lucius, make this clan name a good one!

I'm tired of fighting. How 'bout Clan Peacemaker?

That sounds splendid!

Why does this application only have nine letter slots? I'll need to remove a letter. . .uh, the RNG chooses you!

Now let the adventure begin! The brave Clan Peacemaker's first mission is. . .

Picking daisies. How hard can this be--

Bastards.

And they aren't gonna let me go if I choose it, either.

Oh good grief. Can't we pull weeds in peace?

Clothes change time~! Be a good boy and stay put~!

Wow, I can move better in these threads!

Now be a good boy and steal back the gil it took to re-equip everyone

But stealing is bad!

If the judge doesn't care, then it's all good.

This doesn't look like much, but. . .

. . .kissing up to the judge might not be a bad thing.

See, totally worth it. And what is righteous Lucius doing?

Backstabbing and stealing like a good little boy~!

We totally should've had that snowball fight against a legion of Goblins.

Montblanc thinks he's big stuff.

And that concludes Herb Picking. I'll see how much of the next mission I can get done. Toodles~!

[Integrity]

.... Sure, I can accept that.

This is literally my favorite line in video gaming history.

"FUCK IT'S MEWT'S FAULT I PACKED A ROCK INTO THAT SNOWBALL. JESUS. WHAT A LOSER."

A+, reading things now.

EDIT: ECLIPSE WHAT ARE YOUR GENERICS' NAMES THIS IS IMPORTANT

Edited July 2, 2012 by Integrity

[eclipse]

Gilbert - Human Archer

Ingg - Bangaa Warrior

Thenardi - Nu Mou White Mage

Catrine - Viera Fencer

Ingg and Catrine are the fastest, tied at 118. Back to business. . .

---

After a quiet day of picking daisies, we come to our next challenge, which is--

Uh, right-o.

Hey, a book hunt! Lucius, use Fire!

But I'm a thief!

You aren't any more.

These robes make me look fat.

The resulting bloodshed over these measly few pages was so brutal that screencaps wouldn't have sufficed. The enemy lay in pools of their own ashes, with Montblanc mostly to blame. Hey, not my fault that four of them had a meeting in the middle of the battle!

Looks like I didn't get blood or burning ashes on this page!

Wait, what? No, we're not ready. Gilbert runs like a river of glue, Thenardi's as sturdy as a house of cards, Catrine hits like a toy truck, Montblac likes to stand around with his finger up his snout, and Lucius can barely start a fire. Ingg can probably kick everyone else's asses without breaking a sweat.

If it wasn't for the fact that your magic output is awful, you wouldn't be a hinderance.

First we run some herbs, now we retrieve books. If that's supposed to be busy, then I'm not gonna notice "busier".

Edited July 3, 2012 by eclipse

[Parrhesia]

TOKEN TWOFER TUESDAY GO

Now that that is over with, time to present Raw Steel to the public!

Welcome to the te-

... uh.

Okay, I'm pretty sure the purple dude wasn't there last time... and where'd the dog guy go?

Also, it's time to re-introduce every basic class!

VIERA

They may set more neckbeard hearts racing than a fire sale at Paddy's Markets, but believe me, our scantily-clad friends here will save us some heartache on the battlefield. They are the only chance you'll have to field a GURRRRRRL on the battlefield until the sequel. Other than that, they have a pretty great range of classes, arguably matching humanity itself. They fall pretty flat on tanking, but bluntly, FFTA is so easy you don't NEED a tank. Unskilled Viera can be Fencers, White Magi or Archers.

NU MOU

The worst race, barely. Yes, worse than moogles, because moogles get four classes which are genuinely boss and three of them are unique to them. The Nu Mou get nothing. Their best classes are done, and done better, by humans. Even their worst magic class is done by humans, although in this case it's slightly worse. Their physical class is the Beastmaster, with a sole physical ability of the Fight command. They use instruments as weapons and wear clothing. Then there are Morphers, which use absurdly tedious to get weapons and their abilities aren't really worth it. They also rely COMPLETELY on you having a Hunter, and if you have a Hunter, well... why the fuck do you want a Morpher? Both of their good unique classes are balls slow, so neither is... actually any good.

They can start out as Beastmasters, White Magi and Black Magi.

ARCHER

Archers are the masters of status right up until you get a Gunner, but only Moogles can be Gunners so fuck that. Moogles are ugly and stupid whereas Archers are sexy/masculine. Also I am convinced that human Archers have the best hats in the universe. Their stats aren't all that, to be honest, with thieves and fencers respectively being pretty much strictly better, and their abilities are unremarkable up until Cupid and Aim: Arm, which are both incredible. Oh, then they get Concentrate, which is arguably the best Support ability in the game. Basically it makes everything almost always hit. Including status. I think you can see where this is going... basically, Archers are unremarkable until they very suddenly ... aren't.

Viera and humans can be Archers, and of the two, Viera are the better choice, with more attack and speed, but the difference isn't enough to make you feel gypped for using a human. Humans need to become decent Archers to be Hunters, which is a fucking amazing class, and Viera need it for the equally superb Sniper.

FENCER

Fencers wish they were the masters of status, but Archers exist and are cooler and it's a class open to humans, who are better. That said, they unlock a TON of cool stuff, most notably Red Magi. They can't stand toe-to-toe with soldiers and warriors; the tradeoff is that they have better speed, but somewhat worse strength, worse durability and, most fatally, the moderately shitty rapiers and clothing instead of armour and broad/great/swords. Their skills are better, mostly because of Nighthawk, which is a better Air Render, which is one of the best abilities in the game... comes far later, though. I will be using Pauline in this capacity, purely because I like fencers and, honestly, have never used one before.

WHITE MAGE

White Magi heal you and ... uh...

Let's look at their abilities!

Cure, Cura, Curaga, Esuna, Life, Full-Life, Auto-Life, Shell, Protect... look, are you sensing the fucking pattern here? They have NOTHING to blast away the enemy with! This is an outrage! That said, it's a useful secondary skillset (we'll look into that later) for a more useful, blasty mage, or alternatively it's a good class to have a more useful, blastier secondary skillset on. White Magi have average speed, are still basically as magical as other mage classes and have sorta okay durability! So yeah, white magi are good but white magic has pretty limited use. Still nice to have the option around in a pinch. They have Turbo MP as a support ability, which means everything burns more mana but does more damage/healing. It's very nice on blasty mages.

Nu Mou, humans and Viera can be white magi. They're pretty much all the same, but humans play the role of the moogle here, which is to say 'inferior to Viera completely'.

THIEF

THEY CAN STEAL EVERYTHING. Except shoes. They steal armour, shields, accessories, helmets, hats, weapons, money, experience, judicial favour and, most coveted of all, abilities themselves. Entire setups of Ivalice have been built around getting the Cinquedea (which teaches it) ASAP. Also knives are pretty good in this game and they have good stats, and you'll likely dip into them at least briefly just because they teach counter for the human and moogle races.

Moogles are marginally faster and have a fair bit more defence and resistance, but humans have significantly more HP and a respectable amount more strength. They also have the advantage of being, well, humans.

ANIMISTS

They have the defences of a true tank, but their attack simply doesn't match up. Oh, and they can't wear armour, and their HP is merely above-average. Nice work, moogles. They have some interesting but mostly useless abilities, and back that up with instruments.

BEASTMASTER

Soldiers without good equipment or HP or skills; Control is a pretty useless skillset. I mean, think about it this way; instead of using the beastmaster's turn to control a shitty enemy monster, why not use a fighter to simply kill the damn thing? Beastmasters, predictably, fall even flatter against humanoid foes. Their stats are alright, at least.

Oh, screw it. Here's the thing. After Thesis Hunt is finished, clans, represented by red soldiers, will occasionally turn up on the map. The clan itself is five dudes dependent on the place it springs up from, more on this later. If you lose a mission (in my case, a clan battle) with five or fewer dudes, Montblanc will have a "(RACE) wanted" mission available which is a short and easy dispatch that guarantees a recruit of that race. I kinda wanted a human more to get my sexy black mage up and running, but I'll roll with a bangaa; these will be my two generics in the class.

Nelin here started as a dragoon, so he has relatively absurd attack (that's with a mere shortsword) and good speed. Dragoons have probably the best statspread of any physical class, maybe second to snipers and that's because snipers don't need to tank. These stats are unarmoured and without accessories because I didn't adequately prepare for this.

Nelin is debuting against a chicken thief.

Unfortunately, this chicken thief is a real threat to my shitty excuse for a party, and I will soon regret not adequately equipping anyone. Still, I have my three best bruisers out ready to... bruise.

(Benton might have been replaced as well, or Pauline, but they both started up with decent stats and frankly I can't be bothered.)

Uh.

Counter is an inconvenient ability. Basically, it gives you the ability to actually defend yourself. Personally, it's among my favourites. Ravel missed, but dodged the counter; Nelin walked up and critted the thief for a mighty fifteen.

Crits knock back in this game.

He was listed as doing 46 HP. Ravel has 47. If luck had turned the other way...

Dabarosa can finish any one of these scrubs. Ultimately, he kills Nelin. Ravel gets behind him, punches him and is killed in return, but this leaves his back open to Benton...

This is why I didn't quite throw you off the team, man.

I check the Rumours at the pub, and come up with this;

Welcome to the longest quest chain in the game, and I'm counting the main quests in that. Clan Borzoi think they can match us in sheer moxie and verve? Well okay so a fucking chicken thief of theirs almost gutted three of our men but hey! Early days yet, my friend.

Then I realise that I still have to kill two enemies for Pauline's dispatch to expire and for me to be at full strength. God fucking damn it. So we're entering Snow in Lutia at 5/6 men.

I toy with reclassing Ravel to Warrior and having him learn Shieldbearer (a support ability that makes you always able to equip shields), because of a neat stunt you can pull in the largely superior sequel; classes have an innate weapon power even with fists, which is pretty good for White and Master (!) Monks. Also you can dual-wield shields, and that's in a game where evasion is usually very low. Unfortunately, it turns out that you can't dual-wield shields here, nor are monks any good with their bare hands. Ugh!

I'm also a colossal fuckup and forget to optimise everyone's equipment for learning abilities to get out of deadbeat classes like soldier and warrior faster.

She doesn't make us lunch, but she gives us a blade that will ultimately teach us one of the best abilities in the game; the Jagen of A-Abilities, really.

Ravel isolates himself from the rest of the group because he is a tactical genius.

Montblanc seizes the moment! ... Then the other wolf mauls him.

Ravel decided he'd rather punch a wolf than heal himself. Now he regrets this decision. Nelin avenges him, though.

Oh yeah, sometimes the judge will blow his whistle (he has turns, you see) and randomly move bodies around the battlefield. Something of a nuisance, sometimes.

Finish things with style, Montblanc!

... So the kids were playing all throughout the fucking pitched battle? Riiight.

Oh right! So I neglected to mention what Pauline was doing. She was off securing our interests in a region, namely the Giza Plains! This... um...

Okay, I have no idea what it does, but it's eventually a cheap source of AP farming because it's under attack all the fucking time. Eventually it makes new items, and I think some landmarks are part of quest chains; in any event I'm pretty sure they count as part of the 300 missions we'll need to 100% this shit.

I shuffle around our equipment when we start mastering abilities! Basically, when you use an item for a certain amount of time, you will eventually learn the ability the item teaches you, and can use it even when the item is unequipped. In our case, Belf mastered First Aid, Benton mastered it... a couple missions ago, actually, and has been using a different sword since, Pauline mastered Focus and Ravel recently mastered Whirlwind. As such, they've all upgraded their equipment. Woo!

Oh, Montblanc mastered Fire/Thunder/Blizzard, all of which came with the basic Rod he has, but there's no other black mage abilities we can give him yet. Also fuck Montblanc.

Given that level 4 soldier Benton is able to do this with guaranteed success, I somehow doubt this leads up to heaven.

Oho? Now, this is interesting. Freeing Cyril will give us cheaper shit, I think, and it unlocks another Borzoi quest! Fuck those guys!

I'd send Nelin, who's close to mastering First Aid, but he's only walking, meaning he could fail. He'd probably still get it, but... I prefer to be safe, rather than sorry. Jumping means they have a 100% chance of succeeding (or at least very high, I'm not sure), so Ravel goes.

Dispatch maps are dependent on enemies killed in battle, battles fought, or days taken. Both of the dispatches I've taken involve days. Battles fought can entail you running from random clans, which is useful. Enemies fought, obviously, doesn't.

Oh, fuck.

Clan Dip are Lutia Pass' bandits, and Cyril Band are, obviously, Cyril's clan. We're gonna have to fight one of these assholes, and we're done running. Being earlygame clans they both suck, although I think Clan Dip has a Concentrate archer for some reason.

I fight the Cyril Band. We're gonna be beating up Clan Dip a fuckton anyway, defending Lutia Pass from attacks involves it.

... Ravel's new claws are fire-elemental. He has no other means of attacking. Also fire is the black magic I use most often because I don't have to hit down at all. I'm probably going to break this law by accident as a result. So we're going into this with not only five men, but one of them has the basic knuckles. Great.

Pauline goes fencer, but she can't hope to match Benton in sheer fightosity. A little fencing experience is part of what she needs to access the most broken class in the game, so I figure I'll get it now.

I scope out the enemy; viera archer, a thief of each race, a soldier and a monk. The monk and moogle thief both have counter, but the monk has a rising sun (the same fire knuckles I couldn't have Ravel use). This will be quick and bloody, but they're basically down a man as well.

Then I almost freeze VBA somehow.

... Uh.

Nothing happens as a result of this. Fire forbidding equipment of that element must be a sequel thing. FUCK! I've just gypped Ravel out of free AP AND a better weapon!

Edited July 3, 2012 by Furetchen

[Parrhesia]

This makes me angry!

Belf's chances are looking pretty good, and he's all ready to eat a counter too. Isn't that nice? So I decide to use a combo attack.

They're trippy as shit, but do regular damage unless you have other dudes with Combo abilities as well. You need Mythril weapons for this, which I don't have.

What IS relevant for now is that they have 100% accuracy, and the enemy can't counter.

WaitwhatgoddammitMontbla-

huh. Hit all three of 'em.

Pauline finishes the job. No, it does like 14 damage. Pauline isn't THAT shit.

I take that back.

She does eleven damage. Archers are terrible earlygame.

I think we all know who the greatest monk is.

(It's still Lunais.)

Angeline's the last one left on ten HP, but she knows this is her time! This is her place! This! Is!

... Nevermind.

So we head safely into Sprohm, Nelin picks up a new sword, and...

I have a massive hard-on for gauntlets. Five attack, five defence, no kinks, no nothin'. I can afford four. Note how many I am purchasing.

Benton returns from his mission and-

...

Pauline, I'm uncertain five mana points is worth that much...

Anyway, suffice to say the girlfriend Benton brought back from probably-not-heaven is on the team. By virtue of necessity (I plan to have a full team of 24 by the end, and this meant I had to make up a lot of niches for generics to fill) Pauline stays. She's going into assassin, by the time she's been there a decent while she'll have stats pouring out of her. Francheska is going to be my pure fencer, because despite everything I like just said, fencers are cool and I've always wanted one. Francheska will be, well, it.

Francheska is now at the top of the earlygame food chain. See that 71 evade? That means that from the front enemies will hit her on 29%. She takes half damage from fire, completely absorbs ice. She's learning Shadowstick, which is a better version of speedbreak. In theory. I think. The only other fencer abilities I could teach her now are Swarmstrike from the worst rapier I have (half damage for a chance to poison. If your fencer doesn't smite people for as much as a couple turns of poison, you're doing it wrong. You probably have the weakest rapier equipped or something. Besides, Pauline wants it because it's the quickest ability to learn, and it's learning A-abilities, not total AP gained in the class, that determines what expert jobs you can get) and Shieldbreaker (she's not moving out of fencer until we get a certain S-ability, so it's completely useless).

Also, with the blatant favouritism given to Francheska, she has 24 attack and 38 defence on Pauline, four speed and some HP.

Then I get this. The rewards include another ice shield and a Djinn Flyssa, a rapier that I think is even better than what Francheska has now.

Free Sprohm, unlike most other freedom missions, is actually a pitched battle. Well, Raw Steel is ready, bring it on!

I have seven guys, so Montblanc hits the bench so hard it'd make your head spin.

Fuck Montblanc.

I wish the real mage would show up by now. The other dude is a white mage with no offensive spells, but these two guys have counter. Francheska will run rings around Nikolai, but... Warose, who's name is fixed (unsure about the other two) is gonna be tough.

Warose makes his move, but Belf dodges the 44%. The damage was like... almost a 2-shot. This is gonna be nasty.

...

You know how Nikolai already had like every defence and HP ever? Jareth just cast protect on him. That motherfucker...

Francheska and Benton try stealth. This never occurs to the rest of my team, who just bash the fuck out of the thief. Note how said thief is outdamaging my fighters.

Nikolai attacks Pauline, who probably can't even scratch him back by this point. He hits the 28%, inconveniently.

My best fighter, naturally, seeks out the greatest bladesman among their ranks- uh, I mean, beats on a clergyman.

They duel for a while.

...

You know what I was saying about Swarmstrike earlier? I don't think losing one damage will hurt me here.

One day I will forget that this was at one point Pauline's greatest achievement.

Belf gets himself killed, but it's worth it for more damage on that blasted thief... !

Clearly we needed our two best fighters on the one white mage. Yeah. That's like... tactics'n'shit.

I swear criticals don't usually happen this often.

That's what you get for fucking with Raw Steel!

But the fight isn't over until Nikolai's syphilis kills him. He goes for glory and would've killed Nelin, too, but misses.

Dude. Pauline. Ravel just died exactly the same way, and he literally did five times as much damage as you wil-

*sigh*

Secretly I was hoping to make it three-for-three.

Fucking. Finally. He spends his turn missing Nelin again.

Oh, that felt GOOD. (Nelin dodged the counter. All of these attacks would have finished him off, it bears repeating).

When Nikolai finally goes down...

... Dude, you were dead, like, a minute ago. o.()

Damn. Fucking. Right.

(Also, about the Djinn Flyssa; it's -1 might compared to the Silver Rapier, wind-elemental and with +2 evade, and teaches a better ability; a fencer's Whirlwind. Benton gets the second ice shield.)

Next time on Raw Steel: Benton gets a turban, Pauline gets a suboptimal reclass and the Dread Raven gets his comeuppance.

(Worthy of note; I had to cut one screenshot to squeeze this in under the image limit. It was Pauline dodging the counter to cap off her 'greatest achievement', and can be seen in full glory here.)

Edited July 3, 2012 by Furetchen

[eclipse]

My turn~! Two missions this time.

Mission 1: Make Catrine Just A Little Less Terrible

This totally has her name on it.

"Anything to get away from that creep Gilbert. I caught him in my underwear stash!"

While waiting for her to return, the menfolk decided that it was time to nab a thief. Specifically. . .

Translator's note: "Third Eye" means "doing whatever the little voice in my head tells me to"

This thief doesn't look too bad--wait, 3HKO? Uh-oh!

I think Montblanc might have taken this too personally.

This is why you keep healers off the front lines.

When Clan Pacemaker fights, it gets messy. The judge had to stop the match for a bit to sort the corpses out.

"Stupid Viera chick thought I was in her undies. Joke's on her, I was chasing a bug, and that's where it ended up~!"

That's what you get for cheesing your way through my clan (Ingg died to a Berserk crit). After that little spat, Catrine returned, and look at who else she brought along!

YOU ARE SO COMING ALONG!

===

WHILE WAITING FOR FURET. . .

Some people want to watch the world burn. Lucius ain't one of them.

He'd rather take a leak on it instead.

Don't mess with the bell ringer or he'll attempt to hurt you.

"This totally isn't my class, yet I can do more damage than you!" Lucius can go Blue Mage this very instant, but he won't be able to equip a weapon, because the shops aren't selling them yet. Thus, he's a Thief.

This is how a real thief does things. Front and center!

. . .or Montblanc can come along and trivialize them.

Flame Attack hurt, didn't it, Catrine?

Not as much as that hurt. . .when she finally hit. . .which was never. Lucius stole the kill.

Moral of the story: Don't level up too quickly.

Edited July 3, 2012 by eclipse

[Parrhesia]

I'm listening to the UT soundtrack this update.

This is the first of a fairly long questchain leading to the worst semi-secret character ever.

Yes, he's a nu mou.

We will, however, get the Gedegg Soup for our troubles; our first mission item!

Well, there's technically this, but we need it for a quest we can get at this stage of the game, just not this month. It raises resistance by 3% or 6%, in any event nothing much. I bring it anyway.

The reward for this is a high-power ice sword, the Laglace Sword (I think it's meant to be La Glace, but I think of it as Lag-lace) and another atmos blade. Count me in.

heh. heh. Get it? Cool? Because it's about an ice mage?

kill me now

We do Professor in Trouble first, because of a couple things I want to show off.

This is our formation. Rapiers are forbidden today (sigh) so Pauline and Francheska sit out - with Auggie there, we're at our limit of six deployed.

Speaking of Auggie, he's a Sage.

Montblanc is impressively slow, at 104. Like, unsalvageably. This is eleven points higher than 93.

We've not seen Sages before. I think you all know what that means!

SAGE

Sages are one of the best skillsets in the game. Note I say skillset and not class. Their stats are very high in all areas... all but one. Highest MP in the game, good HP, good attack, average defence (not mage average, average average; on par with human thieves) high magic and average resistance. They have four movement, and three jumpacity. That's also above the norm even for a physical. Equipment is maces, clothing, robes and shields, and their aforementioned skillset includes the ludicrously powerful Ultima Blow (deals 3x damage; every race gets an ultima, and for nu mou it's in Sagacity), Giga Flare, Raise, Drain and Bio.

Sages are also in a four-way tie for slowest class in the game. They are very powerful, but Jesus they cannot move those round little asses for shit. They're a good class, but... be aware of their speed.

Next we come to the ice flans, of which there are two.

One of these stats is unlike the others. Engaging these guys with physical combat is fruitless; you'll do one damage each, and then he'll just kill you with a blizzard... targetting himself. Healing himself. That motherfucker.

So that's why we brought Montblanc along.

Exhibit Three;

This is Mewt's escapist fantasy and he has transformed these, like, eleven-year old children with families and parents into FUCKING ZOMBIES.

That kid scares me.

Into the breach, my friends.

I use CUNNING and STRATEGY to flawlessly embed Auggie into my-

... ranks.

aaaaa

okay yeah this may just be a job for not you

Ravel's Rising Sun knuckles give him the exorcise ability that banishes undead from the field at decent success rates. This screenshot showcases me forgetting this exists.

Benton crits the undead, but this timer shows up; in three turns, the zombie will arise again. I think these turns are calculated assuming he waits in place for three turns, so ... they come pretty quick.

Burn, baby.

Auggie takes care of the other one with his only ability. Makes sense; his physical damage isn't that great, and Drain would only heal the zombies, and subsequently injure him.

As an aside, dead flans look really fucking creepy.

The best thing about Counter on enemies, great skill though it is, is that if you backstab a guy and they Counter you back, all this really does is open their backs to another guy.

Mindbreak wrecks resistance, magic or MP, and I don't really care which. All that matters...

... is that Benton just unlocked the Soldier's reclass options.

PALADIN

One of two upgrades from the Soldier class. Unfortunately, they aren't... that much of an actual upgrade. They suffer a painful movement nerf to 3, and that's bad on a physical class; that said, an endgame paladin can reach 8 movement, but that's not for a while. They use knightswords, which are probably the best weapons in the game, and combine armour and robe proficiencies. Their skills are shit apart from Cover (which Covers an allied unit, taking all hits for them until the pally's next turn), Saint Cross (holy damage Whirlwind that does more damage IIRC) and Holy Blade, which doubles the weapon damage but at a high MP cost, also turning it Holy-elemental. Statwise, they're tankier than soldiers, but not quite as good offensively, but more annoyingly than that? Paladins are the slowest human job in the game, and tied with three others for slowest overall.

FIGHTER

oh my god this is the best class

Okay, lemme tell you about fighters. Unlike paladins, who admittedly do look far cooler, fighters retain their four movement. They're a little slow, they can't wear real armour, BUT they have blades which are pretty universally powerful, as well as the best of the White Monk abilities. They have incredible strength, and good defence and HP. They're very powerful, very early, and the game developers sort of forgot to make there be a point at which this... stops. White Monks are Marcus, then this guy is Zealot. In 0% growths. ... Really, it's more like Titania followed by Greil surfing on a horse with Urvan.

Benton will be maining paladin, but for that to be viable he really needs some fighter options, starting with Air Render, which is what all those Atmos Blades teach us. Air Render deals damage from 3-range, and by earlygame it's usually more than your weapons do.

Mastering Shieldbearer earlier really pays off. Blades, for all their bulk, are one-handed, and I LIKE absorbing ice.

We move onto the next battle. I thought the laws would cycle and we'd hit the next day... they didn't, but I bring the fencers anyway. Note it's the mage's blue balls we have to explode, not him.

Let's fuck shit up.

Not even having two nubile, exotic cheerleaders holding swords in an erotic way can arouse Belf enough to connect a 45%.

Air Render. The fighter gathers his focus (or... something) then punches, which causes the target to implode (or... something). In any case, Benton's doing four more damage than with his blade, and the Atmos Blade isn't weak.

Ravel's 'go up and claw things in the face' strategy proves itself to be flawless yet again.

He decides a roundhouse kick is the only truly fitting way to end this. Guess what?

He was right.

We win, and our reward is mostly Pauline getting Swarmstrike. See, I told you it'd pay off!

As a result we now have-

RED MAGE

Red Magi would be pretty sweet even if they didn't have double-cast, or if you didn't get one absurdly early in the game that automatically knew doublecast. As it stands, they do know doublecast, and it's a bigger 'Fuck you!' to the retarded law system than the cards that are fucking literally called antilaws. This is because Doublecast gets by everything. Doublecast Fire on an enemy human and Protect on one of your dudes, even if the four laws in place are Target Area, Status, Fire and Damage to Human, AND IT GETS THROUGH. Because Doublecast in and of itself only counts as Colour Magic.

Then you get Turbo MP and just start spamming Fire, Thunder and Blizzard and it inexplicably kills things through 'til endgame. Red Magi can even stab things to a decent standard, but they're not frontliners and it shows.

I'm making Pauline one for now because I need one white magic ability. Why not become a white mage? Because Cure learnt through Red Mage by using a rapier works just as well, and counts for both classes. Besides, the last thing Pauline's faltering strength and defence need now is a level in a pure magic class...

And that looks like it for this update. Join us next time for ... well, more of the same.

Edited July 3, 2012 by Furetchen

[nano]

Those artworks look really nice, I haven't seen them before. Can't wait to see the rest of the classes.

[Integrity]

I'd send Nelin, who's close to mastering First Aid, but he's only walking, meaning he could fail. He'd probably still get it, but... I prefer to be safe, rather than sorry. Jumping means they have a 100% chance of succeeding (or at least very high, I'm not sure), so Ravel goes.

I'm actually learning things from this LP.