Final Fantasy Tactics/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Algus/Argath comes back from the dead as Death Knight in a special battle in The War of the Lions. While he definitely deserves to be killed at least more than twice in one game, his last words are kind of haunting. He goes (back) to oblivion crying out for his mother... Of course, for many, this just gave people more ammo to use against him.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The Durai Reports offers one for just about everybody involved in the events surrounding Delita's rise to power: the Church is corrupt, Delita is a Magnificent Bastard who manipulated everyone to get what he wanted, Ramza is a hero who slew demons...
  • Delita may well be the most notorious example in video game history. He's either a tragic Anti-Villain who rises above prejudice and heartache only to find the world hasn't changed for the better and is forced to kill someone he cared deeply for in self-defense to boot or a vaguely repentant Manipulative Bastard whose mistreatment by the nobility leads him to equally evil actions, including the murder of his wife, who suspects he intended all along to kill her to consolidate his power... which, conveniently enough, he does. There's rarely a middle-ground between these views, either.
  • There are a few places in the game where the player can give Ramza different motivations for his actions, for example, choosing to focus on killing the bandits instead of saving Algus or Mustadio. These choices have very little impact on the rest of the plot, but whatever decision you make is commented upon.
  • Also, did Olan/Orran really see Ramza and Alma at the end of the game, or did they perish and all he saw was their ghosts? There is enough evidence to support both their death and their survival.
  • Not to mention St. Ajora Glabados: besides the conflicting sources about his history in-story, there's so much contradictory information about him that what he was actually like is impossible to determine. The character portrait hidden in the game suggests it might have been intended for there to be a flashback into his past, but since we never actually got any such thing... yeah.
• Anticlimax Boss: Ultima's final form has only one spell that causes a plethora of negative statuses. However, riding a Chocobo negates everything and all she can do is try and punch you with her mediocre attack rating. Amusingly enough, Ultima actually had some attacks programmed in that weren't really used by her default AI. Of course, given that by then, you likely have the game smashed into huge pieces on your living room floor, even if she uses more diverse attacks in the PSP version, she'll have almost no chance to use them.
• Complete Monster: While most antagonists are ordinary people who are either sympathetic, flawed or simply greedy and power-hungry, the following strongly lean in this direction:
  • Folmarv/Vormav is an incredibly vile piece of work. Turns out he's the one orchestrating all of the bloodshed to revive the fallen Ultima. It's implied that he was originally bad to begin with, but It Got Worse after he merged with Hashmal. Really, abusing and then murdering his son Isilud? And soon after that, bringing Zalbag back as a possessed Undead and pitting him against his brother Ramza? What a little... And while a lesser on, he also broke Ovelia's spirit by revealing that she's only a commoner brought up as a substitute for the real Princess Ovelia. There was no pragmatic cause for that last one... it was just sadistic, petty and cruel.
  • Dycedarg Beoulve is a total bastard who assassinates his own father to remove him from the equation that stopped Duke Larg from taking the throne of Ivalice and manipulates his entire family to serve his own needs, which include killing whoever he sees as opposition to his plans. And the worst part about it? He's one even before he obtains a Zodiac Stone. Few others in this game aspire to that level.
  • Grand Duke Barinten/Barrington, for his treatment of Rapha/Rafa and Marach/Malak, deserves this title... especially since, as an ordinary human (unlike the Lucavi), his crimes stand out as really heinous. Hell, his desire to seize the Ivalice throne is arguably the weakest of his crimes.
• Demonic Spiders: Level Grind enough and you might run into the following enemies:
  • A veritable army of Chocobos: the yellow ones heal HP damage, the black ones can fly and heal Standard Status Ailments (and can pelt you with rocks), the red ones have Chocobo Meteor, very high attack power and total disregard for terrain height.
  • An enemy party of eleven Monks, some of whom have the ability to revive their fallen allies instantly without using MP and pick you off from afar.
  • Behemoths, who have a one-hit KO ability.
  • Tauroses, who have a buttload of HP and the ability Wave Around, which hits all four squares surrounding it.
  • Mindflayers, who can cause your units to become confused and/or berserked.
  • Dragons, whose Breath Weapon can hit from two squares away.
  • Tiamats, who can pelt you with repeated dosages of fire or lightning.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Averted by Argath/Algus. It seems that no one likes him because he's a bigoted, stuck-up Jerkass. Doubles as Catharsis Factor when you both kill him at the end of Chapter 1, and again midway through Chapter 4 in the War of the Lions release.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Wiegraf and Zalbaag are both rather popular with fans, who would've loved for either one (or even better, both) to join the player party permanently.
  • Agrias Oaks is this for the main party. Helped by being one of the more developed characters who joins the party.
  • Despite having no personalities or even individual portraits to speak of, Lavian and Alicia - Agrias' two knights - often get developed roles in fanfiction. It's especially telling since Ladd/Rad - who is in a similar position - rarely gets this much acknowledgement, as when he does he's usually just Gafgarion's lackey who gets unceremoniously killed in the first fight against Gafgarion.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Ramza and Agrias are a very popular couple in fanfictions and donjons. Even Final Fantasy Record Keeper makes a small tease in one of Agrias' Soul Breaks.
• First Installment Wins: While Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 absolutely have their fans and defenders, the overall consensus is that the original was something unique. It's very common, for instance, to have people name the original Final Fantasy Tactics as their favorite game in the entire series (not the Tactics Gaiden Games, but the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole).
• Game Breaker:
  • The Special Units as a whole, but more specially:
    • Orlandeau/Orlandu a.k.a. "Thunder God Cid", who not only has ungodly stats, and knows just about all the sword abilities of several Special Units (Agrias, Gaffgarion and Meliadoul, to be precise) right off the bat, but also comes with with legendary equipment such as Excalibur free of charge. And you don't have to go to any extra effort to get him: he just gets dropped into your lap about two thirds of the way through, so the only way to not break the game is to deliberately not use him.
    • Speaking of Orlandeau, his equipment can turn the normally powerful but not overly powerful Agrias and Meliadoul into game breakers. Auto-Haste from Excalibur, plus the best armor (by a LOT) in the game gives them the same attack, speed and defense power as Orlandeau himself, just with slightly less versatility in Sword Techs.
  • The problem doesn't lie in skillset and equipment. The problem lies in the fact that Orlandu's exclusive starting class stats is the second best in the game, higher than even the class that have Infinity+1 Sword like requirements.
    • His actual stats are high, but not quite the advantage they are made out to be. The only thing really exceptional about him is high HP (which is kind of a minor issue given that equipment still contributes a lot of your HP) and MP (which you aren't using). Meliadoul actually does have slightly better physical attack growth and the system is manipulatable so anyone could have max stats if sufficiently motivated. Even so, with the same weaponry, it usually takes just as many hits for Meliadoul and Agrias to kill enemies as Orlandu with the same skill, so the fact Orlandu technically does slightly more damage is a bit irrelevant. Meliadoul, even with the lower multipliers from Temple Knight is still almost as good as Orlandu stat wise outside HP, MP, and a slight drop in physical attack. If you change classes, Reis has the best stat growth in her unique class, Meliadoul is the second best from a purely physical standpoint, and Beowulf, Cloud, and Orlandu are about the same in both physical and magic growth. Even then, they are only slightly above the standard unique NPC growth.
    • Orlandu's advantages over Meliadoul and Agrias are his gender and his equipment choices. Males have a higher innate Physical Attack (which Sword abilities use to calculate damage) and Orlandu can equip clothes and hats while other Knight-types can't (the Twist Headband and Power Sleeve boost PA by 2 each). The other two can't compete with Orlandu since they can't come close to matching his PA, nonetheless his other stats.
      • Orlandu's stat growth is actually mediocre. His high stats are mostly from his class. If you change classes, his stats drop significantly. Males generally have better physical growth, but the special characters have unique stat growth. Meliadoul has the second best physical stat growth in the game behind Reis, while Orlandu is only mediocre among unique characters.
    • He also has a Weaksauce Weakness in that he's very susceptible to Standard Status Effects... either that or just a really popular target for them. If he can't One-Hit Kill them, they'll drop something irritating on him and turn him into The Load. Or an enemy.
  • In the PSP version, FF12 cameo Balthier, who comes with superb equipment and upgraded Thief abilities. For fun, try this: Sky Pirate Balthier with an Ultimate Javelin using Barrage with equipment optimizing PA.
    • His barrage skill is akin to attacking twice with any weapon, it's unblockable, undodgeable and if he uses it with his default gun he can easily kill any unit withing 2 rounds from across the stage. He also has all the thief skills and all of Mustadio's skills and is extremely fast and versatile.
  • The Samurai ability Blade Grasp. Grants a percentage chance equal to your brave of blocking a physical attack, including arrows and bullets, despite its description. A high brave/low faith character with this skill is practically immortal.
  • Set the Monk's Martial Arm ability to a Ninja (rather than giving Dual Wield to a Monk). The Ninja has better mobility, stat multipliers and equipment options.
  • The Calculator/Arithmetician's skill set can make a spell caster nearly unstoppable, by allowing instant, free casting of most of the game's spells (including Flare and Holy) with unlimited range. Give the skill to a job with high magic power, and you've practically got a Person of Mass Destruction. If only this job was able to be scroll-glitched, it would easily become the most exploitable class in the game.
    • There's also armor that absorbs Holy elemental spells, so you could just nuke everybody on the field, hurting the enemy and healing yourself at the same time.
  • The Remake adds Dark Knight as a job class. Give one with Darkness, Iaido, Shirahadori, Safeguard and Move+3 as abilities, then equip with Excalibur, Aegis Shield, Crystal Helm, Mirror Mail and Featherweave Cloak. Especially deadly in the endgame, as Brave increases are permanent in a 4:1 or so ratio, meaning give him 20 brave in one encounter and he keeps five after the fight. You could easily have a character untouchable by magic with an 8% chance of being hit from behind. The only weaknesses are summons and non-reflectable magics, which can be avoided by virtue of the shield and cloak, and characters with holy blade abilities, like Weigraf and Loffrey-the latter of which is foiled by Safeguard. Ramza? With Shout? Hoo-lee-crap. Strategically position a mime? Ow.
  • In the PSX version at least, any unit participating in battle with other unit types would gain a quarter of any JP those units gained, meaning a Level 2 Ramza could leach enough JP from others' actions to actually progress to other jobs and eventually master them all, without taking an Action. This way, random encounters' levels are still low, but Ramza still has ludicrous skill sets and the option to level up in whatever job the player wants (or spams the stat growth, as mentioned later herein with the Degenerator).
  • Give units the Dance/Sing ability with Sunken State as a reaction ability, making a barricade of invisible dancers/singers, and choosing Wait whenever a turn comes up. Also, bring a book: doing this took as much time to read a Tom Clancy novel or two.
  • Anyone with instant-cast abilities breaks the game. Around Chapter Two, you get Agrias who doesn't do so as much but still really helps and is likely a crucial part of the battle team. However, by Chapter Four, it seems the devs decided "Ah screw it" and gave you the most powerful character of all time.
  • Cloud usually gets overlooked because of the countless other Game Breakers, his low starting level, and his slow Limit skills. However, even Orlandu doesn't have Finishing Touch: as fast as a level-one White/Black spell, costs no MP, and does three things to enemies: makes them dead, makes them as-good-as-dead, and makes them soon-to-be-dead.
• Good Bad Bug:
  • There is a way to cheat the Job Point system in the PS 1 version. Going to buy a skill, get to the point where it asks you if you want to buy this skill. Then hold down the square button and press the up or down arrow to switch placement of skills. This may cause you to buy a skill you already own or you couldn't possibly afford. After backing out, you will find that this has caused the game to glitch and you either have 9999JP, 0000JP which acts as an infinite, or that it has stolen away all your JP or given you a marginal amount more. The exact effects have been mapped out on other websites. Not all jobs can be glitched in this way, but you may be happy to note that most of the more expensive and time-consuming jobs can. Have fun smiting people with Bahamut the minute you gain the Summoner class.
  • Also, the PSX version has an item duplication bug. You know that awesome Infinity-1 Sword Cid carries? Try giving one to your entire party!
• Good Bad Translation: Leading many players to prefer the original translated script to the Purple Prose of the remake. "I got a good feeling!" "This is the way!" This line and a few others even reappears in one of Vaan's conversations with Penelo in Final Fantasy XII as a Shout-Out.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The guy who founded the corrupt church of Glabados, Ajora Glabados, who was also implied to be the Anti Christ or at least under Demonic Possession of the Lucavi Ultima, was born on September 11. His actions in the game alone are bad enough as it is. It gets worse approximately three to four years later, with the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.
• Ho Yay:
  • Ramza and Delita have this even after they split, and especially to those wearing their Shipping Goggles.
  • If not them, then Agrias and Ovelia, since Agrias does seem to have some sort of obsession over Ovelia; but that's technically Les Yay.
• Magnificent Bastard: Delita Heiral, full stop, and, considering his motives (stopping the Lion War and basically offing every corrupt figure ever), a somewhat heroic version.
• Memetic Mutation: L...i...t...t...l...e... m...o...n...e...y.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Algus/Argath's killing of Delita's sister at Fort Ziekden: even though it rather brutally resolved the kidnapping standoff, it earned him the eternal loathing of fans who might otherwise have sympathised with him and his Freudian Excuse... few other characters have ever crossed the line like he did, even with similar personalities. In a world with people like Duke Larg, Folmarv Tengille, Ultima, Dycedarg, Delita and Grand Duke Barrington (who forces himself onto a young Rapha) seeking power, it speaks to his character that Argath is the one most despised by fans.
  • Speaking of Folmarv, he might have crossed it when he murdered his son Isilud and massacred an entire castle, but if not then, he most definitely did when he raised Zalbaag as a zombie and forced him to fight his younger brother Ramza.
• Non Sequitur Scene: Why The Byblos helps you out during the battle against Zodiark/Elidibus, and afterwards offers to join your party, is never explained.
• Player Punch: Teta/Tietra's death at the end of Chapter One.
• The Scrappy: Argath Thadalfus is easily the most reviled character in Final Fantasy Tactics, and may also be the most hated Final Fantasy character period... but damn if it isn't goddamn fun to kick his pretentious little arse when you get the chance to do so.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: The PSP remake adds two more missions where he comes back as a Hell Knight. Then, as ten Hell Knights. You can still kick his ass. Not to mention you have the sweet, sweet knowledge that once you kill Argath in those battles, he's going straight to Hell.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Rapha and Marach's innate skill would assign them a random number of hits to random squares within the 5-square-cross targeting zone you give them. The Random Number God being the Jerkass he is, actually hitting anything wih this ability is less likely than winning the lottery.
• Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: The game constantly throws anvil-sized sledgehammers onto you about how very wrong it is to treat people differently just because of your birthright, and that it's your actions that determine the kind of person you are. But with all the racism and classism that still goes around the Real World even to this very day, such anvils need to be dropped with all the unsubtlety that can be managed.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Brave Story" sounds a lot like "Warren Report" from Tactics Ogre. Not surprising as they are by the same composer and serve the same function.
• That One Boss: Wiegraf Folles, in the 4-part raid of Riovanes Castle, may be the most infamous example in Final Fantasy Tactics. The first part is actually pretty standard, but if you save afterwards, you cannot back out and Level Grind to toughen up Ramza. This may render your game Unwinnable. Not to mention that Wiegraf, in the second part, knows several long-range sword techniques, while the battlefield itself is a small, closed arena with difficult terrain. You must fight him alone.
  • Not to mention that after you defeat Wiegraf, you must fight Belias - who also has long-range attacks - on the same map. The good news is that the remaining party members will arrive to back you up. The bad news is that he summons two demons to even the odds. But if you do defeat him, congratulations, the worst is over. Now you simply have to pray you can protect Rafa!
• That One Level: Several:
  • The Golgorand Execution Site. You have five people, no guests. That's the Arbitrary Headcount Limit. The enemy doesn't abide by this rule...and throws eight units on you. This is considered the hardest level in the game.
  • ALL of Riovanes Castle. ALL OF IT. After a heated battle with Marach, there's the duel between Ramza and Weigraf, where Weigraf uses Holy Sword attacks. Then there's the fight against Belias and several Archaic Demons. Belias is tough, the Demons are no pushovers, and Ramza is likely pretty weak after the Weigraf duel. And then there's the infamous battle on the roof against Elmdore, Celia and Lettie...
  • Many of the levels involving Wiegraf, Elmdore and/or Elmdore's two BridgeBunny assassins, Celia and Lettie, who have 100%-accurate Instant Death skills, reducing any fight against them to a Luck-Based Mission. The other problem is their very rarely-used charm spells, which can temporarily turn one of your strongest fighters against you. Once finally killed, they transform into demon spawn from hell: compared to their human forms, said demons are a joke.
  • The Dorter Slums, the fourth battle in the game. Between Archers on the rooftops peppering you with arrows and Black Mages pelting you with rain-boosted Bolt spells, you can end up with a good chunk of your party incapacitated or dead before they even get near. And if your party members try to get near them, the Knight guarding them can easily dispatch them. This battle is basically the game's way of telling you it won't be pulling any punches, and that you'd better shape up if you want to survive.
  • There's also the random encounter with the eleventy billion^[1] monks on Grog Hill. The Monk class not only comes with a resurrection spell, but with a strong, long-range hits-everyone-on-a-line Earth-elemental attack. They're all wearing armor that absorbs Earth-elemental damage. There are Bonus Bosses in some games that are easier than this.
  • Bervenia, when players meet Meliadoul. She has a strong team of Summoners and Archers, begin at much higher elevation, and are fairly high level. But the kicker is Meliadoul herself. Her unique moveset is based around powerful ranged attacks that are guaranteed to break players' equipment (and as a bonus, probably kill them in the process). She also has an automatic Reraise, but mercifully the fight ends when she is defeated the first time.
  • Any level involving Gafgarion, the old man who does nothing but stay JUST out of range and spam Night Sword, giving him all the damage he deals back as health. Your choices involve ignoring him while you take out his allies, or focus fire him down, letting his allies beat you up. Or Steal/Break his sword.
  • The Level Grind ball-kick that is Finath River. Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards, except in this case it's the Chocobos playing the part of the Wizards. Fortunately the combine the best vulnerabilities of Glass Cannon and Fragile Speedster. Unfortunately, they have the strengths as well, and there is no set team of enemies for this fight, meaning you could end up with a massive army of Chocobos waiting to kick your ass. Fortunately, you can keep resetting until you get an enemy team of the weaker Chocobos, monsters you have been slaughtering in random battles since the game began.
  • Balius Tor (or Bariaus Hill as it was called in the original English translation) is one of the most dangerous maps in the game. The storyline battle you fight there is already tough, as it's the first time the game sics Summoners on you, but even after that point, it hosts some of the deadliest random encounterss. It's possible to face an entire flock of Chocobos, or even a massive battle of up to a dozen enemies that includes every single Demonic Spider the game can throw at you at once (including Dragons, Red Chocobos, Behemoths and Hydras). You pretty much need to save the game before crossing this node.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: There's a lot of evidence that at some point in the game's development, Valmafra/Balmafula was going to have a bigger role and even participate in battles. And yet she abruptly exits the story only to appear again in the epilogue. This lead fans to ask "Why?".
• Tier-Induced Scrappy:
  • Rafa/Rapha and Malak/Malak/Marach, whose abilities were all but ineffectual in combat, and all they were good for (aside from cannon fodder) was Rafa's ability to find treasure in the Deep Dungeon. Slightly improved in the PSP version, where Rapha's Skyseer skills are much more powerful and accurate, though her brother is even worse than before. With proper planning both Rafa and Malak can actually become incredibly (read: Cid-level) deadly, Malak more than Rafa though. However, the sheer amount of strategy involved to achieve this result is often far more trouble than it's worth.
  • Cloud becomes Awesome but Impractical since by the time you get him, he's massively Overshadowed by Awesome and his abilities have a charge time. By then, you have a lot of characters who get instant-use abilities that really really break the game.
  • Mustadio, sadly, can also suffer this in a number of circles, depending on whether a person likes the way gun-users work in this game. The introduction of Balthier into the PSP port hasn't helped matters either, since Balthier is better than him in almost every way, in addition to being given a objectively better variation of his class as well. Making this sadder is that he's actually a rather popular character with a dedicated fanbase, but his low-level usefulness means he gets somewhat underappreciated.
  • Meliadoul becomes recruitable only after the point in the story where you can get Cid, who has her entire skillset as well as numerous other abilities that are more useful against nonhuman opponents. Her sole advantage is the ability to equip female-only equipment like the Ribbon and Chantage.
  • Past a certain point, the entire magic-using half of the Class and Level System can become this as well, due to an inversion of the Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards trope. While a mage is chanting their incantation, their more sword-minded opponents can: 1) close and slaughter them before the spell fires; 2) block the spell with their shields, an item wizards themselves cannot use; 3) just shrug it off, particularly if he (or the wizard!) has a low Faith stat; and 4) move in and take them with], since units in this game are not Friendly Fireproof and a spell that can kill a fighter is practically guaranteed to kill the mage that cast it. Add in swordspell users like Agrias, who combine ranged attacks, mobility and high damage output, and wizards are basically obsolete.
• The Woobie: Rafa/Rapha, Ovelia, Teta/Tietra, Wiegraf...
  • Iron Woobie: Ramza. He knows that No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. He doesn't care.
    • Tietra has shades of this, despite her nature. In her first scene, she's telling Delita she's settled into classes well and everybody's kind to her. Then Alma discreetly tells Ramza that Tietra's been putting on a brave face to reassure her brother, and the other girls have been remorselessly teasing her.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Delita. Malak/Marach is a more definite example as despite his attitude, he has been manipulated by Barrington to quite extensive effect and still shows love and concern for his sister.
  • Stoic Woobie: Zalbaag, given the difficult decisions he's had to make in his noble position and asking Ramza to kill him, after Hashmal brought him back as a zombie.
• Woolseyism: The PSP re-localization. See below for details.
  • The entire script of the PSP version was rewritten to get rid of the cheesy script in the original, and to fit better with the rest of the Ivalice-verse. They even added a Spoony Bard bit that didn't appear in the original:

Ramza: My brothers do not want this fight! Set down your sword, Wiegraf, and my brothers will treat with you!
Wiegraf: Ha! No spoony bard could spin a sweeter tale! You say your brothers do not want this fight? Tears then, for the world you see is one beyond my weary sight.
(the original (mis)translated version remains highly popular though)

• • Blind Idiot Translation: Defeat Dycedarg's Elder Brother!^[2]

1. ↑ Just eleven, really.
2. ↑ To explain why this is a Blind Idiot Translation, the game instructs you to kill Dycedarg's older brother, which most people assume to be Zalbaag... however, when showing the target, Dycedarg is highlighted, and Zalbaag is on your side. Not to mention that Dycedarg is Zalbaag's elder brother. Given that both are brothers of Ramza, it's easy to suppose that the intended meaning was more like "Defeat Your Elder Brother Dycedarg".