And yet you keep arguing with me, as if we're talking about the same thing. How strange. How bizarre.

Well, you stepped on my toes and then expected me to back off, so naturally I'll be defensive. It seems like you're done though, so I'll move on.

I just unlocked the Beastmaster. I like how jobs, up to a certain point, are unlocked through Quests. It's a bonus I enjoy quite a bit.

And Rotor, the law crap is annoying, but the rewards are usually pretty nifty. You don't have to go too far out of your way to complete battles without breaking any laws (though "No Ranged Attacks" fucked my shit up).

Seems, on paper, to be a much more concrete way to establish a transparent strategy and objective... but the shit just rubs me the wrong way. Especially given that Laws only apply to the player and not to the CPU. I mean, it might be designed that way, but limiting variety to me does not equal compelling/interesting gameplay.

I'll need to give it a shot in any case, but at least it won't cost 600 dollars to do so.

The lack of CPU adherence to the law is the trade-off you take for Clan Abilities and good spoils at the end of each battle (oftentimes in the shape of weapons and armor).

I realize that the end result is very intrinsic to gameplay, but I enjoy what I play actively. Judgment and Abilities don't create a solid foundation for just outright well done scenario design. It's certainly not the worst it could be... but FFTA just leaves such a rotten feeling regarding the systems that A2 just seemingly inherits. I am and will remain skeptical, but shit on paper ain't gonna hold up.

is it just me or do the touch screen controls suck ass? i try to click on a point about 4 blocks away from my character so he can move there, and i have to keep tapping or drag the stylus to be able to select that square. it gets hard to select squares when there are characters near it.

are there more clan abilities to acquire or do you only get the ones you start with from the mini quiz thing in the beginning?

Touch screen controls with isometric views are terrible. Luminous Arc is a perfect example of ass-sucking.

You get more clan abilities by taking Clan Trials.

To be honest, that least sentencei s exactly why I'm glad there's not an optimize button. Sure, you have to go through and look through the weapons yourself, but that way you at least can make sure you've not missed something, like I did when I discovered that the whole damn time I was whining to myself about my archer not getting any armor that taught him anything, it was because I was dumb and not getting him a new bow.

Quick question about the Bazaar thing. Is it worth it to unlock every single new weapon/armor? I have no idea what the requirements are for the other items. And I don't want to miss any important item because I ran of loot to unlock it with.

Oh and the judge system is annoying as hell. In one of my missions, I couldn't deal more than 50 damage. And by golly, one of my character does a critical hit for 70 damage. how gay.

I'm pretty sure it's set up so that everything you need to unlock you can unlock with no worries.

Unless you sold off the loot then I guess you'd be screwed. Generally only the highest ranked loot though is the one-of-a-kind type loot that makes a one-of-a-kind item that can't be sold back even if you wanted to sell it back.

Most non-exclusive loot can be won in random battles or stolen from enemies.

I've made it a policy to hold off on using the loot until I need to get a new skill for one of my characters. Overall, though, there's enough overlap with what loot you get when that it won't be much of an issue, and even then I've gotten stuff as Judge Bonuses hours before I got the loot to buy it at the store. As long as you're a packrat you won't have any problems with items.

I will say, though, it's quite frustrating when it comes to armor and rods. My black mage hasn't learned ANYTHING extra yet. Really aggravating.

Aside from stealing or winning new equipment? I think using the Bazaar is something you kind of have to do. Unless you want to get through the game without learning anything beyond Fire, First-Aid and Cure. Lacerta already said it but the game does appears to be built so that the more commonly used loot will be available to you at a steady rate. Same goes for the more rare loot. And as always, the more you play the sidequests the more things you can unlock and learn.

I don't know if you do this too so here's a tip. You can easily get around a number of odd laws by reequipping your team. And if you have to, change their job class to better suit the situation. This of course can all be done when placing units on the battlefield, after the law is announced.

Also, these laws in A2 aren't that bad. At least not at the point I'm at. I think the worst law I've ran into was the one you mentioned. But I remembered just giving everyone weaker weapons and avoided direct sword strikes as much as possible (since they tend to do critical hits more often.)
Then again I'm only about 8 hours into the game. I can't wait for battles that use two or more laws at once :gonk:.

The crappiest law I've seen is No Missing, but it was a part of the Clan Trial. It would've been pathetically easy had it not been for that kind of law.

Fuck. Yes that law sucks for the General Training I. I made sure that every single one of my characters either hit from the side or back with 95% hitting rate. But behold, one guy always fucks up. I've actually tried this clan trial three times before I got fed up with it.

Yep, the Veteran title for General Training I is frustrating with that "No Miss" crap :gonk:.

It took me three tries, too. First try, I thought having a Speed2 privilege would help but I soon found out what the fairies would do stop that. So I eventually missed despite attacking from behind every turn. Second try I actually ran out of time. There was one fairy left with less than 30HP which any of my mages could eliminate, argh.

So on my third try I realized I had to take a risk and use hard hitting moves like Beat Down or Moogle Rush to finish the fairies quickly. Also the Agility privilege helped, I think. Rose all my hit rates to 97% or so.

Finally, finally, I got a Seeq. For some reason, none of them wanted to appear.

Even now, with only Silence Gas and no Reverse Item, the Ranger is a broken job. All you have to do is set a trap right in front of you, turn your back to the enemy, and watch them waste a turn. It's just mean, and it's only going to get meaner when I get the Stun Needle and Charm traps-- not to mention Reverse Item + Item Lore (just one Hi Potion will do an easy 200 damage to an enemy).

K, finally got this game.

Mr Rendel -> Mute Mewt from first one?

Anyways, I find this whole baazar to get upgrades kinda annoying.

Yes,

Am I the only one who likes the Bazaar? I get new loot all the time, so I get excited and check out the list. Look for a decent item description and the highest ranks I can make, then get started. Very enjoyable to me, even though Black and White Mage gear barely shows up.

I second that statement. So far, I am still stuck with Rod for my b.mage.

So doing bazaar only way to obtain new items from stores right?

A couple things might show up after certain plot points, but the vast majority of the shop's inventory comes from the Bazaar.

I like the bazaar system too, actually. It lets me slow down the progression of items in the shop. If I don't need anything new, I don't turn any loot items in until people learn some abilities. That way, I don't feel constantly like I'm "behind" where I should be, because the item shop's stock waits for me!

When it comes to the clan trials, I've always been going for the third option down... if I re-do the trial later at a higher rank, does the reward start over again? Like, if the reward for rank 3 was +8 X and -5 Y, and the reward for rank 5 is +16 X and -10 Y, will I get +16/-10 or +8/-5 (the part of the rank 5 reward I HAVEN'T gotten yet)?

I basically don't have the confidence to actually try it yet. >_>

Really? Maybe I just got lucky in the first 7 hours of the game. I managed to get the Flamewheel Rod, Healing Staff, Sleet Rod and a bunch of the elemental robes (holy, fire, ice, lightning) through the Bazaar. But I'm having the hardest time getting the required loot to make more small knives (I need one more thief action ability before I can use the ninja job class ;_;.)

As for liking the bazaar feature. I don't mind it, I think it's a slight step forward than what the last two tactics games did.

Haven't played since the first Tactics, but WTF:

No "Best Fit" in the fitting room?
Laws regarding races without explaining what race your characters are?
"New Abilities Learned." Great. Who? What did they learn? And what, this is based on what weapon they weild? Fuck that.

The game has its flaws, but the ones you listed aren't the ones I'd be worried about.

1) We were talking about Optimize earlier. Because of the skill mastery system, the optimize feature is kind of distracting. I do miss it in very specific cases, though.

2) If you don't know which races are which, it takes a very simple and quick flip through the booklet to the game. For newcomers, I believe this is why laws regarding races aren't used until you're well on your way through the game.

3) The New Abilities Learned thing is just a notice to open your Unit Info menu. Once you open it, characters who have mastered new skills will be jumping up and down instead of just standing there (and they will continue to jump until you scroll down the equipment list and actually see what was learned). Very little room to not notice who learned what.

Well, I'm only like eight or so hours in, so I'm not too far behind. But I just now got the final -ara spell for the Black Mage. Still stuck with Cura for my White Mage.

But now that you mention it, yeah, Knives have been an absolute nightmare to find. Been stuck with a Scramasax and that one knife Adelle joins with.

Considering there are only like 5 races and they're all quite different, I wouldn't consider that a problem. As for the "New Abilities Learned" thing, the next time you look at your Unit Info the people who learned something are jumping up and down.

The lack of "Best Fit" is pretty crappy, though. My main issues with the game are spells/abilities going into action instantly, no rotating the map, and EXP/AP being awarded after the battle's over rather than after each action. The Bazaar is a neat idea, but I wish they'd still given different towns different items.

I'm still really enjoying the game despite all the negatives. Luso isn't a wuss like Marche, and that's enough to satisfy me.

EDIT: Generic edited. :argh: