90 percent of all gamers think that Square's best product is the Final Fantasy series. After a few years, Final Fantasy returns on the Gameboy, with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

The story begins when Marche is being hastled by a group of kids and ends up in a snowball fight. Together with his two friends, Mewt and Ritz, they open up an ancient magical tomb which turns their small town of St. Ivalice into a kingdom of swords and sorcery, known as Ivalice. To turn his world back to normal, Marche must learn the rules of this new fantasy world, join a clan, pick up a sword, learn some magic tricks and fight his way trough dozens of tactical battles. Ultimately, he must unravel the riddle of the crystals, the magical stones that are the key to restoring his home.

FFT starts in a nice way. When you start a new game, you'll be thrown into your first fight: a snowball fight. No swords, no magic, just snow. After a few round of defeating your enemies with your demolishing snowballs, it's time for you to sit back. You'll have to take a good breath, start reading and pressing the A button a dozen of times, there's quite a story coming up...
After recovering from lazy eyes and a sour thumb, you can continue playing the game itself. You'll find yourself in a strange world and on your way into your second fight already, this time with a weapon. Obviously, it's not such a good idea to call a Bangaa a 'lizard'. Fortunately, you'll get some help in your new world from a rabbit-like being. He explains to you the rules of this new world. According to him, there are several rules you must append to in order to survive this new world. During a fight for example, there's a 'judge'. This guy acts as the referee. He decides the rules during the fight, such as 'no item usage allowed'. Obey this guy, since he's got the power to put you into jail...

During the fights, you can use several items (if allowed) ranging from healing potions to attacking objects. To attack the enemies, you'll also have some weaponry to use, aswell as some magic skills to throw a lightening bolt to them, or use combo moves. These combo moves are extremely powerful, they combine several fighting skills to attack your opponent from different sides, leaving him almost a sitting duck for your attacks. The fighting scenes themselves are best compared with those from Tactics Ogre. Turn based action, several options, attacking from heights influences accuracy and damage dealt, etc.

The characters will get experience points after fights, which can be used to upgrade them. Jobs become available (read the features-section below) when characters equip special objects, defeat certain other characters or reach a certain level.

Graphically, this game looks nice: brushed up graphics from Tactics Ogre. The cutscenes however are of even better quality, most of these look handdrawn. Generally spoken, the visuals won't disappoint you.

The sound system of FFT however is a very different story. Sure, it's nice to see that Square put in a different tune for each area, but make the tunes worth it! The ingame sound effects are mostly bleeps from menu-choices, explosions from fireballs and slash-sounds from weaponry.

Reviewed by: Dennis