Final Fantasy Tactics: Playing for the first time..any tips or suggestions?

So I'm about to dive into this classic on my PSP after years of wanting to play it. The thing that has made me hesitate this long are the stories I hear about punishing difficulty at times, especially for those new to the SRPG genre. I am definately a new SRPG player, with the only SRPG I've ever completed is Jeanne D Arc on PSP. I also played a good amount of Shining Force on the Genesis years ago.

As a new SRPG player, do you guys have any tips or tricks to make my FFT experience a little less frustrating? Maybe things you wish you would have known before that first playthrough?

Yeah; have you considered that there is another version including cutscenes named War of the Lions? I bought the FFTactics classic version and felt pretty dumb after I realized that it wasn't War of the Lions! grr

The advice so far is spot on.

Hopefully you DO have the War of the Lions edition - as the translation is cleaned up a bit, making the plot and story 10 times better and more coherrent. I believe it also took care of a few bugs and evened out the difficulty a bit.

You should always remember that you CAN replay battles that you've already fought - as well as fight random battles as much as you want. This is the "grinding" aspect of the game - and it will help you with the difficulty that DOES get a bit extreme (even during the early levels). My advice - if you run into a fight that you cannot win, change your tactic first, bring in different members and try to start the battle in a different way/direction - if that doesn't work, go grind out some more levels by replaying battles. The good part of grinding in this game as since it is a "strategy tactics" game, no two battles work out exactly the same way, so you won't get too bored doing the same thing over and over again.

Another bit of advice is to work on all of the classes - don't get comfortable with 3 or 4 great team members, work with as many as you can, grinding levels and finding all of their strength and weaknesess - that way you have a more rounded team when you need it, and also it won't seriously affect you if you loose a team member permanently.

Otherwise - have fun and keep on pushing forward. By the end of this game you WILL love it, just don't let some of the difficulty spikes stop you from playing.

Also - Find Cloud and resurrect Aerith!!!! It's the ONLY officially sanctioned by Square way to bring her back to life and actually complete the Cloud / Aerith storyline from Final Fantasy 7 - and one of my favorite side quests in the entire game.

if you dont know how to get certain jobs, and dont wanna use a guide, get as many classes as you can to job level 4 as fast as you can. thatll unlock "most" jobs

but i recommend having atleast one knight and one black mage at all times til you have a better understanding of the game.

and the calculator class may seem odd and hard to use, but they can become gods

also, never forget that u gain xp from friendly fire, but get too strong (without the gear to back it up) and the enemies will destroy you. a de-level trap can help if this happens. 1 quick tip for leveling, rend power=1; berserk; win (just make sure you set it up so you dont die, weapons will make ur min attack still fatal so u my want to remove them).

Like others have already said, diversify the jobs you level. You can mix and match abilities to suit many situations. Early on, monks are godly and their abilities are extremely useful. If i remember right, story battles don't level, but random encounters level with you. So try to find a balance between grinding and progressing the game along.

Ramza will get abilities that will permantly raise Brave for him and part members. The higher your brave, the more often your reaction abilties will proc (block, counter,...). Also try to tailor your melee chars to have high brave and low faith to decrease damage taken from magic.

Learn the squire abilities on all your characters, especially JP boost and focus. wounding and enemy repeatedly using focus while said enemy runs is a quick and easy way to grind levels.