The story behind FF:TA begins after a boy moves to the town of Ivalice. You start the game in a school playground during a snowball fight (which is laid out just like the battles throughout the rest of the game). During this fight you have a lot of help from the other characters about the use of the user interface and how to perform such functions as moving around the battle area and the proper order of selecting actions. After the snowball fight, you and two other characters come across an ancient magical book about a game called "Final Fantasy." That night, Ivalice changes and you and your friends have all been warped into the world of Final Fantasy on Ivalice.

The main difference between Tactics and regular FF games is that the story in Tactics is told through battle missions, rather than through a regular RPG-style environment. Regular missions are called engagements, which are simply battles. When setting up a battle, you pick the party members you want to use, and then you battle it out just like any other FF game. The battlefields are slightly different from those in other RPGs. These battle areas are made up of grid-like structures. Depending on your characters’ abilities, your movement is limited and so is the range of your attacks. For example: melee attacks require that you be right beside your opponent, but other attacks such as a crossbow or magical attacks allow you to keep your distance.

As you progress though missions, you’ll gain new characters for you clan. Clans can hold a maximum of twenty-three members, so you need to choose carefully who you want to keep. You should, of course, try to balance out your clan members so you have a wide variety of abilities and ranges of attack. The larger the battle, the more clan members you send into it.

There are five races in the game, each with their own preferred jobs and abilities. Each choice you make when customizing your character will determine its strengths and weaknesses. You can actually change a characters job, which is always a good idea to expand your party’s abilities. There are some actual non-battle missions in FF:TA, and in these non-battle missions you have to deploy one of your clan members and that member cannot be used again until the mission is either a failure or victory. Thus, you should always pay attention to the mission briefing, as want to choose a character that has a high enough skill level and the needed abilities to help you win the battle or complete the assignment at hand.

Each and every battle mission has laws that are governed by a Judge. Before any battle begins, the Judge enters the battle to observe and enforce the laws. The laws basically limit you from performing certain actions during the course of a battle. For example; if the Judge rules that there are to be no fire spells used, and you use one, you will be removed from the battle and sent to prison, whereas if you do the opposite and use Ice spells or powers, you will be rewarded with one JP (Judgment Point). JP are also awarded to the character dealing the final hit to an enemy in battle. These points are used for performing special attacks such as summon spells. If one or more of your characters is sent to prison they must stay there until a number of engagements have passed, after which they are set free. If your main character gets sent to prison, the game is over and you’d better hope you saved recently. If you’re impatient or desperately need a jailed character, you can choose to pay gil (money) in order to release him/her, or you might be able to get a pardon by sending a different character to prison in a trade-off.

Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance isn’t so much an RPG as it’s more of a "tactics" game, with an RPG backstory. You don’t ever walk your character around or explore like in other Final Fantasy games. The world map dictates all the points and routes that you can visit and as you progress further through the game you will open up more areas. Moving between areas takes one day in the world of Ivalice, but only takes a split second in real time.

Overall, the gameplay in FF:TA is pretty straightforward given you read the manual. The menu interface is simple enough and very much self-explanatory. If you need help, you can press the "select" button while your cursor is over something, which will then give you more information about that function. Hardcore Final Fantasy gamers should be able to pick up and play the game with little or no difficulty at all. Many of the items and abilities are similar to other FF games as well, which makes life a lot easier for the seasoned FF player.

Graphics-wise this game is stunning for a Game Boy Advance title. It’s not quite up to par with the PlayStation One version of FF Tactics, but all in all it’s very impressive. Some of the visual effects you will see will make you wonder how they managed to get so much out of the GBA. The character animation is very simple but clean, clear and well done. If you look carefully, you can make out small gestures made by the characters during conversations.

The music and sound effects accompany the game nicely, but don’t expect anything breathtaking like those from the PSOne or PS2 versions of Final Fantasy. This is the GBA after all! The music is slightly different from other FF titles but it still has that Final Fantasy feeling we have all grown to love.

All in all, I would have to say this is a must-have title for any GBA owner, especially if you are a fan of the Final Fantasy series. Square Enix has really done a fantastic job with this title. I can see myself putting even more hours into this game, on top of the countless hours I’ve already sunk into it.