Video Game / Final Fantasy Tactics A2

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, released for the Nintendo DS, is the direct sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and another escapist fantasy in the eye-gougingly popular Final Fantasy RPG series.

Luso Clemens is a typical troublemaking schoolkid who, on the last day of school, is forced to help tidy up the school's library as part of detention. There, he finds a mysterious tome with blank pages, and impulsively decides to write his name on the first page. This act suddenly whisks him away to the magical land of Ivalice, a fantasy world where "Clans" of mercenaries compete against each other for territories, gold, fame and adventure.

Luso is quickly cajoled into joining one of these Clans (to receive the protection of the enigmatic Judges who oversee them) and discovers that as he adventures throughout Ivalice, the pages of the grimoire he signed begin to fill up. Deducing that once the book is complete he will be taken back home, Luso resolves to see his "story" in Ivalice through to the end: doing jobs for his Clan, tangling with a tricksy thief called "Adelle the Cat", and dealing with a shadowy cabal of criminals known as "Khamja", whose leader carries a grimoire similar to Luso's own.

The game features a host of gameplay enhancements over its predecessor. The Law system still exists but is far less restrictive: breaking a Law merely results in losing a token "Clan Privilege", the right to revive fallen units, and a few bonus items after the match. The game has also fixed several Game Breakers that existed in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, with Accuracy no longer being the main tool used to balance abilities, Clan Abilities no longer being able to dispense items that can break the power curve of the game, and Thieves can no longer strip an enemy bare. The impact of Status Effects has also been toned down.

Along with new jobs (such as Green Mages, who specialise in Buffs/Debuffs) and a general rearranging of previous jobs, A2 introduces two new races: the pig-like Seeq (imported from Final Fantasy XII), and the dragon-girl Gria (invented just for the game). There are also four special guest characters that can be recruited: Vaan, Penelo, Al-Cid and Montblanc.

Missions have been largely revamped, offering a wide range of new win conditions (such as finding a specific item or weakening a specific unit). It re-introduces Trap Tiles from Final Fantasy Tactics, introduces new Opportunity Attacks, a new Loot system for gaining new equipment and a revamped experience curve, an Auction mini-game in which clans compete for territory, and allows for every mission to be manually playable (though you can still use Dispatches to automate the process if you like).

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The game reveals examples of:

• Adventurer Archaeologist: Subverted when Montblanc says "Please, kupo, let's be realistic here. My life is more than bauble-hunting!".
• An Adventurer Is You: In particular, the Mezzer: inflicting Status Effects and casting buffs is the reason to live for Green Mages, Spellblades, Archers, and Fusiliers.
• Anti-Frustration Features: This game is probably the most notable for being the least frustrating in the series, even with its flaws. The first one was a confusing maze of astral relations and dragged-out and complex mechanics, but knowledge of those mechanics lets you smash the game into itty bitty pieces. the next game was far less complex but with the law system in place for the entire game it quickly became frustrating due to breaking the laws removing a character from the battle. This game's law system only removes a few bonuses if you break a law, and isn't that hard to understand, however, it also is the most well-balanced, having the fewest ways to outright break the game, but still many ways to build up characters powerfully.
  • The game doesn't force you to include any character aside from Luso in any battle, story or otherwise. It seemed the makers were aware players might not like being unable to use the highly trained team of generics they've been building up from the beginning because of a statistically inferior plot character and let you take them out of the battle if they were in your party.
• Anti-Villain:
  • The Clan Duelhorn members you meet, except for Snakeheart.
  • Florah takes the Poison Ivy route of protecting exotic ''sentient'' plant life from poachers and hunters, but unfortunately you have to take her down. Both parties acknowledge that it's bad either way. Later you have to put down one of the plants she was protecting.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit (You are still restricted to have 24 members of your clan, but only six can be placed in battle.)
  • At most. Some fights restrict to you even more, down to just one. Sometimes it's because you have Guest characters helping you, sometimes not. Overall, there are never more than 13 combatants, usually 12.
  • Especially annoying is that you don't even get to choose all 24 members of the clan. Luso, Adelle, Cid, and Hurdy are all made permanent fixtures of the clan as you progress through the story, and to get 100% Completion, you'll have to recruit Vaan, Penelo, Al-Cid, Montblanc, and Frimelda, none of whom can be booted from the clan. They range in usefulness from an awesome warrior who comes with Dual Wield already, to a guy who can't even change job and revolves around having women on the team. The upshot of all this is that you only get to freely choose 15 generics, and that's not counting the guys who are in your clan to begin with.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Hurdy towards Luso's case.
• Art Evolution: While the sprites for generic units are essentially copied over from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, the character portraits in the text boxes have been improved since they now look exactly like their official artwork counterparts. Generic units that are unique characters now have their own unique portraits instead of reusing a generic portrait. Battlefields also have more details to them and can have weather effects like rain and fog.
• Artifact Title: Averted. The "Advance" in the title is simply changed to an "A".
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Rockbeasts can use their instant 999 Limit Glove attack as soon as they reach Critical HP, and if they can, it will often be the only move they use. It only actually works if they're in single digit HP, though, otherwise it has 0 chance of hitting.
  • The Chocobos are just as stupid. They will use Choco Cure when they or their allies are low on HP. The ability is used on the Chocobo and all units that are next to it. You will see them cure themselves and their allies while healing your party at the same time if you just happen to be in range.
    • Or maybe they're just extremely benevolent. Not only do all non-Chocobos in the entire game sort-of avoid healing the other team, Chocobos have a habit of explicitly moving near enemies before healing themselves so that there's more love all around.
  • Duel Boss Ghi Yelghi, unlike the rest of the AI (who will even heal you this way when allied) will use his elementally-based attacks if you set your equipment to absorb that type of magic. This is nice because the character he duels is a pain in the ass to level.
  • Alys the Ensorceled, one of the Four Bosses of Duelhorn, is a special brand of ineffective in combat when (and only when) she's on your side. She's a Summoner, a potentially powerful unit, but she starts every battle with several Status Effects on her, claiming that they increase her power (they don't), one of which is often Blind. In addition to that, she has powerful attack summons, including Maduin, but prefers to spend every action summoning Kirin (gives Regen), using an Ether on your party members (even if that party member has Blood Price and can't use their MP), or using a basic attack on the enemy... even though she's equipped with a Healing Rod.
  • The Bonga Bugle Head Editor and Owner tend to fit this when they try to participate in combat. It's especially bad in the Plumfrost mission. One of them has 10 HP left? He attacks a Grenade, does 2 damage, and gets killed by its Bonecrusher ability. The fact that they're levels 10 and 1 respectively just makes it worse. Somewhat justified in context by both of them being show-offs, but that doesn't make keeping them alive any easier.
  • Most of the learned/equipped abilities for AI characters seem to have been explicitly designed to mitigate the effects of AS, by keeping the AI from selecting abilities that would be dumb to use given the context of the given battle. There will often be suspiciously absent abilities, no matter how implausible it is that the character hasn't picked them up by now.
  • Special mention goes to the Goug guardians. There is a Tinker on board who just doesn't know when to give it up. He keeps casting Red Spring (which bestows Haste) until he hits his side with it. The problem being that he generally wastes, unless you stop him with the single character you have, around 3 turns Hasting the entire enemy team into an unwieldy bombardment of speed and metal, and when he finally hits your side, he starts it all over again the second a single member loses Haste. He doesn't do anything less painful, like Green Gears (which inflicts Poison), he always casts Red Spring until the entire party is sped up and only then does he cast the detrimental but significantly less painful Green Gears.
  • The Roar Blue Magick ability, which can be cast every turn (since its MP cost is less than you regenerate at the start of your turn) and which removes all positive buffs from all units on the map, completely breaks certain AI enemies. The worst are the Flintlocks from the mission Of Kupos and Cannons; Flintlocks have powerful abilities but must spend a turn Priming their cannons before they can use them, and if you have a Blue Mage using Roar to dispel the Primed buff every turn the Flintlocks will never do anything but attempt to Prime their cannons.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Dragoon job's Jump ability. In addition to being the Dragoon's Signature Move, it deals somewhere around double their physical attack, on top of having high range that the Dragoon (and indeed, most Bangaa jobs) cannot match with any of their other abilities. Plus it looks cool, with the attacker leaping clear off the screen and then smashing down hard on his target. But it's only half as accurate as a regular attack, and the unit must have a spear equipped to perform it.
  • Gravity removes 1/4th of the target's HP and Graviga removes half of it, but the same job can cast Death with the same MP cost as the first ability and 10 less than the second.
  • Without MP restoration methods (or Half MP equipped), the Ultima abilities (all of which have a cost of 32 MP) take at least four turns to be useable, bringing them close to this trope.
  • The Scion Zodiark causes max damage, regardless of stats. However, it's near useless due to the fact that it hits every unit on the field, both enemy and ally, with only a 50% chance of hitting in the first place (unless the enemy is under Sleep, Stop, or Stone status). You're much better off using Ultima (which damages all foes and heals your entire party) or Shemhazai (which only targets one enemy, but usually has 100% accuracy and its damage is based off of how many the user themselves have dealt).
• Blessed with Suck: Adelle is a "Gifted One", a person who exhibits extraordinary powers such as instant mastery of any (mundane) skill and near-immortality. Problem is that most Gifted Ones cannot fully control their powers, and often are driven insane or turned into monsters as a result of the mental breakdown. Adelle hates being a Gifted at first, but through a series of quests she can realize that her power is pretty cool.
• Badass Adorable: Any of the Moogle jobs, but notably Moogle Knight. And the fact that some of the jobs has them equipped with guns (remember, they are little bunny-like people).
• Badass Bookworm:
  • Scholars can do surprising amounts of physical damage with their books, and are in fact one of the physically stronger Nu Mou classes.
  • Seers also use books as weapons and even have a spell that damages enemies with magic and then teleports the user to each target to whack it. Obscenely powerful when combined with Dual Wield and a pair of strong weapons (e.g. Paladin knightswords).
• Bittersweet Ending: The ending as a whole is pretty upbeat, but there is one point that is a little bittersweet. Khamja, the main antagonist group, is still around. Illua's defeat weakens Khamja but the loss of one of their generals isn't enough to break them up. Cid and Luso even have a long discussion where they conclude that Khamja is so deeply ingrained in Ivalice's underworld that it is practically impossible to destroy.

• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Several ability description in the English version are fairly or entirely inaccurate:
  • Immunity's description says it prevents Buffs or Debuffs from being removed, but what it actually does is protect the user from certain debuffs (namely Silence, Sleep, Blindness, and Poison).
  • Bonecrusher's description says it counters standard attacks and always does more damage than that taken by the user, but the actual effect is simply a counter with 50% more power than the standard counter.
  • Strike Back's and Reflex's descriptions claims to let you avoid all standard attacks, but they only avoids those made from an adjacent tile, though Reflex also evades standard attacks from cards.
  • Also apparent in some of the Judge Rulings- the wording of some of the rules can easily be misunderstood and cause instant loss of benefits for the rest of the battle.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Al-Cid, who can't even change jobs and whose abilities revolve solely around having females on the party. Some people may see Adelle's Heritor job as this, with only decent Growths and abilities that don't make up for the growth.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • One of the best units in the game is the Ranger, one of the Seeq's starter jobs no less. Besides having the best Speed growth (meaning more turns) among the Seeq jobs, the Mirror Item and Item Lore abilities in combination with X-Potions do a flat 400 damage.
  • Illusionist is the most overpowered and broken job in the game, when properly set up with abilities that increase the power of his magic attacks while doubling their MP cost, in tandem with an ally Cannoneer casting Ether Shot, an ability that restores a large amount of MP for free (40 to be exact). And on the Illusionist's turn, they get the standard 10 per turn, which allows the powered-up Illusion abilities to be cast every turn. What's even better is that when he uses Stardust, which is non-elemental, he is guaranteed to win every single fight in two rounds (save for the final boss).
  • Despite other abilities, the most efficient thing a Time Mage can do is Haste someone every turn, unless he happens to get enough MP to use Hastega. The same goes for the Arcanist with using Drain and maybe Death.
  • Knots of Rust are near-worthless little chunks of scrap metal that you can sometimes get as rewards from missions or the Judge for not breaking the law. Their sole purpose is as a throwing item that inflicts a few points of damage. However, some of the Status Effects are cured when you take damage, and if you need someone cured of their Confusion or Charmed now before they do something stupid and don't have any other way to do so (such as healing abilities or other items), then these are nice to have around.
  • Step 1: Get a Fusilier with Stopshot, or any other job with the ability to inflict Stop, or maybe even Stone. Step 2: Get a Thief. Step 3: Stop a non-immune enemy until the status effect takes hold. Step 4: Use the Thief to rob said enemy blind of items and gil. With this strategy along with Loot Lv. 3 or 4, you will get a significant payout.
  • Got a Viera? Make her a Green Mage and teach her Tranq, which buffs accuracy. That ability is most likely second only to Haste in terms of practicality, but considering how unique it is and the fact that its effects apply to a good majority of the abilities, this means that it's very useful for jobs like Assassins or a team is fighting against enemies with high evasion.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The "Moon Maiden" accessory, which gives a flat +5 to all of your stats. However, you have to beat the Bonus Dungeon in order to get it, which means you've pretty much beat the entire game already.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: In-universe. At auction houses, going 20 bids allows you to buy extra tokens for clan points, which can easily get expensive, but in order to sweep some areas it's almost required you get extra tokens or else your supply will get exhausted getting the other territories, where as others it just gets redundant.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Brightmoon Tor, a set of three dungeons aligned to endgame content. All of the enemies here have much higer levels than anything else in the game, a skillset called Tuning full of powerful skills and spells that require no MP to cast, and all of them get several extra turns at the beginning of each fight. Your party might get wiped or crippled before you even get a chance to act.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: Tramdine Fens, a dismal and waterlogged fen, where the Witch of the Fens lives.
• Cast from Hit Points: The passive ability "Blood Price" allows a unit to use magicks at the cost of using hit points. The catch is that the HP cost is double the normal MP cost and you can't use your normal MP anymore with it active... It is pitifully easy to set up your equipment so you get healed for more than the cost while casting Blood Price spells.
  • Hell, the ability keeps getting better the more you level up, because the amount of HP you have keeps increasing while the rate at which you gain MP each turn remains perpetually the same.
• Chaos Architecture: A few places share names with FFTA places, but are on a landmass that in no way resembles the one from that game. Other than that, the landmass the town of Goug is on appearing exactly like the Goug desert's landmass does in Final Fantasy Tactics. The implications are quite interesting.
  • The reason it doesn't resemble FFTA's landmass is that they're not the same place. FFTA's Ivalice was the real world warped into a new form resembling Ivalice. The Ivalice in this game (and Tactics and XII) is a different dimension that Luso's been transported to.
• Characterization Marches On: In FFTA, the Bangaa, being the most physical race, took on an unfortunate stereotype as a bunch of craven Dumb Muscle thugs, and were an overwhelmingly prevalent choice for minor bad guys. FFTA2, however, brings Seeqs to the table, a race which pushes even further to the end of the physical spectrum. In characterization terms, these guys essentially became the new Bangaa, while Bangaa themselves received a more favorable portrayal overall, as gruff but well-meaning Proud Warrior Race Guys. To put it another way, the Seeq took over the Bangaa's old role as the "orcs" of Ivalice, while the Bangaa were promoted to "dwarves".
• Chest Monster: The Mimic monster type, which disguise as treasure chests, but morph into their White Gloves form afterward. Unlike most Chest Monster|s, they're extremely weak.
• Colourful Theme Naming: The Five Kings of Cinquleur. "Cinquleur" is a portmanteau of the French cinq couleurs ("five colours"). Likewise, the mages' first names are all phonetically the same as the French word for the colour of magic they use. Hilarious messed up though, because enemies always use the opposite color scheme for sprites, so Blue Mage Bliu the Blue King is red, Red Mage Ruuj the Red King (Queen?) is blue, despite equipping all gear that is explicitly red.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • Mr. Randell, the librarian at Luso's school, is Mewt from the previous game, which is why the book was in the library in the first place. His teddy bear is even on his desk.
  • Ritz shows up in the background of the multiple-choice question you take at the beginning of the game, as well.
  • In addition, all the Totema/Espers from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII return here as "Scions", with the typical enemy-demolishing effect expected from their former incarnations.
  • There are other character connections as well, for instance mention of Gaol, a hero mentioned in multiple missions in the original, and whose right-hand... uh... Moogle, Lini, you can recruit as a secret character in the previous game.
  • Ezel Berbier also makes an appearance, though he suddenly has an accent. So does Montblanc, Marche's Moogle sidekick.
  • Speaking of Marche, Luso's official art depicts him with the exact same sword Marche had in his, the Judge sword, used in some animations.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Halfway through the game, Luso bumps into a pair of Bangaa. The White Monk accuses Luso of stealing his gem, which causes Luso to almost call him a "big fat lizard". Montblanc comes in and manages to clear up the mess, then tells Luso to never call the Bangaa a lizard. This is almost the same exact scene with Marche and his run in with the Bangaa in the beginning of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
  • The tourney battle against Clan Centurio is Montblanc's former clan from Final Fantasy XII and all the members were NPC allies in XII that helped you in a few missions (they are also the default party members in the Japanese version of Tactics Advance, but the English version gave them random names instead, as well as changing the clan name to "Nutsy").
    • There's even a monster in this game that made an appearance from Final Fantasy XII. When you fight a gang of yellow Chocobos and one red Chocobo near the town of Goug, there is a chance that the red Chocobo will be level 99, which is a Shout-Out to XII's rare level 99 Chocobo. Beating the monster nets you a rare item that lets you summon a powerful scion.
  • Many pieces of loot are items from previous Final Fantasy titles, as well as famous Characters' exclusive weapons, such as Cloud's Buster Sword, and Squall's Lionheart, Terra's ultimate weapon, "Apocalypse", and a weapon called "Kain's Lance" (which its description outright says belonged to a Dragoon of legend).
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • Enemy units, no matter how low their level, exhibit far better speed and evasion than your own party, as well as a sickeningly high rate of slamming you with bad status.
  • In order to add more challenge to some of the really late-game battles, the computer characters get several free rounds to attack you before you get a chance to do anything.
  • Also, it seems like percentage rates don't matter to the computer much. While they do miss, they'll hit with their 50% accuracy move much more often than not, and the computer will basically never miss with a 95% chance. It's incredibly frustrating to see a move like Moogle Rush or Beat Down connect most of the time a computer uses it with a 50% chance to hit.
    • In general, the hit-miss chances are re-seeded after each hit. God help you if an opponent has seeded a 0 (only hittable by something with 100% accuracy; most attacks max out at 99%) on a mission where Missing is forbidden...
  • Be prepared to see non-player characters — enemies and allies alike — using impossible skills. The surprise of having a Hume Illusionist unleashing first round spells that hit your entire team can only be matched by discovering that he's using Blood Price (a skill only Viera can learn) to do it.
  • Roulette randomly kills one character on the field, but that character can be from either side. It isn't uncommon to get a 3:1 to 4:1 hit ratio against your clan when it's supposed to have only a 50% chance of hitting your clan. It is crucial to kill the one who keeps casting it.
• Crutch Character: The Seeq Ranger job can do 400 damage all the time very early and easy with mirror item/item lore. Late game you get (and need) the strength to far outdamage it, while the ranger stays at 400.
• Cute Bruiser: The Gria are all female dragon humanoids who specialize in pure power devastation attacks, as shown with half of the available job classes.
• Cute Monster Girl:
  • An entire One-Gender Race of female dragon humanoids called the Gria.
  • And the Viera, depending on where one draws the line.
  • Subverted with Frimelda who is turned into a monster (namely a zombie) but doesn't look noticeably "cuter". In fact the only difference between her and a regular one appearance-wise is that her shirt and skin color are different.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • In the mission where you save Ghi Yelghi from a Viking that is an "undefeated" duelist the Viking has his Templar and Dragoon Immobilize and Disable him with chants, then when the Viking loses he petrifies himself. None of those spells exist for any class, nor are they used in the battle, and the only two of those three status effects can be caused by units of that race: Immobilize if one of the Bangaa has Sleight of Hand set and used Shadow of Doubt and Stone if the Seeq had Survalism set and used Mirror Gold Needle (neither of which they had).
  • Early in the game Cid gets shot by a Ninja wielding a pistol, keeping him bedridden for a while. Nevermind the fact that Ninjas can't use pistols, and they deal pitiful damage, even at close range.
• Crapsaccharine World: Much more apparent this time than last. Most visible in the Duelhorn plot and stories that involve zombie powder/Lethean Draught (the two cross at one point, cue a tear jerker).
• Da Editor: Editor of the Bonga Bugle, with a different quest for every month. Also a Miles Gloriosus.
• Destroyable Items: Some enemies can break your armor and weapons.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: If you fight against a Magick Pot/Vase, just give it an Elixir and be done with it. It then disappears while giving you loot.
• Dirty Coward: The Head Editor of the Bonga Bugle.
• Disc-One Nuke: You can gain access to the Ultima attacks and some of the best weapons and armor in the whole game as soon as you unlock auction houses.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Lang Brothers, four members of the Arbiters of Death clan, beat the everloving tar out of the other twenty-eight members and then fled the city. Why? Because one of the latter spilled his drink on one of the former, and the rest simply tried to break up the resulting fight!
• Draconic Humanoid: Ordinarily the Bangaa are described as Lizard Folk, but their Dragoon job plays on their tangential relationship to dragons, giving them Breath Weapon abilities.
  • Gria have dragon wings, horns and tails, bordering them with Cute Monster Girl.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: The Trickster member of the Four Leaders of Duelhorn appears to be a female, with lipstick and all, but is a male Bangaa.
• Duel Boss: Adelle fights against one of The Gifted by herself as a test of strength. If she passes, she'll be able to gain abilities as a Gifted for herself. At the end of Frimelda's story line Ghi Yelghi challenges her to a duel.
• Dumb Muscle: The leader of the Bangaa Brotherhood, Mocedad, is alleged to be this by the leader of the Nu Mou Nobles, Madreth. "If muscles were brains, he'd be a rare genius, that one!" The Viking Lord Greyrl also seems to be significantly lacking in intellectual faculties while possessing a like overabundance of physical might.
• Early-Bird Boss: The Flowsand Lord. You are at the mercy of Random Drops for abilities and equipment so very much at this point. When it shows up later in an optional mission, your party probably has gotten access to proper equipment and abilities, while and is fairly easy.
• Early-Bird Cameo: It's hard to spot, but Montblanc shows up in the background in the scene where you name your clan.
  • And a few other times at the pub, which makes this an Easter Egg.
• Elite Tweak: Most classes reach the cap in their primary stats before level 99, so careful shuffling between classes can produce characters with higher final stats than single-classed characters. Additionally, the Speed stat's growth on levelup is a percentage chance based on the character's class, but always either 0 or 1. Players dedicated to maximizing their stat growth will reload on each level-up to make sure that the character's Speed always grows.
• Emotionless Girl: One of the personalities for generic Viera clan members.
• Enemy Mine: Occasionally you have to work with groups that are normally antagonistic; this is most apparent when the leader of the Camoa Braves specifically points out how odd it is to fight alongside your clan rather than against it. In particular, Luso and Vaan start out as adversaries. They join up once they have a mutual enemy of their own.
• Escort Mission: There's a wide range of them, with AI that ranges from wise (running away and using Vanish to avoid being targeted, or simply getting behind your considerably more resilient party members to draw fire to them) to downright suicidal (a mage with just one non-offensive spell physically attacking an enemy 20+ levels higher than her or using a skill as likely to affect the enemies as it is your party).
  • The character(s) you need to protect often get deducted from you battle team's headcount limit, too. It's not uncommon for the headcount limit to be four or five as opposed to the usual six. It will sometimes go as low as three, but that usually means there is also an allied force that shows up just as the battle starts.
• Everything Fades: Unlike the previous games, corpses immediately disappear from the battle field. Downed characters can be revived anywhere on the field. Chests also fade away when opened.
• Exact Words: When Luc Sardac posts a request to help with ending a nightmare of his and never wanting to look on "this creature" again. When said creature turns out to be Frimelda, he turns on your party when he discovers your connections with the friendly zombie. Luso is furious, but Adelle...
  "Sorry, but an agreement is an agreement. You wanted to be sure you never looked on this creature again, didn't you? If we slay you, then we will have fulfilled the conditions of the quest, yes?"
• The Fair Folk: The Witch of the Fens seems to believe in a form of Equivalent Exchange. She won't charge you for potions if you bring your own materials, but ask for something big like a cure for zombification and she'll demand a price along the lines of all your memories.
• Fake Difficulty: Complaints are rampant about the new law system, the weird hit % system, as well as the glut of Escort Mission requests that get thrown at you.
  • The laws aren't as severe anymore, but they're also now tied directly to missions, so there will be situations where they're only in the way to make things harder for you. Battle against a team of mostly Thieves? Having things stolen from you will be illegal. Battle against one guy and 5 girls where the objective is to defeat the one guy? Hurting the girls will be illegal. All the enemies weak to fire? Using the fire element will be illegal. You get the picture.
  • Put that law where you can't be robbed into a mission where you must uphold the law or you lose the entire mission. 40% chance to steal? Riiight.
  • There are a few laws that are just needlessly difficult to uphold in general gameplay, such as "harming the weak" (don't hurt a lower level unit) or "Actions by X" ("X" being the name of a race, and any unit of that race can't use abilities, just basic attacks) can be impossible or needlessly difficult to uphold. Fortunately, on the other side of the coin, there are a number of laws that are of reasonable difficulty, such as "no ice" when only 1/3rd of the enemies are weak to it, or "no back attacks".
  • Worst of all, laws are no longer applicable to both you and the enemy, making the fake difficulty absolutely blatant: they can impose as many stupid rules as possible, because it only affects the player.

• Fantastical Social Services: Carm Mercantile is a clan focused on charitable causes, paying special attention to the conservation of endangered monsters from overhunting and poaching. Luso and Clan Gully can regularly donate to Carm Mercantile to help its cause. Unbeknownst to most of its day-to-day members, Carm Mercantile is actually one of Khamja's many fronts. Portions of the funds raised by these charity drives bankroll Khamja's criminal empire, including the poaching that Carm Mercantile tries to prevent.
• The Fashionista: Adelle mostly spends her money to buy designer outfits.
• Fat Bastard: The Bonga Bugle head editor, though he's more of a slacker and a Jerkass than an outright villain.
• Fetch Quest: Toned down from the first game; however, the Escort Mission frequency has been ramped up instead.
  • In addition, many of those can be done via Dispatch, letting one of your clan members take care of it in a couple of days.
• Firing One-Handed: Fusiliers and Al-Cid fire all their guns one-handed, even though half of them are rifles. It sort of makes sense for Al-Cid, since the guns are all made for Moogles, creatures half his size.
• First Town: Targ Village, reflected by not having an auction house and only being represented in battle by the local pub.
• Flavor Text: The game has TONS of flavor text for every single item in the entire game, ranging from history to Deadpan Snarker over the item's purpose.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Type 3. The Mutadragons from the mission of the same name consider themselves to be Gaia's avengers.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • One of the weirder examples is that, story-wise, Cid and Penelo are a Revgaji^note a sub-species of a rarely seen race called the Rev which includes Lezaford and the auction house manager and a Hume, respectively, but gameplay-wise are the same as a Bangaa and a Viera. The former is at least commented on in the manual though given no explanation, and the latter isn't given any sort of mention.
  • Also, when Hurdy asks to join the clan, Cid says "We've never been a clan to turn people away" regardless of how many people the player has turned away before.
• Geo Effects: Geomancer magick depends on the weather and the kind of terrain she's standing on. Luckily, there are so many you'll always be able to use at least one.
  • Also, the Viking skill Tsunami, which can only be used if the user is standing in water.
  • The shape of the terrain also affects area-targeting spells. Too much height difference between two tiles and they can't be affected by a spell like Fire (higher tier spells can generally cover more height). In addition, too much height makes it impossible for melee attacks to connect, while bows and guns might hit the ground or an ally in the line of fire.
• The Gift: Adelle and Lennart. Both of them agonize over it, because, for starters, Who Wants to Live Forever?. Gifted of longer-lived species such as the Viera Gifted Ldja are generally happier about it.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Frimelda is seen as a paragon of virtue and swordplay by her partner, Luc Sardac. When it becomes apparent to Luc that she really is as good as he thinks she is, his envy overwhelms him and he poisons her, leaving her Only Mostly Dead. She can get better.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Adelle and Cid join your party as guest units for a while until they can be recruited as full clan members. There are also numerous missions that give you guest characters that range from extremely helpful to extremely useless. Some missions also have monsters and recurring boss characters join your battles as guests.
• Guide Dang It!: The game never seems to clue you in about having to repeat certain missions in order to open new quest chains. Also, the method for obtaining the Scion Shemhazai is rather obscure. Not to mention a series of quests asking for a very specific class without giving any clear hints on what it is. It's possible to figure it out once you get the unique brand of logic used, but most just look it up. And there's also the MVP system, which even the most skilled have only a general understanding of. It's mostly unimportant... unless you want 100% Completion.
• Healing Shiv: In addition to bringing back the Cure Staff, the game also lets Moogles and Bangaa shoot Potions and Ethers from their cannons for HP or MP recovery. Also, there are enough armors that allow you to absorb elements that you can turn nearly any elemental weapon/skill into this. For a more hilarious version, have a Ranger use Mirror Item, and then a Knot of Rust on someone. Knot of Rust is just chunks of rock. Now imagine throwing rocks at someone to heal them.
• Hold the Line: A few missions have the objective of preventing enemies from passing a certain point on the map. These points are usually chokepoints that your party can line up into to avoid knockback.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Against Adelle, after she's possessed by Illua, later on in the game.
• Improbable Weapon User: It's a Final Fantasy game, after all. Beat people up with instruments, books, playing cards with sharpened edges...
• Incurable Cough of Death: Mauri, the Nu Mou who gives the "Stone with No Name" line of quests, gets this, and inevitably ends up dying because of it.
• Induced Hypochondria: The Trickster's trade; his poisoning skill is even called Hypochondria.

• Inexplicably Identical Individuals
  • The pub owner who hands out your missions is pretty much the same sprite no matter what town you're in. Ditto for the shopkeeper lady. And the auctioneer. Which is made even funnier by the fact that the pub owner is the same one as in the previous game and while his dialogue portrait has been updated, his sprite has not. (The shopkeeper was also the human shopkeeper from Tactics Advance).
  • The Aerodrome ladies: the second one is a Palette Swap of the first.
  • And of course all characters of the same race and class, minus Palette Swap for enemies v. allies & guests. However, this is often averted for "team leaders" for the opposing side who may get unique speaking sprites.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The "Sequencer" sword and "Peytral" make their glorious return, and are now even easier to power up.
• Instrument of Murder: Instruments are one-handed weapons that can be equipped by Animists, Beastmasters, and Chocobo Knights. Hurdy can also equip instruments in his special job, the Bard.
• Item Crafting: Killing enemies gives you loot, and loot is used to make new equipment at the shop's bazaar. It's basically the only way to get new items (although law bonuses sometimes include low-tier equipment), and availability dictates what classes you'll be using for most of the game.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Adelle leaves the party for this reason.
• Killer Rabbit: The aforementioned Dreamhares and their cousins of course. Moogles can be surprisingly effective as well, except for Tinkers. Story-wise, the Mooglebane rabbit enemies terrify Moogles. Why? Because they eat the Moogles' pom-poms.
  • In the "Five Kings of Cinquleur" quest line, you face five highly dangerous masters of the five "colors" of magic. Of them, White King Blanch and Green King Verre sound... decidedly less than threatening on their own, since White mages are healers who shouldn't be much trouble in a one-on-six situation, and Green Mages are Mezzers for crying out loud, so Verre shouldn't be able to do much more than putting some of your guys to sleep, right? Well, it turns out that, like the other Kings, Blanch and Verre have subjobs. Very effective ones. Turns out that that Squishy Wizard White Mage is also a Sage, and packs some deadly crap like Scathe and Gigaflare, and he somehow has Blood Price, despite it being a Viera-only ability. And that Mezzer? Turns out that the Accuracy-boosting Tranq is quite effective when paired with the Assassin's Last Breath attack.
• Legacy Character: Adelle, sort of. All of her Heritor abilities are named after other Gifted, most of whom are dead, and learned from their weapons. Including her own skill, Adelaide.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Moogles are quite gimmicky, but in the right hands are incredibly dangerous. Fusiliers for example, when combined with Moogle Knight abilities as a secondary, can fire off Ultimas from 8 tiles away, which is the longest range in the game. They also possess the only means of doing damage while Stopping an opponent, and can Charm similarly. The endless loop of two Smile Tossing Jugglers from the first game is also just as viable in this one.
  • Hurdy goes on the top of this list. He's the only Quirky Bard you can get. Not only do his songs have great use in the right times, especially against undead^note the song Requiem not only deals heavy, non-conditional damage to undead in a small area, but also removes tombstones. or as support for a magic reliant class, but he can doubleclass as a Fusilier, making him just as deadly as any other Moogle, but with a few 0 MP gimmick skills that can be surprisingly powerful.
• Lethal Lava Land: One each in the Sant D'Alsa Bluff, Neslowe Passage, Kthili Sands and Goug regions. Unlocking any of them except for the one in the Neslowe Passage and one of the underground levels involves repeating a specific mission four times and entering a different well each time.
• Level Scaling: Uses FFTA's system of basing the level of random encounters on the average level of your clan members. Recruited units also match your clan's average level up to level 30.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Raptor has good attack and speed (another Gria class so it can also fly), and makes up for bad defense with good armor.
• The Lost Woods: Zedlei Forest, though it also extends into adjacent areas.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • Several Clan Trials: Aptitude-Teamwork depends entirely on where the jar spawns. General Training I's law, "No Missing" speaks for itself. Aptitude I is a shell game.
    • It is possible to fail a Clan Trial barring ranged attacks by scoring a critical hit in melee, which moves the target four squares before dying. Result? Instant fail. There are many laws for regular battles that punish critical hits, like "No knockbacks", "No dealing over X pts of damage" and "No targeting distant units" (yes, it decides on whether or not a unit targeted it "distant" based on where it is after the attack is done). Thankfully, there is a trick to avoiding the first and third ones of those, at least when it comes to critical hits: just keep the enemy unit backed up against something immovable (walls, chests, other units, etc.). Alternately, just use magic or use physical skills that can't knockback or crit, like Air Render.
  • Many Escort Missions depend entirely on how stupid the NPCs you're supposed to be protecting are.
  • Any mission in which time constraints are tight and in which some monsters have instant-kill abilities, like Roulette.

• Magic Knight: A lot of them. Red Mages, Spellblades, Templars, Seers... even Sages might be counted, since while they're much more "magic" than "knight", they still deal and soak noticeable damage for being theoretical squishies (plus they can use shields).
  • Vikings use shields and wear heavy armor, and also have access to the "Thunder" spells and the (unique to the class) Tsunami spell. They're more "knight" than "magic", though, as Seeqs tend to have very low Magick scores.
  • Green and Blue Mages are the most physically powerful mage classes, though.
  • Not to mention that the job system allows you to make up your own, albeit with varying degrees of effectiveness.
• Magikarp Power: Blue Magicks eventually gives you some of the most powerful and versatile units in the game after learning abilities such as White Wind, Mighty Guard, and Matra Magic. However, this only applies to the ability Blue Magick, because once you master the passive ability "Learn" (and maybe the Counter ability MP Shield) there's really no reason to stay in the class because you don't need to stay in the class to learn anything and its stats (besides resistance to debuffs) aren't very good.
  • Tinkers as well. While their skills are outright abysmal, their stat growths are some of the best growths in the entire game. Time spent as a Tinker will only be regretted during and before, not after.

• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Moogle Tinker's abilities can cast buffs, debuffs or ailments on either every enemy or every ally. So yes, if you're unlucky you can end up casting Haste on every enemy or inflicting Doom on all allies.
• Mighty Glacier: The Tonberry monsters can only move two panels at a time, and their turns are few and far between, but their damage is based on the number of kills made by the target character, and by the time you fight them, most of their attacks hit for 999 unblockable damage.
• Mini-Mecha: The "Moogletron" used in the Goug mines. It shows up in a Tinker ability too.
• Missed Him by That Much: In the "I'm Back, Kupo!" encounter, Hurdy meets Luso right after Montblanc left the scene. It should be noted that Hurdy would be surprised to see his own brother in Jylland.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: It's not uncommon for enemy units to have Support abilities they just simply shouldn't be able to learn, such as Blood Price on non-Viera, or un-learnable passive skills on otherwise plain generic units.
• Nerf:
  • The Thief class. Once feared for their ability to strip an enemy of all of their equipment, now they are only good for two things: stealing loot, and character min-maxing (as they have the highest Speed growth of all the jobs, and Speed is generally considered the One Stat to Rule Them All in high-level gameplay).
  • The Assassin class. In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance it was the hardest job to acquire for the Viera race but (fittingly) their best job, turning the character into a Lightning Bruiser. In A2 their power has been greatly decreased — largely due to how accuracy is no longer dependent on positioning — but the pre-requisites are still just as demanding.
  • Beastmaster was also Nerfed to hell and back and are now only useful for helping Blue Mages learn their abilities.
  • The Support ability Concentrate had its accuracy boost considerably reduced from 50% for physical attacks and 20% for status effects to a flat 5% rate for everything.
  • On a smaller note, the accuracy boost from the Thief Armlets/Brigand's Gloves was reduced from 20% to 5%.
    • The last bit is justified due to accuracy going from the dynamic stat in battle to damage, so attacks are much, much more accurate in this game than they were before.
  • "Damage > MP" was turned into "MP Shield." Not only is it less useful because MP starts at 0 for every battle now, as long as a unit had a single MP, it could take 999 damage without its HP being affected. Now the overflow goes into HP.
• Ninja Looting: Adelle does this in-universe. Cid doesn't take it well. The next storyline mission ends with Luso and Cid setting a trap for her since they know she'll try it again. She falls for it.
• No "Arc" in "Archery":
  • Averted for normal attacks; even at point blank range an arrow will be fired up before coming down on a target. A shot can even miss due to elevation and positioning factors that would make arcing the shot impossible. Flintlocks and Cannoneers aim their cannons at an angle, as well, though the projectiles aren't visible in that case.
  • Played straight for bow, gun, and hand cannon skills, however. Such skills will never miss due to incompatible elevation or units in the way.
  • Zig-zagged for cards: they will visibly path to their target, and do so differently based on range, angle, and so on, but they ignore elevation and characters who might appear to be in the way.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: When hit by an instant death effect, the Grim Reaper shows up and takes your soul from your body — and you pass out. Hand Waved as a perk of being in a clan with a Judge: you can't die. Even if the Judge leaves you after breaking the law. Even more ridiculous is the stuff you can do to some recurring characters who don't appear to be Adjudged. You could, say, reduce an important, recurring character to Critical HP, and then have an Alchemist use Transmute to turn him into a consumable item, like a Potion, drink the potion, and then they're alive and well in the next mission that involves the character.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: Get knocked off a high (which is defined as a height greater than the unit could jump down itself) cliff by a critical hit or a knockback skill, and you take damage. A considerably high amount of damage, too, especially compared to the previous game. And not even Soft Water will save you. Unless you have Super Drowning Skills, then the game simply won't allow you to be hit off the edge.
• Numerical Hard: Hard mode simply boosts the enemies' stats. Most of the time you still win regardless, but battles take an eternity.
• Oh, Crap!: During the "Mountain Watch" mission, Luso encounters an assassin, named Ewen, who wants to buy his judge. Naturally, Luso refuses, leading to a fight against Ewen, who promptly neutralizes your judge. Cue a change of music and this trope from both Luso and the player, as you lose your clan privilege and can't revive your fallen members under these circumstances. Your best option is to bring Ewen down quickly, as his team is quite powerful.
• Old Save Bonus: If you have a copy of the original Tactics Advance in the DS' GBA slot when you start a new game, you are given the "Libra" ability, which reveals the stage's traps. Savvy gamers don't need to be told this, as DS sequels to GBA games tend to have extra features unlocked in this way. Oddly, while DS games are region-free, this bonus doesn't work if the two games are from different regions, such as a US FFTA and a European A2.
• One-Gender Race: Gria. Viera might appear this way, but XII Hand Waved Viera males to Stay in the Kitchen.
• One-Man Army: There is a clan based on this. A member of their clan will challenge you to combat and be able to go toe to toe with several of your clan members. If you beat one, you will soon receive a job offer from another (stronger) member of their clan who got a recommendation to fight you. Of course, they give you a fabulous prize if you beat them.
• Opening Boss Battle: Once Luso is sent to Ivalice, he lands in the middle of a battle against Klesta, who will become a Recurring Boss.
• Optional Party Member: Practically everyone, strictly speaking, but secret characters Frimelda, Vaan, Penelo, Al-Cid, and Montblanc can all be attained through certain questlines. After that, however, you can't dismiss them from your party and you're stuck with them forever.
• Overrated and Underleveled: Adelle, after you get her back, can be up to four levels behind the rest of the clan, and you probably won't be able to get her caught up ever unless you do all the Heritor weapon quests and use her in every battle for a while... or unless you do the quest to get her back immediately after she leaves. Frimelda can also be a little behind the curve, and is a pain to level as she can't be dispatched, depending on when you get her, though to compensate, she comes with Dual Wield already mastered, and high strength for a Paladin. The other secret characters you can recruit such as Vaan, Penelo, Al-Cid and Montblanc also suffer from this trope. The flipside of this is that most of them can be leveled up in classes with better stat growths than their default class.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Notably averted, although you can miss out on a very useful ability for Hurdy early on, with the only alternative being repeating a quest that only comes once a year 4 times.
  • It is possible for unique weapons to be destroyed by enemies, including the ones you need for Hurdy to learn all Bard abilities and for Adelle to master Heritor abilities, halting progression of the Heritor sidequest.
• Power Copying: Blue Magi. As always.
• The Power of the Sun: The Geomancer class's Shining Flare attack. Only usable during bright sunlight.
• Prank Date: "A Bride For Montblanc" This mission seems to be the Shout-Out of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's "Moogle Bride" since their Japanese name is the same.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: The Bonga Bugle Head Editor never misses the chance to praise the Owner as highly as it is possible in hopes that someday his boss will name him the next Owner.
• A Quest Giver Is You: While you can manually play most non-story missions, you can also dispatch a party to complete them automatically.
• Quirky Bard:
  • Once again, gimmick classes are the Moogle specialty.
  • The Chocobo Knight is a strange case of this. He has absolutely no abilities on his own until he mounts a wild chocobo. Once he does, he can use his mount's skills depending on the color, but can't use any subjobs or situational commands (like opening chests) because he always has the Dismount command. They can equip any non-ranged weapon, and use various buffs depending their steed. Even without the chocobos they have the best speed stat in the entire game.

• Random Encounter: You have a chance of running into monsters or enemy clans on the map, though specific enemies appear in specific locations.
• Random Events Plot: Taken to its most extreme here. It's flat-out stated that Luso's best chance of going home is if he does enough random quests to fill up his grimoire. Though most of these events end up leading back to Khamja, Ivalice's underworld kingpins.
• Rare Random Drop: Corollary. The more you need a drop, the lower the chances to get it.
• Red Is Heroic: Luso wears a red hat. Defenders, Jugglers, Red Mages (obviously) and Berserkers on your team wear red. White Mages on your team have red markings on their robes. Allied Alchemists and Ravagers are dressed in pink. There are many job classes that invert this as well. Enemy Soldiers, Black Mages, Blue Mages, Tinkers, Spellblades and Warriors wear red. Enemy Time Mages have red hats.
• Reluctant Monster: During her time as a Zombie, Frimelda is surprisingly eloquent and well-meaning, though she does have a bit of a slur.

• Revive Kills Zombie: Undead enemies are reduced to tombstones instead of being KO'ed and rise again a few turns later. Phoenix Downs can remove the tombstones, as can a few specialized abilities like the Archer skill Burial and the White Monk skill Exorcise. The same skills can also be used to instantly kill undeads, but the success chance is much lower when they still have hitpoints — unless they are put to sleep first.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Ruins of Delgantua and one of the areas in Jagd Zellea.
• Sequence Breaking: Using the above mentioned Mirror Item/Item Lore/X-Potion combo, you can clear missions that are otherwise above your level like the Cinquleur duels, getting you powerful items as rewards.
• Shout-Out: As to be expected from a game sharing Final Fantasy XII's characters and mechanics. For example, one mission is entitled "It's a Secret to Everybody".
  • Speaking of Zelda shoutouts, the second most powerful Greatsword is the Master Sword, which grants the user immunity to instant KO. Also appeared in FFTA.
  • The Bangaa Trickster class may very well be a subtle shoutout to Kingdom Hearts II. Their outfit◊ bears the Nobody Emblem on the pant legs, and bears a vague similarity to the Gambler Nobodies◊. In addition to that, they use cards and have a thing for inflicting bad status, much like Luxord.
  • Vaan and Penelo's impostors are joined by characters named Baltie, Rosenbach, Pulam, and Arshes, corruptions of the names of the other four Final Fantasy XII characters.
  • Montblanc will shout Marche's name if he is knocked out in battle.
  • There is a mission named "It's A Trap!" where you are hired to destroy several traps that were accidentally placed with the assurance that "Deactivating them would be hazardous at this point, so I just need someone to destroy them. It's the only way to be sure."
  • If your party leader is a moogle for the mission "Wanted: Moogle Ranger", after the Moogle Rangers introduce themselves he'll ask them if he can "form the pom-pom".
  • In the Clan Primer, there's an rumor named "This is the way!". Fittingly, it talks about dispatch missions.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The Bonga Bugle editor, who happens to have a high-ranking news job just like the original Ted Baxter. He's level 10 throughout the game, but sometimes tries to take on enemies over 25 levels higher than him. He also talks up his boss, the Owner, as a fearsome and powerful individual. The owner is level one. (Obtaining the Lanista job involves giving a sound thrashing to these two.)
• Sore Loser: If you beat out certain clans at the auction houses, they'll show up at the territory they were trying to win to attack you, or accuse you of cheating and attempt to extort you (if you refuse, they'll attack).
• Spiteful A.I.: In some of the escort missions, the character who you need to protect will actively dive into the thick of battle. This can make otherwise easy missions very difficult, but can be overcome with the Paladin's Cover ability.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: Trap-disabling missions. Until you recruit a certain secret character late in the game, you have no way to disable traps without just stepping into them.
• Summon Magic: Summoner class can call familiar espers such as Shiva and Ramuh, and party members, regardless of job, can equip special accessories that summon scions, the summons from FFXII.
• Super Drowning Skills: The mechanics involving water tiles have completely changed from the previous game. Now instead of restricting your units from being able to do anything while inside, some units simply cannot enter a water tile at all, such as all Nu Mou and Moogles unless they equip the Wing Shoes. It's also used as a drawback to other terrain defying shoes, such as in exchange for the infinite jump height of the Galmia Boots.
• Super Title 64 Advance: Inverted; it's called A2, not Advance 2, because it's not on the Game Boy Advance anymore.
• Take Your Time: Cid encourages Luso to go to the mainland to prepare for the final battle and the Big Bad can wait as long as they take to prepare. This is despite the fact that the said Big Bad is going to release an apocalypse on the world at any moment. Naturally, the Big Bad will say that you're late when you do go to the final battle, but it becomes hilarious when you go straight to the final battle from the previous scene and the boss still says you're late.
  • Makes sense, if you think about it. Illua, copying Luso, is writing a journal starring her as the "hero" of the story. And you can't have a proper ending without an exciting battle against the villains, now can you? She just has to wait for you guys, else her Grimoire won't have enough power to do what she wants.
• Talking Is a Free Action: This happens a lot.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The only way to identify a female Seeq or a (supposedly) female Bangaa is by her use of makeup. The former is used to hilarious effect when you rescue a kidnapped beauty contestant only to discover that the missing girl is the winner of a Seeq beauty contest.
• Those Two Guys: Devotee and Devotee Jr., a Seeq Lanista and a Moogle Time Mage that are always trying to get the latest news about Prima Donna.
• Took a Level in Badass: Even the most staunch Vaan hater admits that his Sky Lord incarnation is Badass incarnate. He's gotten to the point that imposters will simply claim to be him, knowing that no one is stupid enough to pick a fight with the Sky Lord. He spends most of his time hunting the imposters down though.
• Travel Montage: When using the Aerodome from Moorabella to Fluorgis, and back.
• True Companions: The various clans in the game, including Luso's.
• Tsundere: The Witch of the Fens. It's hard not to get the impression that she likes Luso. For one thing, while she usually charges exorbitant prices for her services, it's on the house whenever Luso needs something.
  • Adelle is a bit mean to Luso at the end, but while Luso and Cid went off, Adelle cries while Hurdy comforts her. (They were teleported at the final stage, at which you can go back to the mainland and prepare for the final fight).
  • There was also their argument they had once. She slapped him hard. He slapped her back, where she roared at him for hitting a girl, and he tells her not to be dumb.
• Two-Timer Date: The quest chain beginning with "An Earnest Search" tasks the player with helping serial philanderer Marnot, who has a bad habit of scheduling multiple dates at the same time. It starts off simple — with only two simultaneous dates, you can attend one and he the other — but quickly escalates to the point it's physically impossible to reach them all in time, forcing you to use the Dispatch system to make sure every lady is acknowledged. Amusingly, due to how the Dispatch system works, the most important factors are the level and MVP rank of the units you send, with trivial things like "looking at all like the person they claim to be" being ignored entirely.
• Underground Level: In the Galleria Deep, Nazan Mines, Neslowe Passage and Goug regions. The one in Neslowe Passage must be unlocked through a mission as opposed to the local Lethal Lava Land as in other regions.
• Useless Useful Spell: Sadly, skills that cause bad status are no longer the game-breakers they were in the first Tactics Advance.
  • They're still useful though. Green Mages (the first-tier Mezzers of choice) make it much easier to get through the early parts of the game. Not that they aren't useful afterwards...
  • Fortunately this goes both ways. Bad status effects on your party members aren't as bad anymore.
  • Sleep and Stop still make the victims so easy to hit that most effects have a 100% hit chance. Yes, even Instant Death.
  • Plus Green Mages learn a spell, Tranq, that makes status effects more likely to hit. Including Death, again.
• Upgrade Artifact: Most spells and abilities are learned from various pieces of equipment, although like in the prequel and Final Fantasy IX, learning takes some effort.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • The missions that require you to destroy traps will always fall under this. The only way to destroy a trap is to trigger them yourself and suffer its effects. Unless you recruit Vaan, who has an ability that lets him safely disarm traps.
  • Abilities that hit multiple targets in an area can also be this if you decide to attack several enemies while hitting your own units in the process. If your units can take the damage without trouble, then you probably won't mind the friendly fire damage anyway.

• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Flowsand Lord on Hard mode. Aside of having Contractual Boss Immunity and an unlimited amount of Antlions mooks, his placement makes him a bit tricky to attack. Not only that, but out of his two most-used attacks, one hits the entire board hard enough to half-kill the Squishy Wizards, and the other deals a huge amount of damage and heals him.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Gria don't have many unique abilities outside of the inconsistent at best Geomancer ones, but they get the unique Sneak Attack (deal more damage when attacking from the side, deal massive damage when attacking from the back, and they fly over your head to reach your back), an Ultima variant, Sonic Boom, and the decent enough Advice (boosts critical rate of an ally, useful when foes are far away and they have nothing else to do), which, while their only really viable setup, is all they need. They also get Crush abilities; amped-up versions of the Soldier's Break abilities which deal damage in addition to lowering the stat (Speed Crush is by far the most useful of the three.)
• A Winner Is You: The bonus 301st mission is a tournament against five squads of insta-death spamming maniacs who automatically get 50 turns before you can even blink. The reward for surviving this onslaught is... the credits. And the picture of a book.

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