1997 was a good year for video games, and especially for those titled Final Fantasy. Between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics, it spawned two of the most beloved FF titles of all time, despite them being polar opposites. Both were on the PlayStation and both had a character named Cloud, but where one was an archetypical JRPG (by our standards, thanks in large part to this game), the other was an isometric tactical RPG, a genre which rubs shoulders with your XCOMs and Fire Emblems.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles isn’t the first time that this game has been remastered for newer consoles – that would be the 2007 enhanced PSP version Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions – but this is easily the definitive edition of this absolute classic.
To save time, yes, this game is incredible. They wouldn’t have remastered it twice, and everyone from Famitsu to IGN wouldn’t have put it on their top games of all time lists if it wasn’t worthy. As the definitive edition, it adds plenty that long-time fans will love, including the option to play both the “Enhanced” version alongside the original “Classic” version.
The latest edition features a revised script and fully voiced dialogue. It also shows off a brand-new, much cleaner UI and improved graphics. You can now see the turn order more clearly, get a top-down view of the battlefield and even fast-forward through the enemies taking their turns — all of which really brings Tactics into the modern era.
The classic version, meanwhile, faithfully recreates the 1997 title with the War of the Lions translation. It’s nice to have, but realistically that’s just there for the old-timers who want to up their dosage of nostalgia.
The problem is, this game is like Marmite — you’re either going to love it or hate it. There is no middle ground.
For those unaccustomed to the game, FFT is set in the world of Ivalice during its middle ages, a good long time before FFXII came around. It chronicles a hero lost to history, Ramza Beoulve, who left his lofty life as a noble after seeing how they exploit the proletariat for their own gain — or to use his words, “I have no wish of changing the world for just a select few while others suffer”.
He is initially joined by a bunch of squires who quickly specialise in a variety of job roles. While he is met with a cast of named characters, like the aforementioned Cloud (FFVII) and Balthier (FFXII), the majority of the cast are effectively nameless. Since permadeath is a thing here, and you can actually recruit enemies you meet in battle, everyone you come across has a randomly generated name, birthday and set of stats.
But those characters aren’t what you’re here for. In Ramza’s bid to end the war, his retinue must adapt from being boring squires into one of 18 other jobs. This includes the classics: Knight, White Mage, Black Mage and Archer, for example, but also includes the more exciting stuff, like Monk, Geomancer. It’s basically Metaphor ReFantazio, but much more complicated.
Final Fantasy Tactics does a poor job of explaining all the bajillion numbers on the stats screen. It also bakes in a whole bunch of weird mechanics that most people will miss at first brush, like how your character’s birthday affects how well they damage or heal other units with their spells. There’s also the more notable issue of teaching the right units the right jobs – in order to get to the powerful Dragoon class, for example, you need to go through three other jobs, which you only unlock after levelling up the previous one to the right level. Some characters are also better suited to magical jobs based on their stats, which the game doesn’t explain well.
Worse still, not all jobs were born equal. More’s the pity if you accidentally put too much time and effort into raising Ramza as a Chemist — a virtually useless job — and you’re going to really kick yourself for any time wasted once you get to the trickier boss fights. There’s one boss battle early on which sees Ramza fighting someone solo while the rest of his party is on a different part of the battlefield. The first time I played the game, my Ramza was a white mage. Trust me when I say it’s too easy to get punished for poor planning in this game.
Which brings us to the other main criticism of the game — this game is a slow burn. Half of your time is spent in tactical combat, while the other half is spent meticulously managing your party’s career path, like an overbearing parent. My wife has watched me review four Final Fantasies plus Metaphor over the years. Normally she loves the genre and this franchise in particular, but this is the first one where she loaded up Netflix on her phone rather than watching me play “micromanagement simulator”.
My final gripe is that it could be a lot prettier. My PS5 had stutters on the opening cutscene and the isometric view leads to a lot of camera issues. Too many times I’ve had to swing the camera to see past a tree or through a wall. The top-down tactical cam is helpful, but you can’t make actions in this mode, which is a minor annoyance.