screenshot Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics (WOTL): The Nadir of Videogames

[maybe]

i think it was around this point that I realized I was not enjoying this game

[Parrhesia]

Update 5
In Which a New Paradigm is Established

Spoiler

 

Boom, thick into the action of, let's be real, a random battle with guests. The game likes doing this. Sometimes even after the guests. The most notoriously difficult fight of the entire game is literally just a fucking bird stampede in a pond with no dialogue. At least here Argath and Delita spar a bit.

Camerawork.

We could upgrade classes now, but there's still shit we want from Squire, and, well, there's this mechanic where like. JP which you use to buy skills spills over. Or something. Either way we have a load of squires who will all kind of benefit from each other's actions here and one chemist who, through being 'adjacent' to squire kinda, will also benefit a bit.

Incidentally, Delita's squire class is the same upgraded thing as Mercurio's. I think Argath gets some benefits (heavy armour, better stats) but not others (new skills).

Mandalia Plains is a good map. This is not. You can't see shit.

By the way, fighting monsters kind of sucks early on since they all have Counter, which is a vital step in the action economy that you lack an answer to. It's not terrible, but it's not great, either.

I'm out of talking points.

yep

Anyway - Dorter! Cheerful place. This guy wants to know where 'Gustav' is, and also where the Marquis is.

This guy doesn't know.

First guy disagrees with second guy's analysis of the situation.

Second guy, known only as Swordsman, grabs the guy's hand, frees himself, starts to run and- slips over in the rain. He tries to scramble away from old mate, but, uh...

Yeah. That's the swordsman's cue to 'fess up - they're in the desert.

Hi guys. Your man walks off.

Delita reckons he recognises him, but... well. I miss the line but anyway dudes start showing up.

God forbid we lie in suspense for even like a second. Anyway, Cloak Boy, Wiglaf - which his name was obviously meant to be, like, that is really fucking clear - commanded some peasant volunteers during the war. Pessimists at heart, they were called the Dead Men - and apparently they're who formed the Corpse Brigade. Wiglaf, then leads them.

So this map's kind of annoying, and introduces a new paradigm. Specifically, we will be fighting three archers (one with a longbow, one with crossbow, one with... fists...), two wizards and a knight. I really hope you like that layout because about 70% of all story missions contain 2-3 knights, 2-3 archers and 1-2 wizards.

Portia and Selkie are both clerics with black magic secondary now. Note how the tiniest slops is preventing Portia from just buffing them both - notice also how the buff can miss. Ultimately, she casts it on Thurio.

Fun thing you can do with wizards. So this guy targeted Thurio, who ran behind Drew before the spell could go off. The spell was targeted at Him Specifically, so it follows him around the map, and still does splash damage... so it hits the enemy knight, too.

Boom.

Basically always, the guests will make a beeline for the longbowman - it's why it helps to keep them squires for now, who are four move rather than most of the game's three.

Punchman charges an Aim on one of my wizards. You deal more damage to charging units. Sadly there's nothing I can do about-

- well, this.

Roof situation: sorted.

Since there's no other good place to really put this; there's no real damage mitigation mechanic in this game - at least not in equipment. Better armour just gives you more HP.

Anyway. Hilariously the map pans to Mercurio, who is probably meant to say something, but, well, just got shot, so he doesn't say... anything.

Argath drills the swordsman with a bunch of questions - mostly he wants to know where his marquis and his Wiglaf are.

um

jesus christ this is the shittest day of this dude's life

Argath is not a very good negotiator.

Argath is the only guy in the game for whom the overt floweriness actually works because he is actually a massive tryhard bellend.

When it comes to statements that will piss Argath off, this is like, maybe in the Top One.

Anyway, the guy admits that ransoming a dude isn't really part and parcel of their moral crusade agenda, and pins it on Gustav. Delita knows that guy, too - Gustav Margriff's apparently Wiglaf's right-hand man. Aaawkward.

Argath disagrees with him again. Guess what happens between the screenshots? Again? Anyway he tells us what he told Wiglaf - Gustav/the marquis are in the Sand Rat's Sietch.

This frame is only relevant because Delita's still crossing his arms. There's some weird exposition on sand rats and then we're golden.

Man, I hope Swordsman made it out okay.

 

 

[Mage Knight 404]

Cross-armed Unamused Delita is best Delita.

[Parrhesia]

The spritework really is the best part of this game. I love it enough to try and arrange gifs of it later on.

[maybe]

it is quite nice, good on you fft sprite artists

[Parrhesia]

I'd like to just encourage discussion in general, really. If people disagree with my interpretations or if they're seeing the game in a new light now or whatever - or if it's anyone's first experience with the game, what they're expecting to see from here. Though I guess it's early days yet, so I doubt there's been any EARTHSHAKING REVELATION moments.

(... and also from a selfish standpoint it feels good to see people engaging with the thread, I guess?)

[Parrhesia]

Update 6
In Which the Protagonist is Driven a Soft Bargain

Spoiler

 

We open with an explicitly lowborn brigand thug ruffian saying 'for true'.

I hope you like the continuation of the paradigm, but there is at least a new class - notable for being a brunet, it's the monk.

Thing is, any student of history knows that peasant uprisings - Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, the Jacquerie, Occupy Wall Street - are traditionally fucking exterminated and their followers slain in droves. Gustav's guys have given up. They want cash, and then they want out.

Sadly for them, us.

You're made to deploy in two groups - one with Delita, one with Argath. We're, uh, just gonna let Delita do his own thing. Sorry Delita.

Ssso we soften 'em up a bit first. Thurio, who'd paused to let the bombardment happen first, plants his bad, thicc self in the door.

Yeah so black magic's quite good in earlygame.

Easy! We're in, lads. Hey, where's Delita?

oh

Argath decides that collecting important things can go fuck itself and tries to win the map. I should honestly and unironically have just killed him.

We get fucking screwed by the corpses. The knights all drop their helmets and the archer crystallises without actually having any skills.

Selkie and Portia get into a tiff. For experience.

Oh, you motherfucker. Argath, you've lost your Items Privilege!

Oh well, guess we'll harvest this monk instead.

Argath steals our kill. The piece of shit.

His last name is Thadalfus, by the way. Argaththhhhphadalphus. FFT's names are all insanely bad.

'Long in the slaying?' Come on, dude.

Uh-oh, trouble in paradise. Gustav's got a lovely unique face that makes him look pleasantly older.

'make soft the packed earth on which he beds'
shut up
You too Wiglaf, nobody has a nose.

I am certain this will go well.

Oh.

Yeah, the game's inconsistent about who it gives custom portraits to. Which is good - Gustav deserved one. But it also handed one to the Surly Prologue Dude, so.

In the midst of this Argath has a line where he tries to pick a fight with Wiglaf and it's, like, dude. C'mon.

Wiglaf proposes that he lets the marquis go in return for his own freedom.

he
he is, argath.
he has the dude.
he has the dude that your entire arc thus far - hell, our entire arc thus far - is trying to save.
that's the dude he has.
he is offering
to give
the dude
in exchange for not killing the dude,
or us,
(which he totally could)
which is a strong bargaining position
to have.
a position to
bargain.
is what he holds.
right
now.

Anyway, in another nice bit of animation, Wiglaf cautiously circles the room, and so do we, keeping a respectful distance from one another.

Then he zooms off. Argath's faced with a test - does he hate poor people more than he loves his liege?

Yes. Yes, he does.

Delita stops Argath fighting Wiglaf three times in this scene alone. He's saved Argath's life four times now.

Anyway, the Marquis is fine. In fact, we completed all our objectives, perfectly solving a mission which wasn't even the one we were given in the first place! (Do you remember Zalbaag's spy? Haha yeah me neither.) We resolved the situation pretty much perfectly. Gustav is dead, the VIP is secure, and all without like, any actual casualties. Okay, so a lot of Corpse Brigadiers died, but they aren't really people, right? I'm sure that we will return to Eagrose, which we... okay, which we abandoned without leave, to a heroes' welcome-

oh.

 

 

[Mage Knight 404]

You know I actually really like the flowery purple prose WoTL has but man some of these lines are maxx cringe sometimes. Also Wiglaf having a right wigged laff.

Dycedarg about to get the fucking belt, no one upstages this man's soul patch.

[SoloCross]

Aragath does get a unique version of the Squire class, he gets two Knight skills in it (Break Armor and Break Helm IIRC).

[maybe]

is "long in the slaying" some new way of saying you have a big dick

[Parrhesia]

actually that would be "schlong in the laying" i'm p. sure

[Baldrick]

I love how Argath is casually standing on Delita's spine in the post battle scene.

[eclipse]

This should've been titled

Spoiler

Final Fantasy Tactics: Made Possible Because We Didn't Murder Argath Like We Should've

 

[Integrity]

14 hours ago, unique said:

is "long in the slaying" some new way of saying you have a big dick

holy shit ciaran can confirm i am still laughing at this post

[Parrhesia]

i can

[Parrhesia]

Update 7
In Which We Choose Mercy

Spoiler

 

So yeah it turns out that Zalbaag never actually informed his elder brother and liege of the whole 'I'm gonna point the impressionable kid brother in the direction of all the fighting' thing, so we're kind of- I mean Dice is pretty justifiably mad about this.

We really aren't off to a great start with the whole 'gonna make the Beowulves proud' thing. We explicitly did abandon the castle. All may be well that ended well, but like, we went above and beyond even what Zalbaag dictated. We didn't find his dude in Dorter - we did find information. We should've gone back to Zalbaag and been like, 'this is where they are'.

Enter - I'll just say it straight up, it's Prince Larg, our boss. Interestingly, Argath's like, very distinctly last to realise he needs to bow here.

"boys will be boys" - the Northern Doctrine on military strategy

Dice points out they need to learn discipline. Larg ignores him.

jesus dude dice is right there
Larg's like, 'you clearly aren't just castle patrol', and then he gives a meaningful stare to Dice.

Dice sighs and pencils it in. Poor dude.

We leave.

Hm.

We enter the Brigand Den, which is literally what it's called, to one of the patented Corpse Brigade Misery Huddles.

Yes, we've seen her brother before.

Argath mentions how much he fucking loves the Beowulfs, has he said that enough yet

We immediately encounter a problem. So one of the feather dudes - thieves - well, thieves steal. Thieves can Steal Heart. Anyway Selkie's charmed and I didn't buy any of the garbagedick squire abilities, foolishly as it happens, and well...

I have a plan and it doesn't work in time. Basically all my dudes - since speed is, you know, everyone in the fucking world has 6 speed at this level - everyone hit their turn at the same time and were just going to go in unit order.

haha bye argath

This... isn't going great.

I miss the screenshot but at some stage in this Selkie actually parries a deathblow with her staff!

oh

See that thief? That thief was gonna get healed by their priest.

Thanks priest!

And down goes Milleuda.

See, that's the thing with keystone fights - you're always in with a shot.

That's also the thing in a game with no incentive to rout. It's basically always the best option. I really fucked that fight up early on, but I was able to weasel out of it by just annihilating Milleuda. There's a fight coming up soon where it will basically be the ONLY option.

SHUT THE FUCK UP ARGATH

Mercurio just sort of lets them have it out.

Milleuda tells us all to go fuck ourselves and limps off.

Bitch that's Alicia and/or Lavian's animation you're stealing!

Delita looks at Mercurio, then just sort of shakes his head.

Argath is canonically sixteen years old.

Anyway, back to the Mansion. I wonder what's going on the-

oh.

By the by, I'm keeping a kill counter updated throughout the LP (not counting random battles). Please, members of the thread, feel free to predict the number of Archers, Knights and Black Magi (or whatever else, really, I guess) we will kill throughout the game. There will
I dunno
probably be some kind of prize for the winner or something.

 

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's a pity you finished the Thieves' Fort battle so quickly, since otherwise Algus and Miluda have a great mid-battle exchange, in which Algus utters quite possibly his scummiest line in the whole game, "Animals have no god!" (I forget what it is in WotL. Probably too flowery, but still effective.)

I have to admit, I love Algus. He's a great character. Utterly hatable and reprehensible in his views surrounding class, yet he's a product of his society and you can understand where he's coming from, even as you enjoy him getting punched in the face.

[Mage Knight 404]

In lieu of Milleuda, Argath goes full ham and just makes her hate Mercurio more for leaving her alone. Nice one, dingus.

Oh my, a kill count? Ah, but there's just so many that I can't rightly call an amount of bodies to be had! Except for birbs - enough to fill a tub for Mercuriio's band of selfs to feast, an even 30 or so should meet their end. (Is there even that many you fight in mandatory battles? God it's been a hot minute...)

[Etria]

It's kinda cute that the charm attack is called Steal Heart. Sounds like they're serenading their victims while everybody around them are fighting and dying.

[Radiant Dragon]

It always surprised me that the marquis doesn't get any lines whatsoever in Chapter 1 after you rescue him, considering that he's a somewhat important character later on.

[The Malign Knight]

23 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I have to admit, I love Algus. He's a great character. Utterly hatable and reprehensible in his views surrounding class, yet he's a product of his society and you can understand where he's coming from, even as you enjoy him getting punched in the face.

I definitely agree: Algus is one of those one simply loves to hate(and I feel that the WoTL version, aside from very few lines, made an excellent in making him much more hateable. But then again, I actually love WoTL's script, so I'm definitely biased here)

20 hours ago, Radiant Dragon said:

It always surprised me that the marquis doesn't get any lines whatsoever in Chapter 1 after you rescue him, considering that he's a somewhat important character later on.

Eh. You have to consider that he was badly wounded here and when he was resting, Ramza and the others were doing other more important things.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see more updates of this LP. It's interesting to see another and new perspective regarding this game.

 

 

[Parrhesia]

Update 8
In Which We Choose Fight

Spoiler

 

This dude is my favourite dude in Ivalice.

Aaand he's off.

Well, they got the fucking scullery maid, so that's gone great for them.

... Reminder, by the way, that this is the place we were meant to be guarding. Oops.

Well, let's go home.

Let's encounter a random battle on the way home.

Trivia: there's a random battle later in the game in some forest that's literally just thirteen monks.

Mercurio's having no time for that - well, okay, some time for that. But his first priority's Tietra.

Dice's... isn't?

Oh, alright. Then we're agreed, it's all chill.

Delita's pretty reasonably steamed up. Mercurio points out that they don't actually have any idea where Tietra is and that maybe they should just leave this to the professiona-

It's all good. Mercurio's the forgiving sort. This is all under contro-

-fuck off Argath.

Again, credit to the animations - that is a really satisfying punch.

That said, way to play into stereotypes, bro.

And here's where they drop the ball with Argath. This is where a guy who has been shown in sort of subtle ways not to value commoners, for good- well, okay, for A reason - you know, beating that guy up while seeming totally out of touch - this is the crossroads. They might've had him like, accept his mistakes - you know, he's been working with Delita all this time just fine-ish apart from being the two guys who are not Mercurio and thus need to be at cross-purposes for dialogue... or, fuck it, you know, something other than just have had him turn out to be a fascist holding his tongue This Whole Time.

Fuck, I dunno. It's not like it's inconsistent with his character - like I said, it does accurately sound like he just gets mad at getting hit and it all kinda spills out - but spoilers, he never goes back on this. He's just evil now, and he's about to abandon us.

Or, more accurately, we're about to kick him out. With everything he's wearing, if you aren't psychic.

I like this part to it. And Argath, prick though he may be, 's whole thing with Mercurio in general. There's so much envy there. Argath admires nobility. Through pure happenstance, he falls in with this noble. Fights alongside him. But this noble doesn't really know HOW to noble, and if he turns away Argath's advice... it's like this shitty 16-year old kid shaking his head about 'wasted potential'. Potential that would not of course have been wasted if Argath were strong and powerful, as he believes his birth should be apart from A Blip, His Quisling Grandfather.

But he's fond of Mercurio, regardless. He thinks his plan to save Tietra is really stupid, but hey, he'll tip him off.

They should've gone somewhere with this. In my view, Argath should've been the third guy running parallel to Mercurio and Delita across the whole game. But he won't - he appears just twice more all game.

Meanwhile, Mercurio, the perfect cavalier, should probably like, be grateful or some shit to his idiot teenage friend who got mad after being punched.

Hilariously this is the second time in the conversation where Argath has shrugged dramatically at Mercurio. He's such a dramaboy.

We head off to Mandalia, where this happens. Watch the cutscene. Mourn for the death of the career of the guy who voiced Mercurio. I wish I'd picked a simpler name for him. Keep wanting to spell it Mercutio, like the ACTUAL Shakespeare character...

https://youtu.be/-Jhr9kikuNQ

Look, it's probably corny as hell but I do like the grass flutes and their vague spookiness.

Also if you don't remember, the Chapter 1 title was 'the Meagre', so this is as close as I think we're going to get to a namedrop.

Also; "do you remember, Ramza?" Jesus christ. Remember how Final Fantasy 10 went literally every voiced line in the game without referencing Tidus' name for exactly this reason? Oh well.

Meanwhile in the Pub, Henry VI's gonna Henry VI.

Propaganda!

And unsurprisingly Tietra doesn't hold many news values.

We have nothing to say. Milleuda 2 begins.

We're facing Milleuda because we consciously made the decision to let her go. Now we are fighting her again immediately after. That is fine and thematic.

We will fight other guys like three or four times. Because they teleport after we kill them and are totally fine and we are powerless to stop them. That is neither fine nor thematic.

no dude we beat them up first then we interrogate them

This is good, but Milleuda talks too much here. The actual important part of this is that Delita (and Tietra by extension) is a man without a country. To a commoner, he's just another rich kid. To the actual nobility, he's just another commoner. And it fucks Tietra in particular, since the Corpse Brigade have absolutely no distinction in mind - they snagged A Beowulf, right?

It took a lot of camera finagling to be entirely sure I'd hit the knight, since the game gives you no feedback. Also, since ... whichever one of Selkie/Portia this is can't target her directly, I can't tell how much damage it'll do. As it happens, her compatibility is poor.

The really fucking annoying thing about everyone having 6 speed is that they all move as a bloc. I don't have a single turn in the middle of their knights healing their mages, that other knight hitting my mage, and their mages setting my mages on fire.

And this is just BM, come on.

come the fuck on
Well I wonder if I can hit the mage and also the kni-

COME ON.

okay whatever i'll just hope that's the right bit of green

Bye Selks, or possibly Portia.

Well, at least Delita contributed. This is a bloodbath.

Fun with sandbagging.

Milleuda is incapable of talking in Not Screeds.

Finally! Agency!

Honestly I kind of respect an AI capable of friendly fire. It's the right thing to do.

Hilariously [citation needed] Delita attacks Milleuda, is blocked and dies to the counterattack. Thanks Delita.

Alright, from 2v3 to 3v2.

Milleuda, charitably pictured Not Teleporting At Critical Health.

Dude, Merc, have you even been listening to her? I mean I can understand vaguing out but Christ, her entire spiel is like

Milleuda rebuts.

Dilemma.

Thurio can try and punk Milleuda and end the fight. I don't know his odds of hitting. The safe play would be to resurrect Portia/Selkie before they crystallise. I don't know if he can resurrect at that height. This would not be a problem if I could take my moves back, which is a thing you can do in every other SRPG ever made.

great.

I am unapologetic about using savestates to compensate for basic game mechanics which FFT inexplicably lacks.

Fuck it, let's plunder.
Oh, nevermind, Milleuda eats her own fucking time mage.

You know, maybe I should just give up on this whole idea of 'getting rewards for routing the field rather than just trying to cut the head off the snake.' Since, you know, the enemies will turn those rewards into full heals, a thing I forgot they were capable and eager of doing. They'll also steal treasure!

that kind of day, huh.

... Okay, I can't blame the game for that one.

THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU TO GO THERE EXCEPT OUT OF SPITE, JESUS CHRIST.

finally.

Oh, hey, more bad writing. Siblings never address each other as 'Brother' or 'Sister', that's just fucking weird, this line stems from an embarrassing mistranslation of an honourific.

We have killed a lot of fucking people, Mercurio!!

Chill out, class traitor.

Hey I've got a suggestion for a battle trophy
How about the fucking trophies left on the fucking battlefield

That battle was a trainwreck. Between the garbage height, suicidal guests and the determination of our opponents and the circumstances to ensure we routed everyone for the bonus of... One Silk Robe... oh, yeah, and three knights and two black magi.

KILL COUNTER

 

 

[maybe]

how did this game get released without anyone realizing that the cutscenes don't make sense if you changed the character's name

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

Trivia: there's a random battle later in the game in some forest that's literally just thirteen monks.

Eleven, actually, and it's on a hill, but yeah. The game has a series of rare encounters in various locations that only appear past a certain point in Chapter 4.

6 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

I am unapologetic about using savestates to compensate for basic game mechanics which FFT inexplicably lacks.

I will absolutely concede this one; the fact that you can't take back moves in FFT is terrible and probably its worst flaw in my eyes (at least mechanically).

6 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

Oh, hey, more bad writing. Siblings never address each other as 'Brother' or 'Sister', that's just fucking weird, this line stems from an embarrassing mistranslation of an honourific.

Mmm, I half agree, but consider that it was much more common to do so in the past, which FFT's translation is obviously imitating.

Not that you'll see me defending the translation much. See Dycedarg's "in no fevered dream would I have thought..." after he has been fucking stabbed. That kind of evocative adjective is just not something anyone is going to use in that situation. (Or if they do it'd be for comic effect; I could easily see someone like Bastian doing it. Totally not Dycedarg, though.)

14 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

Or, more accurately, we're about to kick him out. With everything he's wearing, if you aren't psychic.

Nah, you get all your equipment back even if you leave it on him. This happens even when a character in chapter 2 actively leaves you mid-fight; what a considerate fellow.

[Parrhesia]

Just now, Dark Holy Elf said:

Mmm, I half agree, but consider that it was much more common to do so in the past

Source?

I did think they took the equipment off you, but, well... better safe than sorry, I guess! It makes sense though, since Another C2 Departure Where I Didn't Strip The Character let me keep my shit and, well, mechanically it's just another departure like Argath's.