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Tag Archives: Final Fantasy Tactics

Top 20 Videogames of the Past Decade #13

13. The Final Fantasy Tactics sequels (GBA, DS, PSP)

OK, so the original Final Fantasy Tactics title on the original PlayStation came out in 1997. Got it. But the game’s impact wasn’t really felt until this past decade. Overshadowed and nearly overlooked as a result of Square releasing Final Fantasy VII the same year, many gamers initially derided FFT as being too throwback and retro in approach.

However, the game, which had predecessors in the Ogre Tactics titles on SNES, ultimately won hardcore gamers over with its sometimes-insanely-difficult battles, some of which could last over an hour and still result in a loss! That was bold even in 1997, and the resultant button-pushing was a real muscle builder for thumbs everywhere.

Yet the game’s popularity was vastly helped in 2001 when Square re-released it as a PlayStation Classic, even though the game never reached the magic 1 million units sold bar established for most games to become PlayStation Classics.

That helped launch the game into popularization. By the time PlayStation 2 came out, entire companies were dedicated to the new subgenre of “Tactics-style RPGs,” which was a direct reference to Final Fantasy Tactics’ approach to RPG gaming.

By 2003, a new title in the series, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, was licensed by Nintendo to help launch their new GameBoy Advance platform, and quickly became the defining title of the GBA platform.

2007 saw a remake of the PlayStation original arrive on Sony’s portable platform, the PSP. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions delivered the greatness of the original with plenty of new content and a fresh, more understandable translation.

And in 2008, Final Fantasy A2: Grimoire of the Rift delivered a Nintendo DS-era sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

The groundbreaking nature of the series gave birth to much of Atlus’ game catalog, as well as opening the door for NIS America to bring much of its catalog to North America. In an era where RPGs are now done as big-budget productions often perceived of as “too easy to win” by hardcore gamers, the popularity of the Tactics-style RPG is in its retro approach, greater difficulty level, and most importantly, it’s considerable length.

Tactics-style titles often involve hundreds of hours of gameplay to complete successfully, and that makes them perfect candidates for on-the-go platforms like GBA, DS and PSP. By staying retro, Final Fantasy Tactics has delivered the perfect style of RPG for handheld systems, and the influence of that 1997 title was felt most profoundly only in the past decade.

Review: Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions (PSP)

I was one of the first people in line to buy the original Final Fantasy Tactics for PSone, back when the first version of this game was released. I was more intrigued by and excited about the title than the game everyone else had been anticipating that had landed a few months earlier, Final Fantasy VII. I think at the time, the steampunk influences of Final Fantasy VII were a bit of a turnoff for me (I eventually came ‘round), but the original FFT simply had a more traditional feel; it was more the sort of traditional sword and sorcery style of game I wanted from an RPG at that time.

Despite a “so awful it’s funny” localization that rendered some plot elements incomprehensible, and an incredibly high difficulty level, Final Fantasy Tactics became a long-standing personal favorite of mine and still ranks as one of my Top 5 PSone games of all time. Simply put, it was a dream-come-true title.

Of course, I was pleased to see a whole subgenre of Tactics-style RPGs emerge from the popularity of that title, and while it’s still somewhat of a niche RPG subgenre, it’s now a well-populated one. About the only complaints I’ve had over the years about Final Fantasy Tactics is that the game was on PSone and took so bloody long to play, I could never finish it.

Finally, after a decade of devotion, SquareEnix as released a “remix done right” version of Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP system. I call it a remix done right because Final Fantasy Tactics is far more than a straight port of the PSone classic onto PSP. There is a surprising amount of new content.

How much is new? Well, let’s start with the crappy localization. GONE! AT LAST! This time around, the script reads well, as though written by someone to whom English was not a fifth or sixth poorly-studied language. And while the game seems just a bit too fond of certain King Jamesian archaic phrases, for the most part the script is readable, comprehensible and even witty in places.

OK, so the game is more pleasant to read. But that’s not all. A considerable amount of new story elements have been added in the form of FMV story segments. Pulled off in some gorgeous animation that honors the original character designs but brings some new style to the game – think animation with some cool texturized colors that make it look like it was drawn in colored pencil and pained in watercolors. Add that the story segments fill in some of the blanks in the storyline, humanizing the characters, and what already was considered to be one of Square-Enix’s best stories ever told improves even more.

There are also some new items added to the mix, new characters (including a cameo by Vaan from Final Fantasy XII), new storylines and twists, and just a lot more than I expected in order to make this more than just a replay of the same game from 10 years ago.

Don’t go in thinking it’s all-new, though; this is still Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, even with all the new bells and whistles. The vast majority of the changes are wonderful; but not all the changes work as well. Need an example? OK.

One of the big drawbacks of the game being redesigned to play on the PSP is that the little tavern missions have been redone. In the PSone original, these were missions you could send your lower-level characters off on in order to help them level up more quickly. They’d be gone from your party for a number of days, and then you could pick them up at a guild, to collect a report of their success and also a reward if your party member did succeed at the task.

This time out, those missions are extra battles and you get to play them out rather than having them happen off-screen and receiving a second-hand report of the action. Instead, you must – and I mean MUST – find an online opponent or companion in order to make use of them at all. This is annoying because it’s not easy to always find someone who is online with their PSP, playing Final Fantasy Tactics at the same time you are, and ready and willing to agree to mutual terms. It’s not as simple a matching process as sports games are.

Even so, I could tolerate the online awkwardness if these side missions could also be completed the traditional way. That’s not an option, though. It’s play ‘em out online or don’t get access to those missions at all. This is not wise design.

The bottom line for me, though, is that having Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions released and remixed and available on a portable platform is indeed a wish come true. I’ve always loved FFT and other Tactics-style RPGs that have followed since, and my only complaint has been that they all take 100s of hours to beat, which is just not always practical on a home console system. Now that it’s on my PSP Slim, I can play it in bits and pieces throughout my day and really make progress in the game.

Anyone who doesn’t think Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions isn’t worth owning just doesn’t like RPGs. Along with Jeanne d’Arc and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, this year has been OWNED by PSP, especially the second half of 2007. The PSP is hot again, and, at least for me, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is a big part of the reason why.

New Final Fantasy Tactics title full of new stuff!

When Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is released in North America on PSP, it might be worth your while to even indulge in a payday loan to get it before all the copies are swept up by older fans who remember playing the original when it was first released.

Word has it that the remake will contain many new features even compared to the version released in Japan earlier this year. And one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is a better localization than the game received about 10 years ago.

The PSone FFT had several endearing quirks to the translation, but many of them were less endearing and actually made the story harder to understand. The new version will have many cutscenes and the North American version will even boast voice-acting in those cut-scenes, a feature missing in the Japanese version. There will be new characters, new items, new weapons, new jobs and lots of added content to make the experience fresh for veterans of the old version.

Who could ask for anything cooler?

Pair this game with the recent Jeanne d’Arc RPG on PSP, and the Sony PSP is now unquestionably the portable platform of choice for RPG enthusiasts.

Reasons why Final Fantasy Tactics is so great

Some people ask me why Final Fantasy Tactics is so great. After all, it’s hardly as critically acclaimed as Final Fantasy VII was, the game’s about 10 years old, and it’s incredibly hard to conquer.

My response, for the most part, is: exactly. This is the game I’d love to lock myself into a Venetian hotel with and just play until I’ve completely beaten it.

Final Fantasy Tactics is a game where, if its style appeals to you, you don’t care if the game was critically acclaimed or not. These days, some entire companies (Atlus, NIS America) are almost exclusively devoted to making games that attempt to be everything that Final Fantasy Tactics was on PSone, yet only rarely do the imitators come close.

Sure, the game’s about 10 years old but I still take it out and play it from time to time; having it remade and re-released on PSP will only make that easier; the graphical facelift is merely a bonus.

And yes, Final Fantasy Tactics is hard to beat. Damn hard. It’s a game that will dare to challenge you to battles that last for an hour or more, and still find a way to wipe out your party, causing you to have to fight the battle over and over … and sometimes, over again.

The push in videogames these days is to make games easier and easier to win and breeze through. Final Fantasy Tactics is the antidote to such watered-down game play. I’m relatively certain that once the PSP comes out, the new version will keep me challenged for the next decade, the way the first version did since it was released on PSone.

PSP about to get best tactics-style RPG ever

OK, so it’s a remake and not a completely original title or sequel, but in this case I doubt anyone will complain. In October, the Sony PlayStation Portable will become home to the best all-time tactics-style RPG ever released on any platform.

While hardly necessary, this is one game it might even be worth selling off your bedroom furniture to own: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is an enhanced remake of the PSone-original title, Final Fantasy Tactics.

There will be a lot of new content, including more cinematic cut-scenes and some added missions, including the ability to draft Final Fantasy XII character Vaan into your party. No official word yet, but here’s hoping Vaan comes into play earlier in the game than Cloud Strife did on the PSone original.