Earlier this week, I talked to some game developers about why they love Final Fantasy Tactics. But beloved or not, man, does this game have a steep learning curve.

Boy, do people love Final Fantasy Tactics. They love it so much they’d marry it, if…

A little background: I never had a PS1, so I didn't have a chance to play Final Fantasy Tactics. I became terrifyingly hooked on Tactics A2 on the DS, but after hearing so many people prosthelytize about how the original is the superior game, I wanted to finally play it.

And so I have been. I'll be writing about the game a lot here over the coming weeks, since I can already tell there's going to be a lot to unpack. But first: The whole learning-curve thing.

I wanted to share a chat conversation I had with our resident FFT savant Jason Schreier after I spent a couple of hours getting pantsed over and over again by the game's first difficulty spike, the infamous Dorter Slums.

Brace for a long, sprawling IM conversation!

Kirk: I really just lost Dorter Slums

Kirk: man

Kirk: got shredded

Kirk: am I going to have to go grind in training forever to level my bros up?

Jason: nope

Jason: tell me about your party

Kirk: squire MC (squire) chemist chemist 2 bros

Jason: there's your problem

Kirk: ok

Kirk: go

Jason: at this point, your characters should all be at least job level 2 in their respective classes

Kirk: I thiiink they are

Jason: at squire level 2, you can become a knight or archer

Jason: at chemist level 2, you can become a wizard or priest

Kirk: yeah but how can I get a bow

Jason: igros castle sells equipment for knights and archers

Jason: gariland sells stuff for wizards and priests

Kirk: ok one sec, getting back into the game

Jason: oh also, save a lot

Jason: because you can get into random battles any time you're moving across a green tile

Jason: and there's no fleeing

Kirk: yup

Kirk: I'm already on top of that one

Kirk: so should I make my bro a knight

Jason: yeah so at this point it's totally up to you

Jason: this is basically where the game starts opening up

Kirk: so what's a good party

Jason: you might want to make algus and delita knights

Jason: since their AI is dumb

Jason: and knights have the most HP

Kirk: yeah I mean god

Kirk: fucking morons

Jason: a good party for your four guys is knight/archer/wizard/priest for now

Kirk: k

Jason: then when the battle starts you can move your archer-bro up the bigass hill

Jason: with your wizard to help take out bros up there

Jason: keep your knight below to slash shit up and your priest to give him support

Jason: now for the spell system

Kirk: ok ok one sec

Jason: basically what happens is when you select a spell to cast, you can also check when that spell will actually go off

Kirk: i'm making my chick chemist Hilde into a white mage

Jason: and you can hit a button (i forget which) to see the entire order of events

Jason: so like

Jason: if you're casting a fire spell on an enemy

Jason: you want to get it off before that enemy moves

Jason: so if the turn order says the enemy will go first

Jason: you might not want to cast it on that guy

Jason: but there are a lot of factors involved

Kirk: so ok

Jason: you'll get the hang of it

Kirk: how do i check turn order

Kirk: I can't figure that out

Jason: so when you go to cast a spell

Jason: either right, or select

Jason: i forget

Jason: or start maybe

Jason: idk

Jason: play around with buttons

Jason: but there's a way to see it in the menu when you cast that spell

Kirk: right

Kirk: so it takes a turn, which makes sense

Kirk: it's like Trails In The Sky in that way actually

Kirk: in A2 you usually cast immediately except with some spells, at least that's how I remember it

Jason: yeah

Jason: well the math is like

Jason: everyone has a bar called CT that gradually charges

Jason: and when a character's CT hits 100, it's their turn

Jason: but some classes recharge faster than others

Jason: it's all based on your speed stat

Kirk: riiiight

Kirk: CT

Jason: your main character, btw, gets a shitload of awesome squire abilities that you should learn asap

Jason: including one that boosts speed

Jason: oh also

Jason: when you're switching everyone's classes

Jason: make sure you remember to give them secondary skills

Jason: so like ramza should get Guts always

Kirk: so right

Kirk: so like

Jason: some other dudes could get Items

Kirk: I'm gonna do that

Kirk: so I have to learn abilities

Kirk: what was the thing you said I should learn immediately though?

Jason: gained JP up

Jason: for everyone

Kirk: how do i do that

Jason: ok go into the menu

Jason: go to job/abilities

Kirk: yeah

Jason: there should be a big menu with every class

Kirk: yup

Jason: for each character, you go into each class and you can learn abils there

Kirk: yes

Kirk: aah

Kirk: JP Boost

Kirk: is that it?

Jason: oh yeah, sorry

Jason: some of the abil names were changed for PSP

Jason: "gained jp up" was psx

Kirk: so if I learn that

Kirk: for Squire

Kirk: and I'm a knight

Kirk: I'll still have it?

Jason: yes

Kirk: k

Jason: you have to equip it, though

Jason: each char can only use one support ability at a time

Jason: one reaction, one support, one movement

Kirk: ooh

Jason: so for each character, you have to learn JP boost, then equip it

Jason: abilities are different

Jason: active abilities, that is

Jason: i think they're called "command" abilities

Kirk: great

Kirk: this is great

Jason: so if you have a knight, and you set his secondary ability to squire abils

Jason: then you can use all squire command abilities

Jason: but not all squire support/movement/reaction abilities

Kirk: ok hang on parsing that

Jason: those are separate

Jason: ok basically

Jason: go to one of your dudes

Jason: and go into the menu where it lists all the jobs

Jason: then go to squire

Kirk: ohh

Kirk: hang on

Kirk: so first I have to activate JP boost

Kirk: I have two lightning bolt abilities

Kirk: an arrow

Kirk: a looping arrow

Kirk: and a foot

Jason: right

Jason: i forget which arrows are which

Jason: but one is support, one is reaction

Jason: foot is move

Jason: the two lightning bolts are command abils

Kirk: right

Jason: so those can all be mixed and matched

Jason: once a character learns an ability, he can equip it at any time

Jason: so once Kirklton has jp boost, he can put that in no matter what class he is

Kirk: right

Kirk: got it

Kirk: not everyone has enough jp to get jp boost yet

Kirk: but they're close

Kirk: we'll have to win another fight or two

Kirk: probs on the way to the castle to get a bow

Jason: so do that before you switch classes

Kirk: right

Jason: since remember, they all need to be getting squire jp

Kirk: well

Kirk: my mages are all good

Kirk: oh aaah

Kirk: they have to be squires to get the jp

Kirk: right right

Jason: not necessarily

Jason: remember the sharing thing

Kirk: is move+1 necessary? my black mage isn't close to getting it

Jason: ok so yeah, as long as you have one or two squires, everyone will learn at least a tiny bit of squire jp

Kirk: aah got it

Kirk: I don't want any squires

Jason: it's nice, but not necessary

Jason: right so

Jason: when you're grinding

Jason: you can have one person be a squire

Jason: so everyone else gains that jp

Jason: and can get jp boost

Kirk: riiight

Jason: since jp boost is necessary

Kirk: do you grind with training?

Jason: what do you mean

Jason: ok here's the thing about grinding

Jason: you basically never need to grind

Jason: unless you have specific goals

Jason: like "hey i wanna get this ability right now"

Jason: but what you can do is

Jason: in one battle

Jason: kill every monster but one

Jason: weaken that one

Jason: he'll run away to a corner of the map

Jason: and then just have all your characters wail on one another

Jason: or use random abilities

Jason: because they gain JP/exp for every action

Jason: so that's what really matters

Kirk: right

Jason: you can get hundreds and hundreds of JP in one random battle just by having your characters attack each other for a little while

Kirk: god

Kirk: hahahaha

Kirk: how the fuck did anyone learn this

Kirk: I guess they read the manual

Jason: nah

Jason: there's a bigass tutorial section but in the original version it was garbled and wrong

Jason: so we all just kind of

Jason: fucked around