Retro Game Walkthroughs for Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions (Sony PSP)
Submitted By: Warhunt
This is a duplicate copy of the original walkthrough posted by Fritz Fraundorf. I have edited some text in order to make it work in Freeola's systems.
---Basic Mechanics--------------------------------------------------------------
Q. I just started the game; how do I learn new abilities?
A. New abilities are "purchased" using JP, which you earn from any successful action in battle. You earn JP separately for each job, so earning JP as an Archer only lets you buy Archer abilities. (Gaining JP also eventually unlocks new jobs for you to use.) To buy abilities, on the map screen, open the menu (with Triangle) and enter the Party Roster screen. Then point to a character, press Triangle to open the menu, and choose Abilities. The in-game tutorial, available from the title screen, can walk you through this step-by-step. If you check out the "Exp, JP, and Gil" section of this FAQ, you'll also find tips on maximizing your JP haul, though you don't *need* them at the start of the game.
Q. How do I use items like Potions or Phoenix Downs?
A. Items are used with the Items command, which belongs to the Chemist job. So, switch one of your characters to a Chemist -- or assign Items as a secondary Action Ability.
To learn how to use each type of item, the character must also learn the ability that goes along with it. For instance, to use Phoenix Downs, you must first learn the Chemist's "Phoenix Down" ability. These abilities can be bought on your status screen using JP (Job Points) earned by using the Chemist job.
Q. How can I revive a dead character?
A. If the character is simply KOed (lying down with a red counter over his/her head), you can use a Phoenix Down, the White Mage's Raise/Arise spells, or the Monk's Revive. Or, finish the battle before the counter expires and the character will also be restored.
If the counter counts down past 0, the character will turn into a treasure chest or crystal. Once this happens, the character is gone for good and there is unfortunately NO way to revive him or her, ever. You may recruit replacement generic characters from the Warriors' Guild in any town. Special story characters are irreplaceable if killed.
Q. What do the Bravery and Faith statistics mean? Do I want high or low Bravery and Faith?
A. A high Bravery is almost always good. It increases your chance of using Reaction Abilities, and makes certain weapon types (fists, knight's swords, and katanas) stronger. The only advantage of low Bravery is that helps you find rare items with the Treasure Hunter ability, but you can just keep a single low-Bravery character for that purpose.
Faith makes a character's magick more effective, but also makes enemy magick more effective when used against that character. So, generally, you'll want your magick users to have high Faith (to make their magick stronger) and characters not using magick to have low Faith (to defend them from enemy magick).
See the Bravery and Faith section for more specific details, as well as tips on raising/lowering Bravery and Faith.
---PSP Version Changes----------------------------------------------------------
Q. Is Cloud still in this version of the game, like he was in the PSone release?
A. Yes. In fact, you can actually recruit him earlier than you could before.
Q. Aren't there some new jobs added to the PSP version that weren't in the PSone version? How do I unlock them?
A. The PSP version of FF Tactics has two new jobs. To make a character into an Onion Knight, simply get their Squire and Chemist jobs up to level 6. To make a character into a Dark Knight, you first have the character Master (learn all the abilities for) Knight and Black Mage, have Dragoon, Geomancer, Samurai, and Ninja at level 8, AND kill 20 enemies (not just KO--they must turn to chests or crystals; poaching does not count!). Yikes! :)
Q. What are the new subquests in the PSP version? How do I access them?
A. There are three new subquests in Chapter IV, one revolving around Beowulf and the others revolving around Agrias. Beowulf's subquest is available after returning Reis to human form at Nelveska Temple and after completing Mullonde Cathedral in the main storyline.
Agrias has a couple of different subquests. First, if you still have Alicia and Lavian, the Tynar Rouge event can be accessed on 1 Cancer. Second, after Mullonde, travel to Zeltennia to open up another battle accessed via the Tavern at Gariland.
Q. How do I get the new equipment in the PSP version?
A. The Tynar Rouge is obtained from the Agrias's Birthday quest, and the Mirage Vest and Ras Algethi come with Balthier. All the other new items can only be obtained as prizes in one of the multiplayer modes. Some items can only be found in Melee Mode and some only in Rendezvous Mode.
---Character Recruitment--------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I recruit Luso and Balthier?
A. Luso is recruited automatically in Chapter III as part of a story event. You CANNOT miss him! He'll join in a story event midway through the chapter, as you head through the Zeklaus Desert after revisiting Orbonne Monastery. There is NO way to recruit him any earlier in the game.
Balthier isn't available until you've completed the battle at the Free City of Bervenia in Chapter IV. Any time after that, read the "Rash of Thefts" rumor at the Gariland tavern, then go to the Dorter tavern and read the "Call for Guards" rumor. Win the battle that ensues when you try to leave town and Balthier joins.
Q. How do I get Cloud to join my party? And where do I find his sword?
A. See the "Subquests" walkthrough listed on freeola.com. You need to complete the Gollund Colliery, Nelveska Temple, and recruiting Cloud quests in sequence.
Q. I didn't buy the flower when I had the chance. Can I still get Cloud?
A. Unfortunately, it seems that you have only one chance to buy the flower. If you declined to buy it, you are not able to get Cloud, or complete the other sidequests that depend on the flower. Sorry :(
Q. How do I recruit monsters?
A. Use the Orator's Entice or Tame abilities on the monsters. If you switch to another non-Orator job, you'll need to also equip the Beast Tongue support skill to use Entice on monsters.
---Equipment--------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I get the Genji equipment? Can I steal it from the boss who has it?
A. Unfortunately, you can never steal from that boss in the PSP version, so he gets to keep his Genji gear to himself. Alas! However, you CAN get the Genji Armor and Masamune from the new "Lionel's New Liege Lord" subquest.
Q. How do I get good items / more items in multiplayer?
A. You'll get better items the higher your character level and (in Rendezvous Mode) the more difficult the mission you complete; most of the new items can only be obtained at a pretty high level. Winning Melee Mode battles and
completing Rendezvous Mode missions with fewer characters deployed and more enemies KOed increases the NUMBER of items you get, but doesn't change their quality.
Q. How do I get the lipstick accessory (Tynar Rouge)?
A. First, you need to keep Agrias, Alicia, Lavian, and Mustadio on your roster until Chapter IV. Once Chapter IV begins, travel back and forth between Gollund and Lesalia until the calendar says 1 Cancer. If you have at least 500,000 gil and are standing on a town (NOT a castle) when the calendar turns 1 Cancer, you should get the scene where you acquire the Tynar Rouge accessory.
Q. Where do I get all the Zodiac Stones?
A. Look in the Zodiac Stones walkthrough on Freeola.com
---Poaching---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I poach enemies?
A. Equip the Thief ability Poach and kill a monster with a regular attack. Then go to a Poachers' Den in a trade city and you can purchase what you've poached. Note that Poachers' Dens are NOT available in all cities;only Dorter, Warjilis, and Sal Ghidos have them, and they don't appear until the start of Chapter III.
Q. The guy at the Poachers' Den won't talk to me, or says the store is out of inventory.
A. To get inside the Poachers' Den, you must first poach at least one monster. (See the question above for instructions on poaching.) Also, if you've already bought up all the items that you poached, the Den will say they're out of inventory and there won't be anything for you to buy. So get poaching!
---Midlight's Deep & Treasure Hunter--------------------------------------------
Q. Where is Midlight's Deep?
A. After you finish the battles at Mullonde Cathedral, go to the Port City of Warjilis. You will see a scene at the bar, then the way to Midlight's Deep will appear.
Q. How do I use the Treasure Hunter coordinates you've included in each battle strategy?
A. Use the analog stick (in the lower left of the PSP). Every time you tap it left or right, the perspective changes. Rotate the perspective until the specified corner is the bottom of the map. From this corner, use the LEFT and UP buttons on the D-pad to move to the cursor to the correct tile. See the Treasure Hunter section (hit Ctrl+F and enter 00treasure ) for a more
detailed explanation.
Q. I landed on a treasure tile in Midlight's Deep, but I sprung a trap instead of getting a treasure.
A. This might happen for one of two reasons. Either the character doesn't have the Treasure Hunter ability equipped, or someone (either yourself or an enemy) already took the treasure off the tile. Unfortunately, once an item is taken from a tile, that tile's items are gone forever.
Q. What's this about a treasure tile at Mount Bervenia that you can't get?
A. Yep, there's a treasure tile programmed into Mount Bervenia that you can never actually get. To get it, your Treasure Hunter would have to stop on a tile filled with lava. The only abilities that let you do this are Lavawalking and Levitate, neither of which can be equipped simultaneously with Treasure Hunter. Float magick and gear like the Winged Boots do NOT work because they only allow you to move THROUGH lava on the way to another tile, and never allow you to STOP on top of lava.
The tile only has a Flameburst Bomb and X-Potion anyway, so don't sweat it.
---Specific Battles-------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I beat Wiegraf?
A. If you have a Chameleon Robe, equipping that will stop his sword techniques. (Otherwise, try using Auto-Potion or Mana Shield to protect yourself.) Run from Wiegraf and keep using the Tailwind ability to boost your speed. Repeat until you are getting seven or eight turns in a row, then start using Focus to raise your attack power. When you have high attack power, just attack and KO Wiegraf. Against Belias, run up and attack him repeatedly.
Q. How do I win at Golgollada Gallows?
A. The easiest strategy is to immediately start climbing up the wooden gate behind you. Once you get up on top, you can use magicks, bows, and guns to attack the enemies from above. Try to use status ailments like Disable to reduce the number of enemies attacking you at once.
Q. How do I beat the Lionel Castle Gate?
A. There are two main methods: One is to give Ramza the Chakra ability and have him use it every turn. The other is to use Teleport to warp outside the gate. Either way, don't open the gate until the fight outside is finished. To help beat the enemies outside the gate, equip Rubber Boots to block their lightning-elemental weapons.
Q. I just got ambushed at Dorter in Chapter IV. What's the deal?
A. If you have a Meliadoul, there's an optional battle at Dorter as you go from Limberry to Eagrose. (This battle is new in the PSP version.) There's not really anything special to earn in this battle, so you can either fight your way through it, or walk around Dorter to reach Eagrose. After you clear Eagrose, the ambush will disappear.
Q. I got into a random battle and was facing a weird set of enemies. Is this some special event? What's going on?
A. Each wilderness location has a "special" random battle that you can randomly encounter at low odds in Chapter IV. These special battles pit you against unusual enemy parties -- mostly collections of human enemies. You don't get anything special for winning these battles and they have no relation to the story, but they can be an interesting extra challenge!
---Jobs & Abilities-------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I use the Samurai's ability Iaido?
A. First learn the ability you want to use. Then buy several of the corresponding Samurai sword. During battle, you can use the ability if you have the appropriate type of sword in your inventory (NOT equipped). Note that this may break the sword, so I'd buy several copies.
Q. Why don't my Reaction Abilities always work?
A. For almost all Reaction Abilities, the chance of using the ability is equal to your Bravery stat. Use Ramza's skills or an Orator to raise the character's Bravery and your Reaction Abilities will activate more.
Q. I've learned all the abilities for one of my jobs, but it still doesn't show up as Mastered. Why not?
A. Ramza's Squire job, and Luso's Game Hunter job also require that you learn their hidden Ultima ability. The Summoner job also requires that you get the Zodiark summon. See the FAQs below.
Q. How do I learn Ultima?
A. Only Ramza and Luso can learn Ultima. Ramza or Luso must be in their base job; then, if someone casts the spell on him, he will learn it. (As long as just one of the two characters learns it, you can have him cast it on the other to learn it later.) The best time to learn the spell is from the assassins outside Limberry Castle in Chapter IV, but you can also have Luso learn it on the Riovanes Castle Roof in Chapter III, from Ultima Demons in other battles, or from another player in Rendezvous Mode. (The guest character during the final battle can also learn Ultima if it's cast on her.)
Q. How do I learn Zodiark?
A. You can only learn Zodiark from Elidibus, the boss of Midlight's Deep, by having him cast it on one of your Summoners. Equip the Mana Shield ability to survive it. (You only have a random chance to learn the spell when you're hit with it, so you might not learn it the first time you're hit with it, but the odds are definitely in your favor!) If you don't get the spell in Midlight's Deep, the only other place to find Elidibus is in the Brave Story multiplayer mission.
Q. What's the deal with Onion Knights? They seem horrible. Is there any way to make them stronger?
A. Actually, yes. The Onion Knight's job level goes up as you master other jobs, and if you can get the Onion Knight up to job level 8, they'll become more powerful. Also, if you play the game's multiplayer modes, you can earn some powerful "Onion" equipment that only Onion Knights can equip.
Q. What's the best team to use?
A. Well, you can win the game with all sorts of different combinations of abilities and characters, so feel to experiment and find a team that suits your play style :). If you're looking for a quick victory, Agrias, Orlandeau, and Balthier (and Lustadio, before you get Balthier) are all very powerful. Construct 8 is also quite good for simply playing through the single-player game, though it ends up being less useful at higher levels.
For generic characters, the Dark Knight is the best overall physical fighter and a Black Mage with Arithmeticks and all magicks learned is the best overall mage. Before you unlock those jobs, I like Ninjas and Monks for fighting and Chemists for healing. Monsters, in general, are not too useful.
---Miscellany-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Are there items or events in this game that I can permanently miss? What do I need to do to see them?
A. I've put together a Missable Items and Events list -- visit the relavant walkthrough on the site
Q. Help! I beat the last boss and the game said it was saving afterwards, but when I load up my last save, I'm just at the last boss fight again. Can I go anywhere else?
A. Unfortunately, no :(. The game clear save is just to unlock some of the multiplayer missions. If you want to continue moving the world map, you need to keep a separate save from before you began the final sequence of battles.
Q. Is there a way I can quickly gain levels?
A. Sure, see the Quickly Gaining Exp & JP walkthrough for strategies for this. With the right magicks, it's even possible to make this process completely automatic! But keep in mind you never *need* to do this to finish the game. Usually, a change of strategy should be enough to get you past the next battle and you don't need to spend time leveling if you don't want to.
Q. How do I ride a Chocobo?
A. Move the character onto the same square as the Chocobo.
Q. Is there any kind of New Game+ mode, so that I can start from the beginning but keep all my levels and items?
A. Unfortunately, no. FF Tactics dates back to a time before this feature started becoming common in RPGs. Whenever you start a new game, you always have to start from scratch.
Q. One of my characters is threatening to desert the team. What do I do?
A. This is happening because your character has either a very low Bravery or a very high Faith. To keep the character from leaving your roster, make sure the character's Bravery or Faith doesn't get any more extreme. To stop the threats, use Orator skills to increase the character's Bravery or lower his/her Faith. (Note that neither HIGH Bravery nor LOW Faith will ever cause a character to desert.)
Q. Why don't any of the characters have noses?
A. Your guess is as good as mine. Some genetic defect or something, I suppose.
---Basic Mechanics--------------------------------------------------------------
Q. I just started the game; how do I learn new abilities?
A. New abilities are "purchased" using JP, which you earn from any successful action in battle. You earn JP separately for each job, so earning JP as an Archer only lets you buy Archer abilities. (Gaining JP also eventually unlocks new jobs for you to use.) To buy abilities, on the map screen, open the menu (with Triangle) and enter the Party Roster screen. Then point to a character, press Triangle to open the menu, and choose Abilities. The in-game tutorial, available from the title screen, can walk you through this step-by-step. If you check out the "Exp, JP, and Gil" section of this FAQ, you'll also find tips on maximizing your JP haul, though you don't *need* them at the start of the game.
Q. How do I use items like Potions or Phoenix Downs?
A. Items are used with the Items command, which belongs to the Chemist job. So, switch one of your characters to a Chemist -- or assign Items as a secondary Action Ability.
To learn how to use each type of item, the character must also learn the ability that goes along with it. For instance, to use Phoenix Downs, you must first learn the Chemist's "Phoenix Down" ability. These abilities can be bought on your status screen using JP (Job Points) earned by using the Chemist job.
Q. How can I revive a dead character?
A. If the character is simply KOed (lying down with a red counter over his/her head), you can use a Phoenix Down, the White Mage's Raise/Arise spells, or the Monk's Revive. Or, finish the battle before the counter expires and the character will also be restored.
If the counter counts down past 0, the character will turn into a treasure chest or crystal. Once this happens, the character is gone for good and there is unfortunately NO way to revive him or her, ever. You may recruit replacement generic characters from the Warriors' Guild in any town. Special story characters are irreplaceable if killed.
Q. What do the Bravery and Faith statistics mean? Do I want high or low Bravery and Faith?
A. A high Bravery is almost always good. It increases your chance of using Reaction Abilities, and makes certain weapon types (fists, knight's swords, and katanas) stronger. The only advantage of low Bravery is that helps you find rare items with the Treasure Hunter ability, but you can just keep a single low-Bravery character for that purpose.
Faith makes a character's magick more effective, but also makes enemy magick more effective when used against that character. So, generally, you'll want your magick users to have high Faith (to make their magick stronger) and characters not using magick to have low Faith (to defend them from enemy magick).
See the Bravery and Faith section for more specific details, as well as tips on raising/lowering Bravery and Faith.
---PSP Version Changes----------------------------------------------------------
Q. Is Cloud still in this version of the game, like he was in the PSone release?
A. Yes. In fact, you can actually recruit him earlier than you could before.
Q. Aren't there some new jobs added to the PSP version that weren't in the PSone version? How do I unlock them?
A. The PSP version of FF Tactics has two new jobs. To make a character into an Onion Knight, simply get their Squire and Chemist jobs up to level 6. To make a character into a Dark Knight, you first have the character Master (learn all the abilities for) Knight and Black Mage, have Dragoon, Geomancer, Samurai, and Ninja at level 8, AND kill 20 enemies (not just KO--they must turn to chests or crystals; poaching does not count!). Yikes! :)
Q. What are the new subquests in the PSP version? How do I access them?
A. There are three new subquests in Chapter IV, one revolving around Beowulf and the others revolving around Agrias. Beowulf's subquest is available after returning Reis to human form at Nelveska Temple and after completing Mullonde Cathedral in the main storyline.
Agrias has a couple of different subquests. First, if you still have Alicia and Lavian, the Tynar Rouge event can be accessed on 1 Cancer. Second, after Mullonde, travel to Zeltennia to open up another battle accessed via the Tavern at Gariland.
Q. How do I get the new equipment in the PSP version?
A. The Tynar Rouge is obtained from the Agrias's Birthday quest, and the Mirage Vest and Ras Algethi come with Balthier. All the other new items can only be obtained as prizes in one of the multiplayer modes. Some items can only be found in Melee Mode and some only in Rendezvous Mode.
---Character Recruitment--------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I recruit Luso and Balthier?
A. Luso is recruited automatically in Chapter III as part of a story event. You CANNOT miss him! He'll join in a story event midway through the chapter, as you head through the Zeklaus Desert after revisiting Orbonne Monastery. There is NO way to recruit him any earlier in the game.
Balthier isn't available until you've completed the battle at the Free City of Bervenia in Chapter IV. Any time after that, read the "Rash of Thefts" rumor at the Gariland tavern, then go to the Dorter tavern and read the "Call for Guards" rumor. Win the battle that ensues when you try to leave town and Balthier joins.
Q. How do I get Cloud to join my party? And where do I find his sword?
A. See the "Subquests" walkthrough listed on freeola.com. You need to complete the Gollund Colliery, Nelveska Temple, and recruiting Cloud quests in sequence.
Q. I didn't buy the flower when I had the chance. Can I still get Cloud?
A. Unfortunately, it seems that you have only one chance to buy the flower. If you declined to buy it, you are not able to get Cloud, or complete the other sidequests that depend on the flower. Sorry :(
Q. How do I recruit monsters?
A. Use the Orator's Entice or Tame abilities on the monsters. If you switch to another non-Orator job, you'll need to also equip the Beast Tongue support skill to use Entice on monsters.
---Equipment--------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I get the Genji equipment? Can I steal it from the boss who has it?
A. Unfortunately, you can never steal from that boss in the PSP version, so he gets to keep his Genji gear to himself. Alas! However, you CAN get the Genji Armor and Masamune from the new "Lionel's New Liege Lord" subquest.
Q. How do I get good items / more items in multiplayer?
A. You'll get better items the higher your character level and (in Rendezvous Mode) the more difficult the mission you complete; most of the new items can only be obtained at a pretty high level. Winning Melee Mode battles and
completing Rendezvous Mode missions with fewer characters deployed and more enemies KOed increases the NUMBER of items you get, but doesn't change their quality.
Q. How do I get the lipstick accessory (Tynar Rouge)?
A. First, you need to keep Agrias, Alicia, Lavian, and Mustadio on your roster until Chapter IV. Once Chapter IV begins, travel back and forth between Gollund and Lesalia until the calendar says 1 Cancer. If you have at least 500,000 gil and are standing on a town (NOT a castle) when the calendar turns 1 Cancer, you should get the scene where you acquire the Tynar Rouge accessory.
Q. Where do I get all the Zodiac Stones?
A. Look in the Zodiac Stones walkthrough on Freeola.com
---Poaching---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I poach enemies?
A. Equip the Thief ability Poach and kill a monster with a regular attack. Then go to a Poachers' Den in a trade city and you can purchase what you've poached. Note that Poachers' Dens are NOT available in all cities;only Dorter, Warjilis, and Sal Ghidos have them, and they don't appear until the start of Chapter III.
Q. The guy at the Poachers' Den won't talk to me, or says the store is out of inventory.
A. To get inside the Poachers' Den, you must first poach at least one monster. (See the question above for instructions on poaching.) Also, if you've already bought up all the items that you poached, the Den will say they're out of inventory and there won't be anything for you to buy. So get poaching!
---Midlight's Deep & Treasure Hunter--------------------------------------------
Q. Where is Midlight's Deep?
A. After you finish the battles at Mullonde Cathedral, go to the Port City of Warjilis. You will see a scene at the bar, then the way to Midlight's Deep will appear.
Q. How do I use the Treasure Hunter coordinates you've included in each battle strategy?
A. Use the analog stick (in the lower left of the PSP). Every time you tap it left or right, the perspective changes. Rotate the perspective until the specified corner is the bottom of the map. From this corner, use the LEFT and UP buttons on the D-pad to move to the cursor to the correct tile. See the Treasure Hunter section (hit Ctrl+F and enter 00treasure ) for a more
detailed explanation.
Q. I landed on a treasure tile in Midlight's Deep, but I sprung a trap instead of getting a treasure.
A. This might happen for one of two reasons. Either the character doesn't have the Treasure Hunter ability equipped, or someone (either yourself or an enemy) already took the treasure off the tile. Unfortunately, once an item is taken from a tile, that tile's items are gone forever.
Q. What's this about a treasure tile at Mount Bervenia that you can't get?
A. Yep, there's a treasure tile programmed into Mount Bervenia that you can never actually get. To get it, your Treasure Hunter would have to stop on a tile filled with lava. The only abilities that let you do this are Lavawalking and Levitate, neither of which can be equipped simultaneously with Treasure Hunter. Float magick and gear like the Winged Boots do NOT work because they only allow you to move THROUGH lava on the way to another tile, and never allow you to STOP on top of lava.
The tile only has a Flameburst Bomb and X-Potion anyway, so don't sweat it.
---Specific Battles-------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I beat Wiegraf?
A. If you have a Chameleon Robe, equipping that will stop his sword techniques. (Otherwise, try using Auto-Potion or Mana Shield to protect yourself.) Run from Wiegraf and keep using the Tailwind ability to boost your speed. Repeat until you are getting seven or eight turns in a row, then start using Focus to raise your attack power. When you have high attack power, just attack and KO Wiegraf. Against Belias, run up and attack him repeatedly.
Q. How do I win at Golgollada Gallows?
A. The easiest strategy is to immediately start climbing up the wooden gate behind you. Once you get up on top, you can use magicks, bows, and guns to attack the enemies from above. Try to use status ailments like Disable to reduce the number of enemies attacking you at once.
Q. How do I beat the Lionel Castle Gate?
A. There are two main methods: One is to give Ramza the Chakra ability and have him use it every turn. The other is to use Teleport to warp outside the gate. Either way, don't open the gate until the fight outside is finished. To help beat the enemies outside the gate, equip Rubber Boots to block their lightning-elemental weapons.
Q. I just got ambushed at Dorter in Chapter IV. What's the deal?
A. If you have a Meliadoul, there's an optional battle at Dorter as you go from Limberry to Eagrose. (This battle is new in the PSP version.) There's not really anything special to earn in this battle, so you can either fight your way through it, or walk around Dorter to reach Eagrose. After you clear Eagrose, the ambush will disappear.
Q. I got into a random battle and was facing a weird set of enemies. Is this some special event? What's going on?
A. Each wilderness location has a "special" random battle that you can randomly encounter at low odds in Chapter IV. These special battles pit you against unusual enemy parties -- mostly collections of human enemies. You don't get anything special for winning these battles and they have no relation to the story, but they can be an interesting extra challenge!
---Jobs & Abilities-------------------------------------------------------------
Q. How do I use the Samurai's ability Iaido?
A. First learn the ability you want to use. Then buy several of the corresponding Samurai sword. During battle, you can use the ability if you have the appropriate type of sword in your inventory (NOT equipped). Note that this may break the sword, so I'd buy several copies.
Q. Why don't my Reaction Abilities always work?
A. For almost all Reaction Abilities, the chance of using the ability is equal to your Bravery stat. Use Ramza's skills or an Orator to raise the character's Bravery and your Reaction Abilities will activate more.
Q. I've learned all the abilities for one of my jobs, but it still doesn't show up as Mastered. Why not?
A. Ramza's Squire job, and Luso's Game Hunter job also require that you learn their hidden Ultima ability. The Summoner job also requires that you get the Zodiark summon. See the FAQs below.
Q. How do I learn Ultima?
A. Only Ramza and Luso can learn Ultima. Ramza or Luso must be in their base job; then, if someone casts the spell on him, he will learn it. (As long as just one of the two characters learns it, you can have him cast it on the other to learn it later.) The best time to learn the spell is from the assassins outside Limberry Castle in Chapter IV, but you can also have Luso learn it on the Riovanes Castle Roof in Chapter III, from Ultima Demons in other battles, or from another player in Rendezvous Mode. (The guest character during the final battle can also learn Ultima if it's cast on her.)
Q. How do I learn Zodiark?
A. You can only learn Zodiark from Elidibus, the boss of Midlight's Deep, by having him cast it on one of your Summoners. Equip the Mana Shield ability to survive it. (You only have a random chance to learn the spell when you're hit with it, so you might not learn it the first time you're hit with it, but the odds are definitely in your favor!) If you don't get the spell in Midlight's Deep, the only other place to find Elidibus is in the Brave Story multiplayer mission.
Q. What's the deal with Onion Knights? They seem horrible. Is there any way to make them stronger?
A. Actually, yes. The Onion Knight's job level goes up as you master other jobs, and if you can get the Onion Knight up to job level 8, they'll become more powerful. Also, if you play the game's multiplayer modes, you can earn some powerful "Onion" equipment that only Onion Knights can equip.
Q. What's the best team to use?
A. Well, you can win the game with all sorts of different combinations of abilities and characters, so feel to experiment and find a team that suits your play style :). If you're looking for a quick victory, Agrias, Orlandeau, and Balthier (and Lustadio, before you get Balthier) are all very powerful. Construct 8 is also quite good for simply playing through the single-player game, though it ends up being less useful at higher levels.
For generic characters, the Dark Knight is the best overall physical fighter and a Black Mage with Arithmeticks and all magicks learned is the best overall mage. Before you unlock those jobs, I like Ninjas and Monks for fighting and Chemists for healing. Monsters, in general, are not too useful.
---Miscellany-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Are there items or events in this game that I can permanently miss? What do I need to do to see them?
A. I've put together a Missable Items and Events list -- visit the relavant walkthrough on the site
Q. Help! I beat the last boss and the game said it was saving afterwards, but when I load up my last save, I'm just at the last boss fight again. Can I go anywhere else?
A. Unfortunately, no :(. The game clear save is just to unlock some of the multiplayer missions. If you want to continue moving the world map, you need to keep a separate save from before you began the final sequence of battles.
Q. Is there a way I can quickly gain levels?
A. Sure, see the Quickly Gaining Exp & JP walkthrough for strategies for this. With the right magicks, it's even possible to make this process completely automatic! But keep in mind you never *need* to do this to finish the game. Usually, a change of strategy should be enough to get you past the next battle and you don't need to spend time leveling if you don't want to.
Q. How do I ride a Chocobo?
A. Move the character onto the same square as the Chocobo.
Q. Is there any kind of New Game+ mode, so that I can start from the beginning but keep all my levels and items?
A. Unfortunately, no. FF Tactics dates back to a time before this feature started becoming common in RPGs. Whenever you start a new game, you always have to start from scratch.
Q. One of my characters is threatening to desert the team. What do I do?
A. This is happening because your character has either a very low Bravery or a very high Faith. To keep the character from leaving your roster, make sure the character's Bravery or Faith doesn't get any more extreme. To stop the threats, use Orator skills to increase the character's Bravery or lower his/her Faith. (Note that neither HIGH Bravery nor LOW Faith will ever cause a character to desert.)
Q. Why don't any of the characters have noses?
A. Your guess is as good as mine. Some genetic defect or something, I suppose.