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Many consider 2003's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to be watered-down version of Final Fantasy Tactics, the 1997 PlayStation game that introduced many RPG fans to the glories of nuanced, turn-based strategy. The accusation is correct but for the wrong reason. Few will fans admit that Final Fantasy Tactics is a deeply flawed game -- one that mandates tedious grinding and punishes players at every turn. For all of its killer innovations (especially its dynamite job system) the original Final Fantasy Tactics is a tedious, self-serious bore. Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift continues in the mission to streamline and humanize the series and pulls off its task with aplomb.

Old-School and Easy Going

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift is a pretty game. Rendered in lovely, old-school sprites and viewed from a fixed isometric angle the game makes the recent, three-dimensional Final Fantasy IV re-release look butt-ugly in comparison. In its narrative it feels most like its breezy Ivalice Alliance cousin, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. Players slip into the role of Luso Clemens, a school-aged kid from our world who finds himself sucked into the world of Ivalice. Here's the cool thing. Luso's in no rush to get home. Back on Earth he was a bad student, always in trouble with authority figures. In Ivalice he's member of a guild whose sole purpose is to rid the countryside of monsters, bandits, and other ne'er-do-wells. This casual approach to plot dovetails nicely with the game's purposeful grind. Players move through the game's story by nabbing assignments at the local pub, then setting out across the countryside to complete the quests. Most of these tasks are optional side quests that reward players with loot or access to new jobs. They're a brilliant and compelling way to encourage the player to grind, without making the process feel soul-crushing.

Caught Up in the Details

The game may be more forgiving and fun to play than its fabled predecessor, but it's by no means light-weight. On top of standard quests the game heaps tons of other stuff to do – clan challenges that grant your team in-battle buffs, an auction house that lets players stake claim on certain in-game territories and a crafting system that makes new, vitally important weapons and armor available in shops. The game's complex job system lets players learn fifty different careers, allowing characters to pick up skills from all their many gigs and become the ultimate hybrid warrior. Most of these powers are tied directly to weapons and armor, so players will often find themselves tweaking their characters to suit the nifty sword they found. This way of driving player customization may be slightly disappointing to those who crave fine control over every statistic. But the massively complex system of interwoven skills, loot and jobs is a quite fun to explore – limitations or no.

Kinder, Gentler, Better

The game's best complication comes by way of Judges -- magical arbiters that oversee each of the player's battles. At the outset they declare a rule, prohibiting the player from using buffs, tapping MP, or attacking with Moogles. If the player sticks to these guns he earns extra rewards. Fail to follow the rules and all bets are off. Your rewards are taken off the table and, more importantly, your Phoenix Down items will no longer bring characters back from the dead. Lots of players disliked the judges in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but they work here, adding a much-need extra layer of strategy to the turn-based brawls. At every turn Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift presents players with minor, game-changing calls for strategy. And as such, it feels so much more thoughtful than Final Fantasy Tactics, which simply gave players an exceedingly complex set of role-playing tools and forced them to figure it out for themselves. So, yes, there is a little bit of hand-holding going on here. When you're going to play a game for dozens of hours, it’s nice to feel like the game's designers care enough about you to stand by your side. That's a fair change from the original Final Fantasy Tactics a game that was perfectly happy to dump its hapless players in the desert to die.

Review by: Gus Mastrapa