FFTA2 is a wonderful game that any turn-based strategy gamer should give an honest try.
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift only improves on it's predessescor's winning formula.
FFTA2 offers some great new innovatons to the previous game, with the "bazaar", sort of a weapons and armor factory in every shop you visit where you can make new and better weapons and armor if you have the right "loot" that you pick up after you complete a quest or kill an enemy, two new classes, the Gria, human looking monsters with wings and horns, and the Seeq, fat, lumbering alligator looking monsters. Along with these two improvements were also some new jobs, such as the Flintlock, Geomancer, Ranger and Trickster, to name a few.
The story is, and probably will be with every sequel, the weakest point of the game. The main character is a young boy named Luso Clemens who finds a book that sends him to a different dimension where he needs to stop an evil association from summoning a demon to lay waste to the land. The main quests seem to stall for time in a sense. Instead of just getting to the point and killing your way through countless enemies all the way to the final boss, bad luck just seems to spring up everywhere you go. At one point, your friend gets shot and you have to find some sort of medicine to heal him, but then he needs more bed rest to "completely heal".
The fantastic gameplay seems to make up for this thought. A few of the battles you have to do the main quests are long and at times, very frustrating, but with the right weapons, races and jobs, you can blaze through most of them. The game offers hundreds of side quest to complete. In a few of them, you must complete the specifications of the quest to unlock a new job for one of the races in the land of Ivalice, and in some cases, you can also get new, one of a kind party members. The obvious flaw to any battle you enter is the law system. most of the laws are very specific and frustrating. If ice is forbidden in a battle, even using a weapon with ice attributes will lose you your privileges of your judge. The penalties aren't as severe as they were in the first game, but they are still a drag.
All the races you remember from the first game are back in this one with new jobs and abilities that you, again, learn from equiping various weapons and armor. Their are a few over-powered classes, such as the Assassin-class for the Vieras and the new Parivir-class for the Humes. It is fun to mix up your party with a few wild-cards, but you will find yourself favouring one class over another, especially in the last quarter of the game.
Overall, this game is worth checking out if you are a fan of the series, or are just looking for a new game to play. A word for the wise for all the beginners of the game, either read the instruction manual THOROUGHLY or ask a friend that has it to explain the basic game mechanics to you, or you will probably find yourself wanting to throw the game out of a second-floor window in your house