History YMMV / FinalFantasyTacticsA2

* ThatOneBoss: Lord of the Flowsand has a nasty habit of tripping players up, [[EarlyBirdBoss given how early it appears in the storyline]]. It has about 5 times the HP your characters do, capable of dealing high damage, has an attack that drains HP to heal itself, and to top it all off, it regenerates a percentage of any damage you deal to it.
** The first fight against [[spoiler: Illua]] isn't a picnic either if you haven't spent time doing sidequests. While you only have to defeat the Mark, [[spoiler: her]] allies are hardly pushovers, and [[spoiler: she]] uses unique and devastating magic that can quickly tear about your forces. How badly? Try 75% of all units' HP in 3x3 diamond. [[spoiler: Illua]] also boasts high hp and the "Reflex" R-ability that allows [[spoiler: her]] to avoid most physical attacks. Oh, and [[spoiler: she]] also seals the Judge, meaning no clan privileges and no bringing KO'ed units back. Finally, [[spoiler: beating her immediately sends your party into ''another'' BossBattle without a chance to save in between]].
*** That is, your judge gets sealed unless you do a ridiculously obscure and completely disjointed side-quest to prevent it.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The Neukhia in the second part of "A request" . It deals even less damage than the proceeding boss (who is to be fair, ThatOneBoss). Even though it sets it's self up as a puzzle boss (you have to hit 4 switchs around the map to damage it) it's really pretty easy to steal his [[FlunkyBoss flunkies']] Genji armlets and pound it into the ground without using the weapon.

* GameBreaker: [[GameBreaker/FinalFantasyTacticsA2 Ahoy]].

* ScrappyLevel: The "An Earnest..." missions, which require you to find up to four dates for a chronically overscheduled petitioner. Amazingly, the lucky ladies care more about level, MVP trophies and other [[GuideDangIt unspecified attributes]] than little things like gender and species.
** Even worse with these missions is the fact that "An Earnest Delight" (the last of them) is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to complete without dispatching, so if you are mainly using story characters then my friend you are '''FUCKED'''.
** Once the player has completed all 300 missions, one final tournament becomes available. The first two fights are challenging. The third one consists of a pair of [[MightyGlacier Tonberries]], some enemies to cast haste on the Tonberries, and about four rounds of [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard free turns for the enemies]].
** The "Cleaning" missions are a bit of a crapshoot. Sometimes, the time limit is as little as ''two rounds'' or as long as four rounds. Sometimes there aren't any enemies to bother you. Sometimes there are [[GoddamnedBats a bunch of Mimics that spam lightning magic, or fast Dreamhares that use their Dance moves to Haste up and raise their attack, and also spam status spells on you]]. The times when you get two rounds to clean a Mimic/Dreamhare infested ship are [[SarcasmMode loads of fun]].
** The "Time to Act" mission, which combines this with ThatOneBoss, LuckBasedMission AND AnnoyingVideoGameHelper. You only have one controllable character, along with five guest moogle allies of various classes. If any one of the moogles is KO'd, you lose. How Scrappy the mission is mostly depends on the [[SpoonyBard Tinker]]. If the Tinker skills go your way, the mission isn't so bad. If it ends up casting Haste on the enemies, you might as well turn off the DS and try again. What's more, the mission starts with an enemy Sniper packing the double-shot ability with a very [[SquishyWizard squishy]] Black Mage moogle already in range, so it is not uncommon to fail this mission before your character even gets a turn.
*** Also a GuideDangIt, as it's never made explicit that the repeatable prerequisite mission to Time To Act increases the capabilities of the ally moogles in Time To Act.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Most agree that [[spoiler: Vaan]] is much more accepted/tolerable here than [[spoiler: he]] was in [[spoiler: Final Fantasy XII]] it doesn't hurt that [[spoiler: he [[TookALevelInBadass took a level in badass]] a little]]

* TearJerker There is a quest where you have to fetch someone zombie powder to end their life, and thus, their pain. All through this quest, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7zlfjiAuE&feature=player_profilepage this song]] is playing, making the burden the player takes on this quest far heavier, and the mood ''very'' sad. [[spoiler:You ''do'' have the option of getting the memory-erasing herb so they can forget their pain, but the fact you have to make the choice between the request and what looks like the better option still looks tough.]]

** The "Time to Act" mission, which combines this with ThatOneBoss, LuckBasedMission AND StopHelpingMe. You only have one controllable character, along with five guest moogle allies of various classes. If any one of the moogles is KO'd, you lose. How Scrappy the mission is mostly depends on the [[SpoonyBard Tinker]]. If the Tinker skills go your way, the mission isn't so bad. If it ends up casting Haste on the enemies, you might as well turn off the DS and try again. What's more, the mission starts with an enemy Sniper packing the double-shot ability with a very [[SquishyWizard squishy]] Black Mage moogle already in range, so it is not uncommon to fail this mission before your character even gets a turn.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Most agree that [[spoiler: Vaan]] is much more accepted/tolerable here than he was in [[spoiler: Final Fantasy XII]] it doesn't hurt that he [[TookALevelInBadass took a level in badass]] a little.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Most agree that [[spoiler: Vaan]] is much more tolerable here than he was in [[spoiler: Final Fantasy XII]]

* Many battles have enemies that are [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard scripted]] to have one or two turns right at the beginning of the battle. Brightmoon Tor has enemies that cast Haste on themselves, doubling the number. One battle combines this with an EscortMission to create one of the most insulting [[LuckBasedMission luck-based missions]] in video game history.

** The "Time to Act" mission, which combines this with ThatOneBoss and StopHelpingMe. You only have one controllable character, along with five guest moogle allies of various classes. If any one of the moogles is KO'd, you lose. How Scrappy the mission is mostly depends on the [[SpoonyBard Tinker]]. If the Tinker skills go your way, the mission isn't so bad. If it ends up casting Haste on the enemies, you might as well turn off the DS and try again. What's more, the mission starts with an enemy Sniper packing the double-shot ability with a very [[SquishyWizard squishy]] Black Mage moogle already in range, so it is not uncommon to fail this mission before your character even gets a turn.

** The "Time to Act" mission, which combines this with ThatOneBoss. How Scrappy the mission is mostly depends on the [[SpoonyBard Tinker]]. If the Tinker skills go your way, the mission isn't so bad. If it ends up casting Haste on the enemies, you might as well turn off the DS and try again.

* ScrappyLevel (The "An Earnest..." missions, which require you to find up to four dates for a chronically overscheduled petitioner. Amazingly, the lucky ladies care more about level, MVP trophies and other [[GuideDangIt unspecified attributes]] than little things like gender and species.)

* ThatOneBoss: Lord of the Flowsand has a nasty habit of tripping players up, [[EarlyBirdBoss given how early it appears in the storyline]]. It has about 5 times the HP your characters do, capable of dealing high damage, has an attack that drains HP to heal itself, and to top it all off, it regenerates a percentage of any damage you deal to it.
** The first fight against [[spoiler: Illua]] isn't a picnic either if you haven't spent time doing sidequests. While you only have to defeat the Mark, [[spoiler: her]] allies are hardly pushovers, and [[spoiler: she]] uses unique and devastating magic that can quickly tear about your forces. How badly? Try 75% of all units' HP in 3x3 diamond. [[spoiler: Illua]] also boasts high hp and the "Reflex" R-ability that allows [[spoiler: her]] to avoid most physical attacks. Oh, and [[spoiler: she]] also seals the Judge, meaning no clan privileges and no bringing KO'ed units back. Finally, [[spoiler: beating her immediately sends your party into ''another'' BossBattle without a chance to save in between]].
*** That is, your judge gets sealed unless you do a ridiculously obscure and completely disjointed side-quest to prevent it.
* ScrappyMechanic (Laws, again.)

* {{Woolseyism}} (The Yojimbo class, meaning a samurai/ronin hired to be a bodyguard, is changed to Parivir, Sanskrit for bodyguard. The change is of questionable quality as the Parivir is a samurai class. To be fair, Yojimbo also means bodyguard.)

* GameBreaker: ''And how.'' Where to even begin?
** (Ranger + Item Lore (which doubles the effectiveness of potions) + Mirror Items (which lets you use items for the opposite effect) + Hi-Potion/X-Potion = 200/400 damage, with the same accuracy as a normal physical attack. In a game where most of the enemies have less than 400 HP. HilarityEnsues.)
** [[DiscOneNuke Also, lucking out in getting the materials for a powerful ability early (or abusing the Auction House once your clan takes over the entire region, or getting lucky with the trade function) can cause this.]]
** In addition, while other GameBreaker(s) from the first game were removed, it's still possible to put enemies to sleep (or better yet, Stop) to increase the hit chance of all effects to 100%. Including instant-kill abilities that normally have around 30%.
** [[GlassCannon Parivir]], a.k.a. Yojimbou. Remember how much of a GameBreaker DualWielding was in the first game? It's outdated. The Parivir can simply walk up to something and hit it for double damage, for free, without having had to grind 999 AP. The other similar free abilities have half accuracy; the Parivir's don't. And he has multiple skills to do it with, each carrying a different element and different [[StandardStatusEffects ailments]].
*** Adding the passive skill Geomancy lets you also strike enemies neutral to any of the available elements (e.g. almost any enemy in the entire game) as if they were weak to the element used, bringing the damage up to triple of your standard attack. Still for free, at full accuracy, ''and'' causing a status.
** Also, there exists the Hume Illusionist/Seer combo. Magick Frenzy, surprisingly, works with Illusion spells. Meaning that the unit can stand in one spot, hit all enemies with the Illusion spell, ''then'' smack all the enemies upside the head with his equipped weapon (even more so if he's using dual wield, although you'll have to compensate Half MP for dual wield). To prevent total abuse, while Nu Mou can also be Illusionists, only Humes can use the Seer job.
** Elemental Rend MP. Arming a Dragoon (or Templar) with Arts of War and an elemental Lance lets him "Reverse" Rend MP two mages wearing the appropriate absorbing robes for massive amounts of mana. THIS is how you spam Geomancy-powered Illusions.
** The MP system of this game means that the Blue Magick "Matra Magick" (which switches MP and HP values) can reduce an enemy with several hundred hit points to death if used early enough in the battle. Used with the Reverse Rend MP trick (or a White Chocobo Rider's Choco Recharge) this can make situations that pit the player against one or two extremely powerful enemies much easier.
** Though it may not be on the same level as the other combos, the Viera Summoner/Red Mage deserves a mention. Combine Summons (powerful wide area magick), Red Magic (for Doublecast), and the support ability "Blood Price" (CastFromHP), and you've got a caster that can quickly tear enemies to shreds or heal, buff, and revive all of your units at once right off the bat. That the Summoner job offers the best Magick stat growth among Viera jobs is just icing on the cake. It ''does'' take a while to set this combo up though.
*** For giggles, give her the Chameleon Robe (Absorb Holy). As long as she's in range, the Summoner can spam Doublecasted Maduin (extremely high Holy damage) for free in a wide area. Extremely overpowered.
*** Forget Doublecast. Assassin + Seventh Heaven (Bow) + Summoning Magic + Blood Price = Swiss Army Knife character. Need to kill someone? Ultima Shot them from afar! Need to heal yourself and your entire dead party? Cast Phoenix for essentially no charge! Once you have the setup, those two moves get you through the entire game.
** As noted above, the Ultima skills, with a 32 mp cost, usually fall under AwesomeButImpractical. However, the support ability "Halve MP" (available to Bangaa, Hume, and Viera) + the MP Channeling (double MP regen) Clan Privilege + any job that uses ranged weapons = deal 300-500 points of damage every turn at any distance. Like the Double Casting Blood Price Summoner above, this takes a ''long'' time to set up, since the Ultima skills have a 990 AP cost and Halve MP has a 400 AP cost.
*** The best class for this is the Bangaa's Trickster: now that Ultima is a VERY powerful magic-based attack (instead of being based on attack damage), the Trickster, which has [[SquishyWizard Nu Mou]]-like Magic Power, Ninja Speed, and Cards which have extremely high range, as well as access to Halve MP, you can spam Ultima Sword EVERY turn (as long as you also have MP Channeling active), one-shotting pretty much every enemy, before they can even move, from halfway across the stage.
*** Another good option here is to equip your resident Sage with two Reverie shields, the Azure Tear, Red shoes, and Ninja gear. This puts his evasion up to 70%. Combine this with the aforementioned method of using ultima every turn and you've got a supposedly [[SquishyWizard spell-oriented class]], on a Nu Mou no less, running around the field, dodging the vast majority of attacks, and PUNCHING ENEMIES IN THE FACE FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE since ultima uses your weapon animation and you don't have a weapon equipped. And this is just the primary job, you can stick white magic on the secondary and you've got an unkillable ultima machine. Of course, this isn't remotely feasible until incredibly late in the game because the Azure Tear can't be obtained until the third ascent of Brightmoon Tor, and without it you can only reach 50% evasion. Which is still pretty good.
** One of the subtly strongest moves in the game is Smile Toss, a skill of the Moogle Juggler. It does the ''exact'' same thing as the Time Magic "Quicken", except it does not cost any mana to use. A hasted Juggler (which has excellent speed growth) using his turns to Smile-Toss his slower but more powerful teammates can completely subvert the usual turn order of the battle, allowing you to control the tempo of battle by having your powerhouses take many more turns than they normally would. Having ''two'' Moogles smiletossing each other will let you fill their mana up as much as you want and position them wherever you like on the battlefield, allowing you to even beat certain missions ''before the enemy even gets a turn''.
*** You mean like [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-rZcmIY9Ig&feature=fvw this]]?

** Specifically certain laws that you may end up violating by an unavoidable accident. Namely "no damage above X, no hitting enemies more than 1 square away, or no critical hits" which you will end up breaking if you accidentally score a CriticalHit because you'll deal more damage than you expected to, will knock the opponent away counting the attack as damaging multiple squares away, or break the law for the Critical itself. Or the No Knockbacks law.

** Also, there exists the Hume Illusionist/Seer combo. Magick Frenzy, surprisingly, works with Illusion spells. Meaning that the unit can stand in one spot, hit all enemies with the Illusion spell, ''then'' smack all the enemies upside the head with his equipped weapon (even more so if he's using dual wield, although you'll have to compensate Half MP for dual wield). To prevent total abuse like the Bulwark combo above, while Nu Mou can also be Illusionists, only Humes can use the Seer job.

*** Adding the passive skill Geomancy lets you also strike enemies neutral to any of the available elements - which is almost all of them - as if they were weak to the element used, bringing the damage up to triple of your standard attack. Still for free, at full accuracy, ''and'' causing a status.

** [[GlassCannon Parivir]], a.k.a. Yojimbou. Remember how much of a GameBreaker DualWielding was in the first game? It's outdated. The Parivir (equipped with the passive skill "Geomancy") can simply walk up to something and hit it for quadruple damage, for free, without having had to grind 999 AP. And he has multiple skills to do it with, each carrying a different element and different [[StandardStatusEffects ailments]].
*** And due to the mentioned Geomancy, also strike enemies neutral to specific elements as if they were weak to the element used. Which is almost all enemies.
*** For an idea on this, follow the calcs: the Parivir's Blade attacks do ''twice'' normal damage for no MP (while the Paladin's Holy Blade costs 22 MP for the same effect), Geomancy automatically makes enemies weak to all elements, and weaknesses mean you take 150% damage. All combined, these skills do THREE times the usual damage for the already extremely powerful Parivir, ''and'' cause status. GameBreaker indeed.

** [[GlassCannon Parivir]], a.k.a. Yojimbou. Remember how much of a GameBreaker DualWielding was in the first game? It's outdated. The Parivir (equipped with the passive skill "Geomancy") can simply walk up to something and hit it for double damage, for free, without having had to grind 999 AP. And he has multiple skills to do it with, each carrying a different element and different [[StandardStatusEffects ailments]].

** Also, arguably, the quest Time To Act, which has the player - allowed to dispatch a ''single unit'', tasked to [[EscortMission protect five moogles]] against [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard impossibly fast ninjas and other such units...]] oh, and just for fun, one of the moogles is a [[SpoonyBard Tinker]] who [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard just ''loves'' to use a skill that grants the entire enemy team Haste]]. However, this is more of a ScrappyLevel than a ThatOneBoss.
*** Also a GuideDangIt, as it's never made explicit that the repeatable prerequisite mission to Time To Act increases the capabilities of the ally moogles in Time To Act.

* GameBreaker (Ranger + Item Lore (which doubles the effectiveness of potions) + Mirror Items (which lets you use items for the opposite effect) + Hi-Potion/X-Potion = 200/400 damage, with the same accuracy as a normal physical attack. In a game where most of the enemies have less than 400 HP. HilarityEnsues.)

* FetishFuel[=/=]RuleThirtyFour : Montblanc, Hurdy, Ezel, and pretty much the entire Viera and Bangaa race. The FurryFandom just loves this series.
** Also, Adelle, who has some ''very'' [[http://ui20.gamespot.com/1267/adel_2.jpg form-fitting clothing,]] and whose appearance is, not coincidentally, [[{{Catgirl}} reminiscent of a cat.]]

*** I usually just ended up killing that loving tinker, that stupid moogle wrecked so many attempts to clear that mission, made me kinda miss the missions where I beat the ever loving crap out of them.

** Stealing was nerfed in FFTA2 considerably, to the point where it's no longer possible to steal everything an enemy owns, but thanks to a semi-obscure Viking skill called Pillage, you're still capable of stealing Hats and Armor. Being able to rob the enemy of potentially expensive robes and plate armor is bad enough, but combining this with the Green Mage's Tranq ability, which raises accuracy considerably, means no one is safe.

** On the opposite side of the spectrum, the game forces you to have Luso and Addelle (with a handful requring Cid) in your party for most story missions. Because of this, you'll pretty much be forced to use them in every mission, as their unusual base stats make them only useful when overlevelled. This can mess up your plans for a "dream team" clan roster. At least Adelle has a (fairly strong) unique class and can equip Ribbons without a special ability (unlike generic Humes, which are AlwaysMale_, which somewhat keeps her from being just another human.
** Though it may not be on the same level as the other combos, this troper believes that Viera Summoner/Red Mage deserves a mention. Combine Summons (powerful wide area magick), Red Magic (for Doublecast), and the support ability "Blood Price" (CastFromHP), and you've got a caster that can quickly tear enemies to shreds or heal, buff, and revive all of your units at once right off the bat. That the Summoner job offers the best Magick stat growth among Viera jobs is just icing on the cake. It ''does'' take a while to set this combo up though.

* {{Narm}}: Doubles with {{Mood Dissonance}}, when Luso reveals that [[spoiler:his parents are dead and he has lived with his Aunt for much for his life]] to Adelle, the music playing in the background is ridiculously cheery. Made hilarious when Adelle begins to say something, than stops after the reveal. This troper likes to think she was going to point out how ridiculous this was.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible - Allow me to quote the Skyfrost Edition of the Bonga Bugle:
-->--Head Editor Takes 1,000 Photographs On Assignment
-->--Head Editor Contemplating Career as Photographer?
-->--Head Editor Leaves Lens Cap On
-->--"Night: A Study In 1,000 Images" Rocks Art World