Tactical RPG’s, they are games for people who like to think about what they are about to do instead of rushing in head first yelling, “LEEEERRRRROOOYYYYYY JJJJEEEENNNNKKKIIINNNSSSS!” with guns blazing. Not that there is anything wrong with that (seriously there isn’t, have you read my DOOM article?), but as a lover of tactical RPG’s I must say there is a great feeling of satisfaction when you plan your attack perfectly and the enemy goes down without knowing what hit them. It’s like you’re playing chess, except your pieces can move farther and carry swords, bows, use magic, and maybe one of them can turn into a big ass dragon. Now there are tons of tactical games out there both fantasy and non-fantasy, but for now, I am narrowing the spectrum to 2 fantasy series in particular. The Fire Emblem series and Final Fantasy Tactics series. Why these two? Well for one Fire Emblem just had a new game released (one that I am trying to find as much time as possible to play) and Final Fantasy Tactics is the game that got me going from, “Man these games look stupid,” to “HOLY CRAP THIS GAME IS AMAZING!” My own personal feelings aside there is still one big question to answer. Which of these games should you play first?

I will not lie, that is a hard question to answer. I personally played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance first because of an episode of X-Play gave it a 4/5 rating and I was just getting into Final Fantasy at the time. So I figured, “Eh, why not?” Turns out that I would spend over a 172 hours playing the damn game and getting hooked into it. I loved FFTA and wanted to play another tactics game, then I heard about Fire Emblem for the GBA but alas never got to play the game. I wouldn’t play my first Fire Emblem game until 2013 when Fire Emblem Awakening came out. I would even search for the older games at video game stores and trade shows but the vendors either didn’t have a copy or it was outrageously overpriced.

Now enough walking down memory lane and let’s get to what you came here for: the games. Both games have the same basic bare bones principle. Your army of soldiers versus the other army of soldiers, your army has to survive or it’s game over. The grid mechanics are essentially the same and each side takes turns moving and beating each other up. Now this is where the two games go into very different paths. FFT (Final Fantasy Tactics) has the player control one unit at a time, once you move a particular unit, then it is the next unit’s turn and that unit could not be yours. FFT takes your army’s speed stat into account and shuffles the order of units to move based off that. So you can move say your swordsman and archer into an attacking move and provide backup. In FE (Fire Emblem) when you have a turn, you have a turn to move ALL your units, not just certain ones and then the other guy goes. Oh no, you can pick and choose which units to attack, retreat, or stand still and lure out enemy units. The only catch is that when you’re done moving your units, the enemy does the same thing and it keeps going until one is left standing.

Combat is also different in the two games. FE for example, when your units get attacked they can actually fight back (unless the attacking unit is out of range). This is a huge difference to FFT because in that game the only way a unit can fight an attacking unit is if the defending unit was able to learn the ‘Counter‘ ability. Personally I like the strategy of knowing that an enemy is going to fight back better than knowing they aren’t. It forces you to plan ahead and pick out units to attack and which to keep in reserve. The only thing I got used to in FFT that’s different in FE is that the archers in FFT can hit a target from a much farther distance or at point blank range. FE archers have to be either 2 spaces away from a target and if say a axe user were to go fight a archer face to face, the archer is screwed for he/she can’t attack back. Also in FFT the weapons you have are good for the whole game, I don’t know if this is true for earlier FE games (as I’ve said before I have only beaten Awakening) but the weapons you have at your disposal won’t last you forever. In fact, once a spear has reached its limit it will be broken and you would have to buy a new one. The same can be said for other weapons that are considered “legendary”. Thankfully they have fixed this in FE Fates and the only weapons that, for lack of a better term, run out of ammo are the healing staves. Still a little annoying but to the games credit it does add another level of strategy. However the biggest punishment of FE is the infamous permanent death. Yep it’s like Game of Thrones was turned into a video game. In the earlier games, once you lost a character that was it. That character was dead, poof, gone. There was no way to bring them back. Add that to the super high difficulty of the older games then you have a seriously hard fight on your hands. Awakening was the first game in the FE series to give players the option to turn perma-death off. You can still loose units in battle, but they will be ready to fight in the next round so the player could stop having to reload their save file the second they lost a character they really liked. FFT didn’t have anything like that but FFT Advance and A2 (Advance’s sequel) have something a little different. They had the Law system, in Advance right before each fight a new set of laws was issued and if you broke any of these laws (like using a sword or casting a certain magic spell) the offending unit would either be issued a warning or sent straight to JAIL! Yep, the slammer, and that unit wouldn’t be able to fight with you again until you bail them out too. A2 changed this system a bit. Instead of sending a character to jail for breaking the law, you just wouldn’t get any bonus items or extra XP. It’s a fun and different system but I still have nightmares when I had a crap ton of swordsmen on the field and I couldn’t use them because swords were forbidden. It was a bitch and a half to beat that level, but I did.

The stories of these games are different depending on which game you play. I quite enjoyed the story of FFT Advance, which was about a boy who buys a magical book and wakes up in the book’s world and does his best to get home. The story in A2 is pretty much the same but the protagonist if very hesitant to go home. The original FFT game is held in very high regard as one of the best Final Fantasy stories ever told. The FE stories I know of are about a kingdom at war with another kingdom. However,  the newest game of FE Fates takes it up a notch by having the player decide to fight with the family of his blood or the family that raised him. It’s a beautiful twist and there is DLC for not picking a side as well. Personally, the Fates story line is a huge improvement from Awakening but there were some great pieces of a story in Awakening. FE also has a mechanic that lets the player write their own story by playing matchmaker. You can team certain characters together in battles and watch their relationship grow from friends to husband and wife. In Awakening and Fates if two units were to marry their kids show up and join your army. I enjoy it since some of the conversations between the characters are freaking hilarious and if you play with perma-death on it gives you more units to fight with.

Now comes the deciding part, which is something I still can’t make up my mind about so I shall leave you with this. If you want to play a game that’s easy to pick up and won’t completely murder on the first few levels, then the FFT handheld series (Advance and A2) are for you. If you love a challenge then the entire FE series is the way to go. However, one word of warning for those who want to play FFT, these games are pretty damn hard to find. Even at trade shows or the internet. FFT Advance is on sale on Amazon but at a whopping $120! If you really can’t pay that much (trust me I don’t blame you) then FE Birthright is the way to go. It’s a lot easier difficulty wise and was actually made for players who are new to the series and the tactical RPG genre. Both series are gems in the genre and are a ton of fun to play. Trust me, I spent over 100 hours playing these things so they eat up time pretty quickly.

About The Author

Ben Praster

Some where in sunny Southern California, Ben Praster is avoiding the sun by either playing video games, reading comic books, writing his book, or watching movies and TV shows on Netflix.  When he DOES finally see the sun, you’ll most likely find him at a local trade show hunting down old school games

Hello, Wo

rld!