Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 84: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

(+) Yeah! (+)

Todays game is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

-

Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.83 (12 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.6 (21 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (34 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.14 (7 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.89 (19 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.85 (19 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.56 (27 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.38 (28 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.37 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.35 (55 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.28 (37 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.17 (18 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.17 (21 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.15 (40 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.04 (14 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.94 (27 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (31 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.81 (25 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.7 (30 votes)
Celeste - 7.62 (25 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.62 (13 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.47 (29 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (24 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7.05 (22 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (5 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (21 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Gone Home - 6.91 (17 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.67 (31 votes)
Firewatch - 6.65 (10 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.61 (28 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - 6.5 (13 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 6.31 (35 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.15 (13 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.16 (14 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.8 (25 votes)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 5.72 (9 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.78 (30 votes)
Metroid Prime - 5.67 (24 votes)
Kingdom Hearts - 5.59 (30 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.79 (29 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.83 (12 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.43 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy - 4.24 (19 votes)
Resident Evil 6 - 3.74 (17 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.46 (15 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.32 (11 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - 2.66 (16 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.33 (9 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

---

Marche was right

---

If you play it straight it's like a 3/10

But if you are galaxy brain and follow the Marche is a villain line of thought it's like a 9/10

I live in the 9/10 world

---

VLR > 999, very good

Nominate Braid

---

2.5/10

Oh boy, this should be a fun one.

I don't hate FFTA's story the way a lot of people do. I just find it completely meh and forgettable (just like the gameplay).

---

3

I don't have anything against the whole Neverland premise of Ivalice on its own, but the theme of escapism is poorly written and explored. The game never really provides an argument or story details as to why the escapism is so bad, so it just comes off as if it's lecturing the player on its theme.

---

1/10

Not the worst game story ever, but definitely my least-favorite

A failure on every conceivable level

Marche memes are A+ though

---

LeonhartFour posted...

VLR > 999, very good

More importantly, VLR/999 > Danganronpa

---

I quit after a few hours. Not sure if this is due to the story or due to the gameplay. I remember nothing. I'll go with a 2.

---

10

I'm not joking, this is my favorite jrpg plot of all time, because it's probably the only one I've ever played that grapples with an interesting and genuinely sticky moral dilemma in a way that's mature and not overwrought, all wrapped up in a setting that I find to be spellbindingly adorable. I am absolutely here for the FFTA discourse, the fact that it's so divisive is just proof to me that it's as challenging as it wanted to be

Paratroopa1 posted...

the fact that it's so divisive is just proof to me that it's as challenging as it wanted to be

I've seen you post this in several topics, and I can't agree with that line of thinking at all. Divisive doesn't automatically mean good. Generating discussion doesn't automatically mean good. The Room generated a ton of discussion and it's exceptionally bad.

(Also FFTA isn't divisive. It's largely reviled and most of the people who like it, like it ironically.)

---

can't wait for Para's 10/10 for FFVIII

Seriously though, divisive can be good if it's a result of a legit moral quandary where people can argue both sides and still feel justified in their position. There's a difference between something like Tales of the Abyss or Tales of Symphonia (which I think did pull that off) or, for instance, Mass Effect 3, where the divisive nature of the game is from those who think the ending just completely ruined the entire experience and those who generally don't like the ending (or don't mind it but also don't love it) but don't consider it a dealbreaker.

---

5/10, it was aight

---

KamikazePotato posted...

I've seen you post this in several topics, and I can't agree with that line of thinking at all. Divisive doesn't automatically mean good. Generating discussion doesn't automatically mean good. The Room generated a ton of discussion and it's exceptionally bad.

(Also FFTA isn't divisive. It's largely reviled and most of the people who like it, like it ironically.)

to be fair para doesn't say divisiveness = good, rather divisiveness=challenging or that it did what it set out to do, which is a different point, I think

---

It's really really silly and impossible to take seriously. It's actually a lot like the star wars prequels in how it's awful yet memeable and easy to enjoy ironically.

But it's really like a 3/10
---

colliding posted...

to be fair para doesn't say divisiveness = good, rather divisiveness=challenging or that it did what it set out to do, which is a different point, I think

Right, I don't think divisiveness is good for its own sake, but I do think that FFTA frustrates people in exactly the right way that makes thinking about the narrative so interesting for me, personally, and I realize it's weird to say that I'm glad that people are annoyed by FFTA because that's not really what I mean lol, but just that I think that people having a reaction to it means that it kind of succeeded at doing what it seemed to want to do? I mean lots of people just think the story sucks in general and that's perfectly fine, I'm only here to advocate not to argue, but the fact that people get so frustrated with Marche specifically is what makes this a genuinely compelling text for me

I thought it was interesting from what I played, but I didn't get more than halfway.

I liked the John Locke wheelchair kid as an "antagonist"

---

2

Meme quality is top-tier though.

---

Oh, I've been waiting for this one.

So I actually went back and read a script dump of FFTA in preparation for this topic, because I remember really liking this game's plot as a kid and I was curious if it held up.

The good news is that conceptually this is one of my favorite video game plots of all time. The idea of four elementary kids accidentally warping reality to create a fantasy world that magically fixes all the problems in their lives, only to slowly realize that the only way to actually fix your life is to do a bunch of hard work and grow as a person, and that therefore the goal of the game is to destroy the escapist fantasy world to return to a kind of shitty real world... that is a compelling concept. That is so much more interesting than a save-the-world plot (even though there's still a little bit of that with trying to restore St. Ivalice, but the game doesn't even pretend that's any character's main motivation). Marche and Mewt are a really interesting hero and villain, too, and a lot of the side characters are surprisingly complex figures (Babus and Cid in particular). If I was rating on concept or potential alone this story is a 10/10.

The bad news is that the execution is legitimately awful. The pacing is all screwed up, with a slow start, nonexistent middle, and rushed end. Bafflingly, most characters don't have any real character development until the post-game, and a major subplot is locked behind 100%ing the game. The dialogue is extremely generic (a huge number of battles start with some variant of "We're going to defeat you all!" "No, it's us who will defeat you all!") A lot of major details about the setting are extremely obscure, to the extent that the average player probably won't notice them at all. The world-building is inconsistent, to the point where the game can't even decide on the relationship between Ivalice and St. Ivalice. Marche is an interesting hero with complicated motivations but 90% of the time his actual dialogue and actions are just Generic Hero Guy.

I really really want to like this game's story, and in a sense I do -- I feel like I could write a 15 page article on all the cool ideas this game's plot has, no problem -- but the game practically goes out of its way to squander its potential.

It is with a heavy heart that I must say:

3/10

also marche did nothing wrong

---

Marche did nothing wrong if you're okay with him killing a bunch of people to get his old world back

Which is fine (although the execution of his motivations is trash), I actually have a much bigger issue with the nonsensical way the inhabitants of the world react when they learn of his plan

---

My more serious take is pretty close to Kenri's. The concepts and ideas are there for a truly great plot but the execution is just so bad.

...It's part of why the FFTA memes are so good. Whether you're making Marche out to be a supervillain or you're me and went on that "What if Ivalice was actually a reflection of Marche's self-loathing and denial made manifest and that is why he is drawn to destroy it - its destruction is itself the wish being granted to him" absolute nonsense I was going on about a few weeks ago when I was clearly too tired and too meme'd to be trusted to post anything. Either way it's better execution of all the pieces FFTA has lying around and fails to use with any real competence.

---

1/10

The score rises if you pretend that Marche is a villain but that's more of a bad thing.

---

Lol. A very very easy

1

KamikazePotato posted...

Marche did nothing wrong if you're okay with him killing a bunch of people to get his old world back

Which is fine (although the execution of his motivations is trash), I actually have a much bigger issue with the nonsensical way the inhabitants of the world react when they learn of his plan

See this is what I mean about major details being hidden where the average player won't notice them! Almost everyone in Ivalice was just someone from St. Ivalice memory wiped and transformed into a new role based on how much Mewt liked them. His best friends and family became the ungodly powerful heroes and rulers, people he didn't care about became "NPCs", and the people he hated became monsters/outlaws for the heroes to hunt down and defeat. There are a handful of exceptions, characters like Babus (transformed from Mewt's teddy bear) and Llednar (just another aspect of Mewt). And even then I don't think either of them actually died because the game pulls its punch and Marche doesn't actually end up destroying Ivalice! The number of people Marche canonically kills is super low, if not zero!

The nonsensical reactions are weird if you think Ivalice is a fully formed world, but they make perfect sense if you consider that Ivalice is just wish fulfillment. It's a world created based on Marche's unconscious desires and explicitly modeled after his favorite video game. Of course the average person helps him with his quest. Why would he create a world where he's the hero but everyone wants to stop him? This is why the only real opposition is from Mewt and the other kids, and their allies.

---

Side note: the whole 'don't rely on escapism' falls apart because Doned's desire is entirely reasonable and Ritz's desire is weaksauce. Wanting to not be crippled is pretty valid! The best analogy I can think of is that Doned got advanced prosthetics to let him walk again and Marche stole them because that would mean Doned wasn't 'facing his fears'. On the other hand, Ritz's hair color thing lacks any sort of emotional punch and I can't believe they couldn't think of something better.

Mewt is the one case where the escapism angle actually kinda works, because while reviving his dead mom is a very valid desire, she was replaced by a weird monster clone so it's probably for the best that Marche's murderous tendencies solved that situation.

---

The execution was pretty bad there, yeah. I have a theory about Ritz but it's death-of-the-author stuff, probably not what the writers intended. With Doned though, and the game makes this point very poorly, but it was less about being crippled and more that he felt he was missing out on life. The thing is, he didn't actually do anything in Ivalice either. He didn't lead a clan, he didn't try to stop Marche himself, he essentially just conned random people into fighting Marche for him. He had working legs, but he was still just as helpless and reliant on others as when he was in his wheelchair.

Then Marche says like three sentences to him and it's all fixed and once they're back in St. Ivalice he's shown attending school and making friends and stuff. Character development! Well, if we're very generous it is, at least.

---

Kenri posted...

See this is what I mean about major details being hidden where the average player won't notice them! Almost everyone in Ivalice was just someone from St. Ivalice memory wiped and transformed into a new role based on how much Mewt liked them. His best friends and family became the ungodly powerful heroes and rulers, people he didn't care about became "NPCs", and the people he hated became monsters/outlaws for the heroes to hunt down and defeat. There are a handful of exceptions, characters like Babus (transformed from Mewt's teddy bear) and Llednar (just another aspect of Mewt). And even then I don't think either of them actually died because the game pulls its punch and Marche doesn't actually end up destroying Ivalice! The number of people Marche canonically kills is super low, if not zero!

The nonsensical reactions are weird if you think Ivalice is a fully formed world, but they make perfect sense if you consider that Ivalice is just wish fulfillment. It's a world created based on Marche's unconscious desires and explicitly modeled after his favorite video game. Of course the average person helps him with his quest. Why would he create a world where he's the hero but everyone wants to stop him? This is why the only real opposition is from Mewt and the other kids, and their allies.

See, here's the thing. The narrative doesn't care that the people of the old world were erased/memory wiped/transformed. It's not at all something that anyone is concerned with. Marche's angle is that the world is 'fake', not that he's rescuing people. The game COULD have gone that route to make things more morally gray, discussing if it's worth destroying a new world to revive an old one, but it doesn't. It's all about escapism.

There's one endgame fight where a person asks Marche why he's doing what he's doing. He literally answers "I don't know."

And while the world was formed based on the core cast's subconscious desires, it's still a real world. The people in it have their own thoughts, dreams, and emotions. Marche's callous disregard for their lives while the narrative paints him as a hero is entirely tone deaf.

Basically I think everything in the story contradicts everything else and nothing works.

---

The Ides of Marche

---

6.5

Look, this game is clearly not intending to be some kind of moral dilemma or we are the real baddies story. What it is drawing on is 80s kids fantasies about the dangers of escapism and doing it quite well. It is absolutely fine it just became a meme.

---

KamikazePotato posted...

And while the world was formed based on the core cast's subconscious desires, it's still a real world. The people in it have their own thoughts, dreams, and emotions.

I honestly do not think the game supports this interpretation. I'm way more likely to believe this about a setting like Koholint Island (old Zelda spoilers) than Ivalice. If Ivalice is supposed to be "real" in any meaningful sense it definitely does not show it, at all -- and it would make the setting way more inconsistent than it already is.

---

Kenri posted...

I honestly do not think the game supports this interpretation. I'm way more likely to believe this about a setting like Koholint Island (old Zelda spoilers) than Ivalice. If Ivalice is supposed to be "real" in any meaningful sense it definitely does not show it, at all -- and it would make the setting way more inconsistent than it already is.

People in Ivalice are shown as having desires that aren't related to the four kids. There's a society that exists outside of the main plot, and characters working to understand the nature of their world. The final boss is even stated to be made of everyone's hopes and dreams! The world is influenced by the kids' desires, but it's not controlled by them. Marche and the gang could all die and Ivalice would continue on. It's not the same as Kolohint (which also has some claims to being real in its own sense anyway).

Lightning Strikes posted...

It is absolutely fine it just became a meme.

I thought the story was awful back when I first played it as a kid with low standards, and before I talked to anyone else about it.

---

Its not only seen that way because of memes, but memes fixed that idea in the discussion.

---

yeah memes go a long way toward actually shaping public opinion, for better or worse

like people thinking the laughing scene is terrible

---

KamikazePotato posted...

People in Ivalice are shown as having desires that aren't related to the four kids. There's a society that exists outside of the main plot, and characters working to understand the nature of their world.

Granted, but as far as I can remember they're extremely minor characters; they show up for a quest or two and are never seen again. They certainly don't have any real depth of human emotion/motivation/history. It feels like a null tell to me since you'd expect a world based on a video game to have "NPCs" like that.

KamikazePotato posted...

The final boss is even stated to be made of everyone's hopes and dreams! The world is influenced by the kids' desires, but it's not controlled by them. Marche and the gang could all die and Ivalice would continue on.

The final boss is made up of "pure will" and of "the pure essence of every wish that makes up [Ivalice]", but it's very, very strongly implied that at that moment, in the final boss fight, it's literally just Marche and Mewt's wishes. Li-grim (the final boss) even states outright that the world is an illusion and that she'll do whatever Mewt wants.

Also, earlier in the game, Marche destroys the last crystal and Totema that was protecting it, and Li-grim shows up to tell him that even without the crystals holding the world together, it will persist as long as he and Mewt (and by implication Doned and Ritz) want it to. The kids are the *only* thing that keeps Ivalice around; even the crystals that supposedly do it basically just end up being set dressing without any real function. There's really no reason to believe that the world would continue to exist if they died in it, and honestly I'd question whether it's even possible for them to die in it (or at least for Mewt to).

---