‘Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles‘ (“FFT”) is a faithful recreation of the classic turn-based tactics game Final Fantasy Tactics which was originally released in 1997. This new and enhanced version brings many welcome quality-of-life features, superb voice acting, and a slightly reworked but fantastic localization. Most importantly, it brings this all-time classic strategy game to all modern platforms and breathing new life into this juggernaut of the genre. Set in the titular world of Ivalice, FFT follows our protagonist Ramza as he navigates a complex world full of political intrigue in a battle-scarred land with a long-running history, soon to be engulfed in flames of war yet again.
Included in this release are two versions of FFT: a Classic version for old heads and purists and the Enhanced version, which I played on for this review all on Xbox Series X. The Enhanced version brings quality of life features such as: fast-forwarding battles and cutscenes, being able to change your mind on moving a unit before ending your turn, increasing the total roster count to 50, a birds-eye tactical view, 3 difficulty options, the turn-order displayed onscreen and so much more I couldn’t live without as a first time FFT player.
Forming a Party
I knew I was in for a challenge with FF Tactics, a game that has so many intricate systems and can be punishingly difficult at times. I’ve heard many stories over the years of people not being able to finish for a variety of reasons. This can be alleviated somewhat with the new easier Squire difficulty, but it’s still highly recommended that you engage with most of the tools at your disposal.
As with almost any Japanese role-playing game (“JRPG”), grinding and upgrading equipment can be an enormous help to you. In addition to your unit’s overall level and experience, you also earn Job Points (JP) as you perform various actions when you have a unit equipped with that job. These allow you to equip different types of gear, boost your stats, and learn new and extremely necessary skills such as using items along with plenty of specialized skills. One could spend dozens upon dozens of hours building a squad of overpowered and specialized units, but I was mostly content with getting some key skills and trying my best to scrape by and focus on a few well-rounded party members.
You will be joined either by members of the main cast as you move forward in the story or these somewhat random recruitable warriors who you are free to rename and re-class as you see fit. As you might expect with characters vital to the story, some of these units can be immensely useful, powerful and they even come with unique classes and skills all their own. Some are just too good to pass up. I sadly pushed one of my early-game recruits to the side. The other however, stayed with me until the final battle.
I mainly focused on growing two of these created-characters because any more and I felt I would spread the party thin. They are still essential in the early game, so don’t let the fact that they may fall off discourage you from investing in them. And fear not! They can still be useful to you by sending them on Errands, a side activity that will net you plenty of gil (FF’s currency) and other useful items as you move around the world map.
The World, Characters and Story of Ivalice
Ivalice is quite possibly the most lore-dense world in all of Final Fantasy, spanning multiple games and thousands of years, this world offers so much for you to invest yourself in and stories for you to discover. From the very beginning of the game you are meant to wonder: who recorded the history that we all know and should we take it at face value?
FF Tactics deeply explores the effects of classism, how the rich view and treat the poor and what, if anything, can be done about it. Themes that seem to have aged like wine ever since the game’s original release. While some of this may feel a tad on the nose, I was regularly surprised by how well-handled the narrative is and there’s plenty to chew on in the subtext that kept me thinking about the game long after I had stopped playing. This is all elevated by the excellent delivery of the English voice cast in some of the best performances I’ve heard in a JRPG in recent memory.
In this world’s history, a war has recently ended and the populace is still reeling from the fallout. Many former soldiers, now abandoned by the crown, have no choice but to turn to thievery or starve, essentially veterans now left homeless. Those in power and of noble blood seek to dehumanize those in the populace they deem lesser than through propaganda and various villainous acts.
Combat
There is so much more I would love to go into about the story but it is best experienced (or re-experienced) yourself. Filled with characters I loved and loved to hate, brought to life by a cast I’ll now keep my eye on—there wasn’t a time I wasn’t thoroughly impressed. Ben Starr, AKA Final Fantasy’s new golden boy, gets a chance to chew the scenery as the character Dycedarg, a very different role than I am used to seeing him in. Thankfully, Joe Pitts as Ramza is exceptional as well. No voiceless protagonists here, and it is very much appreciated as he helps carry numerous emotional scenes.
Ivalice in FF Tactics is primarily viewed through diorama-like stages in which battles and scenes between characters and the various factions take place. While there is a world map, it is primarily a series of points along interconnecting paths. These points will either throw you into a random battle (which you are now free to skip), the next story segment, or a variety of towns which have shops, a unit recruitment guild, and a tavern which offers the latest rumors and gossip along with the aforementioned Errands.
Turn-based battles take place on a relatively small grid and this is where the bulk of your playtime will be as you aim to complete certain objectives such as eliminating a specific unit, defeating all enemy combatants or keeping a certain allied unit alive until the battle’s end. You have physical and magic attack stats, a movement and jump stat that can overcome differences in terrain elevation, armor, weapons and plenty of other systems that are either fairly standard for the genre or so in-depth that I couldn’t possibly cover here.
Equipment can be both stolen and destroyed on enemy units and your own. While this may sound brutal, the economy in this game was a ton of fun. I was constantly spending gil by the thousands or tens of thousands due to equipment breaking but I was earning so much from missions and errands that it was almost never an issue for me. There is a skill to prevent equipment being destroyed but I never wanted to give up that precious skill slot when I could have it filled by something much more useful.
Permadeath is in play! When a unit goes down, you have a certain amount of turns to resurrect them either with a spell or item or they will be gone forever if they’re not a plot-relevant main character in the middle of their story. However, letting Ramza die will just cause a game over where you can reload a previous save. You can get around permadeath and save them by ending the battle before their heart timer runs out, which has saved me countless times over the course of my journey. Normally, I find this level of punishment off putting in games but it led to many tense, exciting and memorable moments and always kept me on my toes.
You have a choice of directing a spell onto a specific unit, even if they move or onto a certain tile. There is a learned strategy to this because for example, an enemy may run right into one of the squares on your cross-shaped cure spell causing you to heal an enemy along with your own unit depending on how the turn order shakes out. This can also work in your favor because while the enemy AI is quite intelligent, they are still susceptible to the same rules of engagement that apply to you.
I had many, many reloads of previous saves due to either my own stupidity or typical strategy game nonsense of missing attacks or just not being properly equipped for a fight. I never had to stop and grind for overall levels, although a few times I did have to do a few random battles for job points to unlock skills I felt I needed. It was never a matter of needing higher stats as HP and MP are mainly tied to what equipment you use anyways. It is almost always in your best interest to perform an action if you are able because this will earn you both job and experience points so I found myself stocking up on 99 potions and healing even 1 point of damage if my units were out of range for an attack.
How It Looks and Sounds
This soundtrack is quite good but probably not something I will just let play from front to back. While it may not be as catchy as other Final Fantasy games, plenty of tracks became earworms that stayed in my head throughout the duration of my playtime. I found myself appreciating certain battle tracks that somewhat slowed down and matched the much calmer soundscapes of the rest of the OST before heading right back into the bombastic music I have come to expect from the franchise.
Visually, I find the game gorgeous. While the retro-aesthetic may not be to everyone’s taste, I always get a kick out of seeing what games on the PlayStation One had to do to simulate something as simple as a windmill or other environments. Coupled with the adorable chibi-sprites and the simple yet effective portrait art, I love the look of this game and the style they went with for the Enhanced version. A minor criticism from me is that most of the noseless faces end up looking nearly identical with only hair or clothing differences being the only way to visually tell certain characters apart. Thankfully this is remedied by the standout voicework where the cast gave their all and oozed personality into them enough for me to differentiate between some of the samey-looking side characters.
Other Favorite Final Fantasy Features
In an oddly rare move by publisher Square Enix, they have quite possibly made a truly definitive version of one of their games with this release. One beloved aspect of The War of the Lions version on PSP were the pre-rendered cutscenes in a visually striking style that brought the character’s portrait art to life. While these may not play during the normal course of the game, fear not as they’re tucked away in the Chronicle and Events section of the main menu. From here you may replay story events with the in-game models and if there is an option to “View Movie,” this is what plays the fan-favorite cutscenes. While these aren’t terribly frequent, it’s worth popping in every now and again to see what you’ve unlocked as they only appear once you have moved past that point in the story.
Another returning and beloved feature is the State of the Realm, which first made its appearance in Final Fantasy 16. State of the Realm holds plot summaries, character profiles and even noting certain character’s untimely deaths and when they occurred. Perfect for a refresher if you’ve spent some time away from the game or if you’re just generally confused about what is going on in the wider story. A fantastic feature I was thrilled to see make its way into another game by Square Enix and I hope to see similar story QoL innovations made by others in the industry.
Specific to my experience on Xbox Series X, the game runs incredibly smooth as you would expect from a retro-styled game but keep in mind this is still a ground-up recreation so that’s not always a given. FFT has HDR if your display supports it and during my time with it I had zero bugs, zero crashes and the publisher has said there is a day one patch coming which brings a fan-requested option to steal certain equipment and other fixes for bugs I did not personally encounter. Unfortunately, this game does not support Xbox Play Anywhere at the time of this review, unlike most of Square’s recent and upcoming games. Hopefully this can be updated at some point in the future, but the game still ran flawlessly for me. I still felt it was worth mentioning because I have become accustomed to Play Anywhere support from Square and I want that support to continue.
Conclusion
Final Fantasy Tactics can be tough in the early game. I struggled for quite a while until I got the hang of having a party of 4-5 characters who I would swap jobs between, making sure the team was balanced with tanks, healers, ranged units and plenty of overlap between those depending on the given battle. I learned to rotate jobs once I got the skills I required or once the job was fully maxed out. Investing in multiple jobs allows you to get even better, specialized jobs and I don’t know if I could have made it to the end without engaging in this aspect of the game. Initially, I was put off by this. I usually take the path of least resistance in JRPGs, or I’ll just grind until it becomes easy. But this design forced me to learn so much more of FF Tactics and learn why it is one of the most beloved tactics games of all time.
The story for FF Tactics remained entertaining throughout. As a first-time player, it zigged when I thought it would zag and I will always appreciate when stories in RPGs like this can feel somewhat grounded with a focus on politics, inter-personal relationships and plenty of time for the characters to sit and reflect on the events in-game. Yes, there are still plenty of crystals, magic and other FF staples but Tactics feels like a cut above most other JRPG stories and is now one of my favorites in the Final Fantasy series.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Top-notch voice acting brings to life an already stellar narrative.
- Extensive party customization for endless possibilities and addictive gameplay.
- Very challenging but fair difficulty curve when engaging in most systems.
CONS
- Battles can still feel cumbersome even with the new QoL features.
- Occasional problems with unit visibility on certain maps.
