My gang is facing an enemy group, and they're all walking on the spot. After some stilted introductory dialog, I find myself outside a building looking at a cute party of people who I don't know, one of whom is apparently me. And without any kind of experience, I'm immediately running into issues. I was extremely trepidatious going into this game, simply because I never play stuff like this. What about you folks? Any particular stratagems strike your fancy this time through the game? That little rat Argath (formerly known as Algus) went down like a chump to a concentrated Aurablast. Ramza has one of the highest natural Faith ratings in the game… but it's so darned satisfying to lay waste to everything in sight with raw physical power that I end up turning him into a Monk. On the up side of things, that makes them much better at receiving healing spells and buffs, too. See, one unique feature of Final Fantasy Tactics is that the higher a character's Faith, the more effectively they can use magic the downside is that a high Faith rating makes a character equally susceptible to magic. (My four-year-old nephew renamed Ramza for me he doesn't know a thing about Final Fantasy XIII, but he loves Pixar's Cars.) I always feel like I should take Lightn-err, Ramza down a magic-based path. Whatever the case, I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to build my team and its protagonist, Lightning Beoulve. Either I worked with ruthless efficiency, or else PSP games are very gentle on the Vita's battery life.

And I still managed to cruise through this on a single Vita battery charge. I took the time to grind up enough experience that I was able to clear out the final battles of the chapter - roughly level 7, I guess? - without breaking too much of a sweat. You know, this game goes a lot faster than I remember.

Final fantasy tactics portrait