Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is one of those games that just sticks with you. You start off as this kid, Marche, who gets sucked into a fantasy version of Ivalice with his friends—except they don’t want to leave. The story’s got this weird, almost unsettling charm to it, where the world feels dreamlike but also kinda dangerous.

Battles play out on these grid maps where positioning matters just as much as your attacks. At first, you’re just slapping together a ragtag team, but before long, you’re obsessing over job classes—like, do I turn this guy into a Ninja or a Dragoon? The Judge system adds this weird layer where certain moves are banned mid-fight, so you’ve gotta adapt on the fly.

It’s got that classic GBA pixel art, too—bright colors, chibi sprites, but with this weirdly melancholic tone underneath. The music’s all soft flutes and harps until combat kicks in, and then suddenly you’re hyped. If you like strategy RPGs at all, this one’s a no-brainer.