every time i do i get super frustrated with the way the game plays. i realize it's tactical and that's not really a genre i've had a lot of time with. any suggestions for how to play this game would be great. every time i boot it up i think man this game is so great except for the part where i play it. help a absolute newb. TY!
Have you looked through any of the walkthroughs for the game? When it originally came out, I had a subscription to PC Gamer. They had articles in two separate issues detailing the lead up to the release, which got me very excited for it. Each issue came with a disc with different things for many of the games reviewed in the issue -- one of the issues that covered FF had the Character Tool and a bunch of meshes & skins on it (including some of Gryphon's Egyptian skins).
The issue they had with the walkthrough helped me a lot. It told you where all of the power-ups were on each mission map, what the mission was like, and their recommendation on characters to use. In later missions, my all-purpose team was Alchemiss (Repulsion & Aloft), El Diablo (Ignition & Hellfire), Microwave (super slow but really useful powers), and Bullet (Speeding Bullet & able to run away most of the time after hitting someone with a pole).
I ended up using Pause *a lot*. And fairly frequent saves. A little tedious at times, but it allowed me to get the most points I could.
And don't be afraid to search the Forum Archives for any questions you have. You have a better chance finding answers there than current posts. If you don't find what you're looking for, ask. There's a couple missions that were pretty frustrating for a lot of people.
Pause. Give your orders, pause again. It can almost be turned based, but make sure your pause is set to freeze, not slomo.
Or, with a good ai, you can have the heroes play without your intervention. I've got the code for that if you want it.
Like the other said, pause set to freeze is your best friend. I spend tons of time paused, then watch them go.
Also, it's good to find characters you really like and level them up only. If you're using a walkthrough you can sort of see whose powers would be good for coming people, etc.
I think I had lots of fun with Liberty Lad and Ant, tossing bombs all over, but that's highly unpredictable.