NOW WITH FULL REVIEW!

If you're a fan of turn-based strategy games (much like myself) then you're a sucker for the fun of Final Fantasy Tactics. The original, released on the PS1, was a long, involved, and complex story of betrayal and war in a medieval setting. Its spiritual sequel, Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance hit the Gameboy Advance years ago and fans have been clamoring for more.

PSP owners got what they asked for with Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, but Nintendo DS owners finally get their time in the sun because Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift is here!

Customize your guild from scores of characters with different races, abilities, and job classes. Mages, fighters, priests, gunners, thieves... Combine characters to form an unstoppable squadron of tactical efficiency.

I'll be picking this one up this week - will you?

If you're an RPG fan then it's tough to deny the lure of the Final Fantasy universe that sprawls across decades and generations of gamers, from the early 90s NES gamers to the current generation thanks to the DS's line of re-vamped classic games like Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI. They're widely regarded as being some of the best told stories in video games, and the monumental Final Fantasy VII is credited with bringing role playing games to the mainstream back in the days of the PS1.

As time marched on Final Fantasy proved to be anything but Final - current games are tallying up to 12, not including spin-offs!

Final Fantasy Tactics is just one of the series spin-offs, using the base world and races and mechanics from the core FF series and porting them to a turn-based strategy game.

With the First Final Fantasy Tactics released on the PS1, and the first Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced being released on the Game Boy Advance, the latest installment, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 takes the graphics and gameplay up a notch on the Nintendo DS.

With a week's worth of hands-on time, I've formulated my impressions based on Story, Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, and Replayability. Let's see how this handheld title carries itself...

Story: You play as young Luso Clemens, a slack-off kid on the last day of school. Sounds like a summer worth of fun, right? Well too bad your teacher's such a prick he's going to make you stay late on the last day of school. Luso gets sentenced to the library to file some books when he finds a blank journal, always the troublemaker, Luso writes his name in the blank book and is magically transported to a world of vicious creatures, magics, and monsters!

Sure, the premise is a little weak (pretty much the same as the first Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced) but once Luso is transported to this fantasy world he needs to find a way home. I guess the kid's eager to get back to detention.

Eventually you run into a powerful sorceress with the intentions of using Luso's magic journal to destroy the world (or something generally evil).

While I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece of writing, and there are more than a few "What about X??" "We'll get to that later!" moments, the story holds up decently for what it's worth.

Gameplay: A lot of people have problems with turn-based games, claiming the fun of swift battles is sucked out of the game when you can spend minutes pondering your next move. Clearly those are the people with attention spans shorter tha- hey whats that?? Battles are anything but fast-paced in FFTA2. Full 6-on-6 fights can rage for up to a half hour but they never cease being fun.

You can build a "clan" (small army) of up to 24 units, but I rarely used any beyond the 5 I started with... except when story-based battles required me to use specific units (which became unfun).

Each unit can specify in different jobs, wear different equipment, learn different abilities, and fight in drastically different ways. It makes for fun and customizable game play.

Graphics: One's expectations aren't usually high when playing games on a handheld - there's no way graphics can measure up to those of an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, but the graphics for FFTA2 easily match those of a PS1, and are easily the best on the Nintendo DS yet!

A mix of sprite-based art and polygonal magic effects makes the game candy for the eyes in some situations - swirling wind, crackling fires, shattering ice - it all looks amazing.

Sound: There are some great musical numbers throughout FFTA2, some that will get your toes tapping and you'll find yourself humming later on but it's the sound effects really take the prize.

Hearing the grunts and screams of units as you bash them with maces or burn them with magical fire adds a whole other dimension to the gameplay, and a life to the characters.

Replayability: Here's another real high-point of the game: There are over 400 quests to complete in FFTA2! That's promising up to 80 hours of gameplay in a handheld game. With dozens of classes, hundreds of weapons, 7 races, and 400 quests, you won't be finished this game anytime soon, especially if you're one of the obsessive "100%ers" that enjoy completing everything about a game.

Overall FFTA2 is a great game featuring some epic battles between men and monsters. Defend kingdoms, defeat evil, and return to your own world - that's what you're hoping to accomplish. And it feels like you're working on that scale.

Between the hundreds of quests and the full customizable units, this one will hold the attention of almost any kid with ADD (and adult alike).

While it's not perfect, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 gets a score of: 8.5/10