last of the Japanese onlies.

Years ago I had played this game for the PS1 version when it came with FFVI. It was my first look at job selection for your characters (aside from the first game). It had a learning curve for me that took me a while to get used to. Sadly, at the time I really didn't like this part of the game. There were a lot of things that I hated about this game. But then I got it for my GBA collection. Finally I had a purpose for doing the jobs. I became addicted to getting every little ability. But therein lies the problem I STILL have with this game. While some of the jobs and their abilities were most useful, I found a number of them that were just tedious and more hurtful than helpful. Still, I labored on and got all 111 abilities for the four characters, mostly to see what they did rather to use them. You need all your characters to have these abilities, whether they stink or not, to get the final job (Necromancer, which in my opinion is one of the worse to use by far). Yeah the last job is more harmful to you than anything, seeing that if you heal yourself in battle while using this job you literally hurt yourself.

The story to this game is this: Meteors come crashing down to the earth and monsters are let loose. Supposedly, this really bad guy is using the meteors as a source of energy to resurrect himself. At one time a group of fighters fought against him and put him in a prison, but now he is feeding off the bad energies and is soon to break out. One of your party members has amnesia and you have to help him regaiin his memories. The members from the original group are slowly being killed off by minions of the evil creature, who escapes his binds and goes back to the planet from whence he came to prepare its destruction. The team follows and helps their amnesiac friend. Tragedy strikes and the two worlds are merged. Now the team prepare for the final battle and to avenge their fallen comrade and loved ones.

The upside to this game is that its not so much hack and slash as the previous four games had been. You now have several jobs to acquire many abilities from and like FFIII for the DS your party has many combinations to choose from to keep this game exciting. There are several optional boss fights that make or break you, including the Omega boss fight. I would avoid him at all cost, unless you have a strategy that I don't know about. There are two bonus levels after you complete the original game, though they don't necessarily add to the story. The first feels like a rehash of the third chapter of this game. The second one is just a collection of increasingly difficult boss fights.