Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: The Grimoire of Rifts Returning for the Nintendo DS is the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance series, this time in its second iteration. FFTA2 keeps a lot of the tones of the first FFTA game, gearing less towards the now mature audience of FFT and catering to a game that is meant more for a broader crowd. However, do not let the sugar coating get to you, as FFTA2 is actually a very well made game. Doing away with a lot of the headaches of the old system, pretty much all of the aspects of the first game have been streamlined or fixed in some fashion, making the game a much more enjoyable gameplaying experience for both young and old. Many fans of the first Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation were disenfranchised by its GBA counterpart due to its childlike nature and general system rules, however FFTA2 has many improvements that even the diehard FFT fan wouldn't want to neglect. While the old Law system is still around, it's much different from the one from FFTA, and I believe should be renamed from "Laws" to "Suggestions". I joke, but not without good reason. Instead of Laws being a system of purely punishment upon breakage, Laws in FFTA2 reward you for following them and only give minor drawbacks when you do break them. This is good, since all laws are preassigned to each mission, and some of them are practically impossible to abide by. The Job System has seen a minor face-change as well. Instead of having all of your jobs available at the beginning of the game, many jobs have to be unlocked through quests now, including all of the new ones. With this in addition to the Bazaar system, in which you trade in items to make new goods available in shops, FFTA2 is a bit harder to steamroll through than its predescessors. My only real complaint is that any semblance of game balance is really thrown out of the window once you have access to the Auction House, as it is basically a quick and easy route to some of the best equipment in the game. Much of the music from FFTA2 is either the gritty GBA tracks from the first game toned up to a more orchestral tone or orchestrally toned FFXII tracks dumbed down to work better for a DS game. While not exactly spectacular, the music for FFTA2 is very fitting and appropriate, with the reusing of tracks contributing to the overall theme of the game rather than detracing from it. The actual quality of the audio is remarkable enough for someone (Such as myself, I did it for Ouendan and EBA) to want to plug their DS into a slightly better speaker system, as the DS's own internal speakers are sadly not entirely up to the task. The graphics are basically a rehaul of what was already present in the original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, not that I'm complaining. The setting is much more vibrant and characters in general are much more lush and colorful than their GBA counterparts, in some cases to the point of ridiculousness (I am talking to you, Luso). Despite this, many of the actual in-battle effects use the better portion of the graphical engine available on the DS, which makes decimating enemy forces just look that much prettier. While FFTA2 does not exactly push the graphical limits of the DS, the graphics it does have are appropriate for the content at hand and complement the game quite nicely. All in all, FFTA2 is a well polished game that would look good in any gamer's collection. While it suffers from the same fatal flaw of most RPGs in its lack of replayability, FFTA2 makes up for this by being an extremely meaty game that could easily occupy even the most die hard gamers for weeks. In less subtle terms, go buy the game now, it's well worth it.