this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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Actually the goated answer because 5 has the BEST job system out of all of the games, except maybe 12 (i don't like non-Zodiac versions of 12 locking you into a job)
Tactics Advance has the best job system. Other aspects are lacking but the job system is great
Tactics games aren't mainline final fantasy tho (๑>•̀๑)
Plus Tactics Ogre or X-COM are better tactics games, the only thing FF tactics (PSX) has is pretty graphics. The maps and teams are too small. It has it's fans, I'm not one of them. (づ￣ ³￣)づ ::: spoiler click I'm only half serious ⌓‿⌓
All I said was ffta has a the best job system
Oh yeah I know I read what you said, I haven't played the handheld games yet. I will give them a go at some stage to see if they click with me. I would hope they are an improvement over the PlayStation game but I am hesitant. I've yet to play Knight of Lodis too tbf. I do have hot takes but like I know the games are liked which is valid. I have particular tastes and I enjoy difficult games (been described as a masochist) but I do like hearing why people like games I don't particularly gel well with.
What do you like about the job system and have you anything else to "sell" me on the games? ૮ • ﻌ - ა
It's the only gba game I still have my original cartridge of from when I was a kid and bought it a few weeks after launch. My original file has 500 hours played on it according to the in game counter. I've played it from a new file 4 other times. The story isnt great, it's enough but dont expect anything close to fft, its more Saturday morning cartoon vibes. This is fine cause there is like...SOOOOOO many side missions. The main game is maybe a quarter of the full game, possibly less. The party building/leveling system is my favorite out of any rpg ive played. Experience is split into exp for your stats and AP for learning abilities, the abilities are attached to equipment which you need to be using to have the ability and then when you reach enough AP it's yours. There are dispatch missions you can send party members on where they wont be there for a set number of days or battles and those grant AP but not EXP, this is how you can get silly with it. You have two main ability slots. One for the class youre using and one from any other class you have gained abilities in. So for example, if you want a fighter with white magic but dont wanna sacrifice hitting hard by leveling as a white mage, you can send em on dispatch to learn the spells, maybe get a couple levels in the class to get your mp up to snuff and then switch back to fighter for most of your stat leveling. Your party can be up to 30 people although you only use 8 or so in battle at a time, so the customization potential is off the charts. In my last playthrough I made the main character a fighter with white magic who had doublesword from the ninja class and a standard physical attacks miss me every time ability from the archer class (there also passive and reactive abilities and you can pick just one but once again, from any class you've mastered the ability from. I had a split summoner/assassin who took a brief stint in red magic to learn doublecast. Once you get the hang of how the system works it's just really fun to work on your team. It's a super easy game and I kinda wish there was some tougher challenges for when your party is nearly maxed out, but there are 300 quests, a system of battling other parties for control of the world map, capturing and raising monsters if you've got a beast master and it used to have cool link cable co-op missions as well. The battle system is also WAY better than FFT, you can cast a spell on the turn you select it for example
That's a lot of hours, I usually back mine up from emulators or my handhelds at this point. I think I have close to 200-250 hours between recent Pokemon gen 1 and 2 romhacks.
The abilities from equipment sounds interesting. I found the classes in FFT kind of lacking in so far as a lot of the classes were watered down from previous games so a few of them felt redundant, so the customisation and tweaking of building the class sounds like an improvement. A lot of the defaults are enough to beat FFT which wasn't really a challenge.
I know there's a big community for these games which have put out a load of hacks for rebalancing and such. Depends on if you feel you want to play romhacks.
If there is way to link cable online there was a multi-player battle mode with full maps etc. The pvp potential in this game is next fucking level.
I still have yet to play TA or Ogre. I do like Tactics' job system though and that's actually what I've been replaying recently on the Switch (I should post some screenshots I forgot how good the early class-war plot was with the Corpse Brigade, Wiegraf my beloved), but don't consider them mainline!
TA has a bit of a different job system than tactics. Skills have their own exp and are attached to equipment, do enough stuff and you can use the ability. So you can gain skills in a class without leveling stats in it
(Dare I wade into this) So are the skills you buy for units in FFTA categorised into react/support/etc or are there just a set amount of slots for them or what? Skills attached to equipment could be neat. I am curious bc I just finished FFT.
Here is a 45 minute video going into really deep detail on how it works, but the basics are explained within the first 10.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tF5TvKMbRFs&t=2483s&pp=
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
You dont buy skills, you buy equipment like weapons and armor etc and that equipment comes attached with different abilities, sometimes the same ability can be learned by different jobs (like there is a cerain robe that grants/teaches auto regen to any magic class) from the same item and sometimes it has different abilities for different jobs, like the flame rod as i recall teaches fire to a black mage and haste to a time mage.
So say youre a white mage and also lesrned some time magic and black magic. Those are active skills, so you would have white magic by default as a white mage and then could pick to either have access to the time magic or black magic that you've mastered. Then there are reactive skills like reflex which makes standard attacks miss but offensive abilities still work, auto regen where when you get hit for the first time and spell activates that restores a little health each turn, stuff like that and you can pick one skill out of the ones you know regardless of what class your in, same goes for your passive skills (called support abulites in game) slot which is stuff like the classic doublesword grom ninja allowing you to hold a weapon in both hands and hit twice, doublehand is another where you can hold a two handed wespon with one and equip a shield or whatever in the other hand, or cut mp where my cost is cut in half, stuff like that.
For your active skills which are things like spells etc you get the full list of whatever you've mastered for the class you're in and the class you've chosen for your second slot.
Okay so maybe reductive but this sounds like it's mostly just the FFT job system but skills are taught by grinding with items instead of grinding for JP?
Sorta kinda. I linked this video to someone else who has been asking. Its a good game and made to be picked up and put down easily cause this gba, its a fun little bit each day kinds game.
Very detailed video about the job system but the first bit explains the basics and then goes into how you can do absolutely wack shit
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tF5TvKMbRFs&t=2483s&pp=
I'm watching it rn, the ellery one. No Training mode or Autobattle commands in this game, is there?
Some of this sounds important to keep in mind but a lot of it sounds like sweatlord minmaxing. I do think having different species of critters with access to different classes is a better system than gender segregated classes.
How much you wanna minmax is up to you. The video describes the sweatiest version, you can just casually build your team with a vague idea based on class how their stats go up. You can also just not care and play the game without worrying about it. It for sure isn't required. Ive just been at it for 23 years off and on now and kmow the ins and ours like the back of my hand. Its not required for it to be fun or to make cool custom parties
I was mildly suspicious is all, because vibes-based-teambuilding where you don't sweatlord it in FFT on the PS1 results in randoms on your team being deeply inferior to the unique characters which is not that fun =)
The game is super easy so min maxing just results in a really fun power trip
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: