Ranking Every Final Fantasy Spin-Off Game
5. Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is actually short for ‘Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2’, even though it was actually released on the DS. It tied in to its predecessor, albeit quite negligibly, by sending another individual from the ostensible ‘real world’ into Ivalice. This time around, however, Ivalice was not a dream world, but the one featured in Final Fantasy XII. With several locations from the original Tactics (which is set thousands of years in the future despite being less technologically advanced) also included, you’d be forgiven for being confused.
Tactics A2 played almost identically to its predecessor, adding two more races and a host of new jobs to be the most numerically complex job system in the entire franchise. This made combat a wondrously strategic pleasure to behold over the course of 300 missions.
It was far weaker in the story department, however. Whilst Adelle and Cid were interesting supporting characters, Luso was mostly a blank slate and his journey lacks the emotion of Marche’s. It exceeded Tactics Advance by virtue of having revised and removed frustrating elements of gameplay though, with Judges relegated to minor annoyances rather than regular sources of rage and certain quests no longer glitched out of existence.
Ultimately, if Tactics A2 is the last we ever see of the Tactics subseries on consoles, it went out on a considerable high.