I really love this game. I have to admit, I'm a little partial to squre-enix, and loved tactics for ps1. So I was predisposed to enjoy this game. I think that despite my common inclination toward ff-related games, ffta is a worthy game in-and-of-itself.

The main reason I loved this game was the enjoyable battles. I think they got a lot right with the mechanics, especially range of attack, and movement. There are a ton of different battle sequences, and a lot of them are vastly different from oneanother. There are over 300 unique scenerios, all with different purposes, items, characters, etc.

Another interesting mechanic is the Judges who roam Ivalice, making rules for the battle.  For example, for some battles you may not be able to heal or use ranged weapons.  For some reason people really hate this aspect of the game.  Yeah, it makes the game harder, but the whole point of SRPGs is to make you strategize and adapt to different battle situations anyway.  So I just looked at the Judges as another layer of strategy and thought it was cool because it made me mix up my tactics.

The graphics are wonderful as well, as the little character are brightly colored, animated well, and have a lot of personality.

Perhaps the weak part of the game is the story, which may seem a little contrived or childish (but hey, if you are playing a fantasy game, you got have some child imagination still left in you, right?) Although there are plenty of twists in the plot at the end, it's not the story that drove me, but the completion of all 300 events.

This is a well-done, finely-crafted, long, fun, game- which just happens to be wrapped up all kiddie-like.