Game:

Final Fantasy Tactics S (2013)

Duration: 9:44

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4

This won't be an entirely complete video series, I'm only going to include the story battles, no random encounters that I use for character building and setup.

I suppose I should explain the premise in a bit more detail here, as there are several ways this could be approached. I'll be going for a method of playing FFT that involves using only level 1 characters, but also never gaining experience. There are a few ways to accomplish this. The most immediately obvious one is by killing enemies solely with counterattacks. I'll be going for strategies a bit less passive, most of the time. Although we will see some Hamedo before it's all done.

I don't think there's any way to do this run completely pure, so I've had to make a few exceptions. Guests, for example, are allowed to gain experience. I thought about trying to add a requirement of killing a guest party member before they can perform any actions, however there are certain battles where this is outright impossible, as several of the game's objectives are "Save Agrias!", or the like. Since that's the case, I just decided to make use of guests where possible. Here in the game's first battle, there would have been no other option anyway.

The second two story battles are equally problematic. The game gives you no chance to even visit a shop before the second story battle, and there is nowhere to perform a random encounter before the third. So essentially, my run doesn't really begin until I unlock Mandalia Plains as a random battle location, so I can begin building my party. I'm still going to try to adhere to certain rules for the first three battles, however. All non-guest characters who enter the battle must enter at level 1, and Ramsa must not be allowed to gain any XP.

Before the fourth story battle I will build my party. This involves dozens of hours of grinding on Mandalia Plains. I purchase new recruits at Gariland, level them up, and use their spillover JP to level my main party members' jobs and abilities. I can't use the level-down trick even if I wanted, as there's no level-down trap possible on Mandalia Plains. So these will be pure level 1 characters. Once their abilities are all learned, I will use that party to beat the rest of the game, making certain that none of them ever gain XP on a single turn. This adds a level of complexity to FFT that I haven't experienced in years, and some of the victories were quite thrilling.

As for this first video, things are pretty straightforward. There's not a lot of strategy involved, aside from making sure Ramsa (heretofore Atheme) doesn't take a turn. I get unlucky in several ways, such as Gafgarion starting with Phoenix Down and being really serious about it. Overall it just wastes some time though. Gafgarion and Agrias can consistently win this battle, everyone else just serves as a meat shield.

I struggle on Ramsa's turns here because of the tutorial being on, which makes the Wait command require one button press more than I'm used to.

I always choose Sagittarius as my starting Zodiac because it gets Ramsa bad compatibility with Wiegraf. That slows that battle down enough to prevent Wiegraf from one-shotting you under certain circumstances. I don't actually know if it's beneficial to this specific run, but in general it has served me well.

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