Haven’t we all wondered what Final Fantasy Tactics job class we would be? I suppose I’d have to say thief, for myself (though my charm would suck). Thieves are rather weak, which is a shame, but then I can’t bench press anything larger than a medium-sized root vegetable, either.Â
Shall we think up some thiefy outfits? Yes, let’s.
I think this might be my favourite game ever, if I had to choose one. Playing it at the age of fifteen was almost unfair, because it gave me a mesmeric flash of what videogames might be capable of, if handled by people with good taste, who weren’t putting the profit line above the work itself, and nearly nothing since then has lived up to that early hopeful projection (not that I won’t play it and love it, whatever it is, anyway [and obviously this is all just my own nostalgia-slanted opinion]). I used to spend so many hours at this game, that my mum would come and stand in my doorway, and make a sort of continuous worry noise. Didn’t I have homework to do? I almost never did my homework, but there wasn’t any need for her to know that. And anyway, most of those hours were spent painstakingly levelling my “calculator”, which, you have to admit, at least sounds like homework.
The upside of this game being so good, of course, is that it holds its worth. Not just the gameplay, but the design as well. I look at the character illustrations, and they’re still fresh. I still find things that I want to hijack for myself. Even from a clothing/style point of view. A brave man or woman could very nearly walk the streets in a lot of this get-up, and not even look that peculiar (well, I suppose it would depend on what streets. Maybe not small-town Saskatchewan).
The first place I encountered the FFT art was in a Gamefan Magazine preview. Look, I’ll even scan it and put it up. I left off drawing noses right then and there, and it was a long time before I returned to them.
Actually, I could go on at length about Gamefan, too. Other teenage girls might have been starting to go on dates with (real) people (roughly their own age). Me, all of my crushes were on the editors of this magazine. I still view Takuhi (or Casey Loe, as it took me several months’ process of elimination to discover) as the love of my life. I mean, um, ahem, after Brandon, that is.
See that weird shadowy guy on the left? Yes, that would be him. And oh my god, I just realized that he bears a suspicious resemblance to the title character of my book, Beast. Well. How about that.
Nowadays, not having a television, I play FFT on the handy portable devices (and actually, I have no idea where my ancient original disk is, though I suppose I should be preserving it as a collector’s item or whatever). Handheld machines, by the way, are the coziest thing in the world. Nice hot cup of tea, and some Yoshi’s Island, while I recline at my ease on the chesterfield? Well then. Don’t mind if I do.
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