This is a strange RPG. Literally all successful actions result in accrual of EXP and JP. This means, you can get everything you want from a job for all the characters in your party in a single fight as well as adjust their Brave and Faith the maximum permanent amount in a single fight as well. You can, equipment and unique characters aside, build your endgame party in the first room in the game after a few fights. This would require knowledge of the jobs and their abilities first so you can focus said grinding, but it's there as a seemingly available option not requiring exploits. I'm not sure when the best time to do this grinding would be. You will not naturally obtain the game's most powerful classes and abilities without grinding, and there's nothing stopping you from grinding when you hit a wall (unless you overwrite your only save in a campaign or something). On my last run, I did make my endgame party early, but I can't say that was the best way to play it or that it was fun. Putting the crew together honestly isn't any fun at all. The opposite extreme of not knowing how to form your party and getting stuck on a fight because all your guys suck is also pretty bad.

This update adds new classes, new equipment, and a couple of multiplayer modes. It's the most content-rich version. I'd suggest either emulating it or getting the patch to deal with the slowdown.

I'm kind of confused about my feelings about the game as it comes across to me as strangely sandboxy despite its genre. You really are free to mold your party as you see fit without only gentle suggestions either way (female units tend to perform better with magic and male units tend to perform better with physical combat, the protagonist scales equally at both). This highly experimental approach to party-forming did hold my attention across several playthroughs, but, knowing how the systems work, I have no desire to play it again.

I'm torn on picking an overall rating for how it plays. It's definitely not fun when you know what you're doing, but I'll instead review it as a large puzzle you'll unravel that's perhaps overly cryptic. That would at least mean it was interesting for the initial run. 2.5/5

I first played this game back when I still had my PSP, probably sometime during elementary or middle school, and at the time, I definitely still had fun despite only engaging with the mechanics on a surface level. But dear lord, the amount of depth and optimization that you can do in this game if you decide to dig into it is insane, all of which are sadly, only explained in the optional tutorials. At the same time I understand this choice, introducing all of the systems to the player at once would probably overwhelm them and possibly drive away the more casual players or those who are new to strategy games. So I'd honestly suggest just engaging in parts of the system that you like, as you can still finish the game without fully optimizing everything anyway.

As I've said, this game is just absolutely loaded gameplay-wise. There's a ton of jobs and you can even sort of multiclass by learning and equipping skills from a different job. You can make a dual-wielding ninja who has insane range and attacks twice a turn. You can have an arithmetician instakill most enemies in the field (probably along with some of your own party members too). Hell, I remembered just having two or three dragoons in my party way back then just because I loved the job. Is it optimal? Most likely not. But hell was it fun. Although, probably one of the downsides to the gameplay is that the difficulty does randomly spike at times which could get you hard stuck on some fights. Sometimes it also randomly dips, especially when you use some of the OP party members like Agrias and Cid.

Story-wise, FFT is a story about a man who sticks to his own beliefs and morals, only for the rest of the world to brand him as a heretic. And I think this framing is perfect for understanding Ivalice and the rampant corruption, class-divide, and constant political power play that happens within it. The dialogue is written beautifully, and it definitely has a lot to say.

Let's also not forget the art and sprite work because wow, is it charming. Akihiko Yoshida has probably become one of my favourite artists.

I obnoxiously recommend this game to all of my friends (as if it's not apparent already). Even if strategy games are not your thing, I would still recommend trying it for the story and great writing. But I do have to say that I get it if you ended up not enjoying it due to how punishing it can get at times. I really wish it was more accessible because the story is so good. It's such a shame...