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.
