Final Fantasy Hacktics

I played the first four battles of chapter 1 and have been enjoying it so far, but...my inventory, too, was completely decimated following the fight where you release the prisoners. All the stuff I stole in that battle was gone, in addition to a bunch of stuff I didn't.

Also, is it intentional that thieves don't have advanced classes like warriors and elementalists? I have a thief to job level 4 but nothing else has shown up.

Just played up through Gariland, so a few comments.

• I really like Agrias's new coat. Not really a comment on the patch proper, but it's nice. Seal Evil being on her skill list was cool, too. Is there a reason her damage is meh and Gafgarion's is out of this world? He does absolutely ridiculous damage.


• The animation for gun use appears to be broken, at least with the bandit in the Orbonne battle; he fired and his sprite glitched out.


• I took one look at the Chef skills Agrias starts with and instantly decided to never use the class, because the error message when you try to use them greyed out makes it sound like it kills monsters in your roster with each use. This isn't the case, right? Otherwise the class would be kinda bad.


• I'm really liking the new start with br/fa 65 generics, that removes the randomness factor. I still argue that Charge is a completely worthless skillset and could easily be condensed into two, maybe three skills (Quick charge, Mid charge, and Strong charge maybe?) without losing anything, allowing the warrior some of the flexibility from squire back.


• Weapons do a whole LOT more damage! I really like it, it cures the problem a lot of FFT hacks have of slow, slow battles. I had to phoenix down several times in Gariland, and as someone else said, Ramza and Delita even feel a little weak compared to the generics when they don't have their skills yet, which is cool; I can see putting them in more of a supporting role, with the skills you've given them.


• Phoenix downs are crazy expensive, which I get is an intentional design decision, and I understand the logic completely (chemists are OP, even in 1.3). However, there's no real other way to access revival super early (like mandalia/sweegy early) and with enemies doing so much damage, that can be dangerous. I'll look around the other classes as I play for revival alternatives, because phoenix downs are really not sustainable at all this early.

More later as I play more. My biggest gripe right now is that you redid a lot of bothersome things with this patch, chief among them that PA classes were less useful than MA ones, but you didn't change the Warrior's terrible skillset, which is 80-90% useless once you have charge+2, charge+6, and charge+20. Other than that, you seem to have done a great job with the new stuff! Not having to deal with a butler this early is really nice.

Argh, the end of chapter 1 is destroying me. All my clothes-wearing units are stuck with Peasant Frocks, since I don't want to give them Training Vests and have them soar ahead of everyone else in level, causing the enemies to scale equally.

I'm really enjoying this patch and the weird changes in strategy I have to make for it. One question, though: I can understand the usefulness of Lapidary somewhat, even though they seem to break the ring every single time, but what is the appeal of Tactician? It seems of pretty dubious usefulness, having to spend several turns giving itself a status effect just to use its skills.