Say hello to my new online gaming obsession: Tactics Arena Online. It's a browser-based flash game. The best way to describe it is a combination of Final Fantasy Tactics and Chess. It's super easy to pick up and play, but you have to be very good to compete at higher levels. It's strictly PVP (player vs player). You start out in a 'Lobby' and either accept a challenge or issue one yourself by placing your avatar on a minature board (The animation kind of reminds me of the chess game in Star Wars). You then take turns trying to wipe each other out. There are several different types of units- fighters, magic users, archers, healers, etc. A game takes 5-30 minutes, depending on the skill of you and your opponent. I can imagine that games could take hours between highly skilled people, but I'm not at that stage yet. Your profency in battling is rated by a score. You start off at 750 and go up from there (or down if you aren't any good). I started playing this three days ago and I'm currently hovering around 930. There's also a settings page where you can switch out different types of units and change your starting formation. There's only two downsides to the game that I've seen (so far). One, the online chat is filled with thirteen year old hornballs trying to get laid (cyber). Just ignore them and it's not really an issue. The second downside is that the free account expires in 30 days. You have an option to sign up for a Gold account at $5 a month to keep your stats indefinately and gain access to more unit types and the Gold server, where only paying members play (better competition, I'm thinking). I'm thinking of going Gold for the units, although you CAN win as a free member (grey) vs a gold member (gold). If you don't feel like paying, just sign up under a different name when your trial is up. It's a really polished online game. Quite frankly, you get a lot of play for free. Their website has tons of resources (example). And there are some helpful guides in their forums as well. There are four different servers, and I'm on the Great Lakes server currently as Xerobull. Hopefully I'll see you guys in game.
looks cool. final fantasy tactics is one of my fav. games of all time . i keep an old playstation and the game around just in case i feel like playing for the 100th time. not to derail the thread, but does anyone else know any other games, any system, that i would like since i love tactics so much?
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, it was originally released on the PS2 and was recently ported to PSP. The story line was good and very funny and the battle system was very good. The developer also made a few other tactical games that were good, but Disgaea was the best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgaea:_Hour_of_Darkness I'll post any other good ones I can think of.
I love that game too. There's a sequel on the Game Boy Advance- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. You can probably get an emulator and the rom somewhere on the internets to play it on your computer. The Shining force series from the old Sega systems was very similar as well. I decided to switch to my real name when I started meeting CFers in person. I just didn't feel like going back and forth. The other handle is retired in this forum. I like to keep things simple.
I'm getting a hang of things in the game. So let me know when you're playing so we can have a game together. I'm also on the Great Lakers server.