AMN’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
Final Fantasy Tactics was one of Square-Enix’s first attempts to expand the Final Fantasy franchise outside of the typical RPG setting. When the title was released on the PSOne, fans were quickly intrigued by the gameplay and the deep storyline that the title held. After many years of waiting, fans wanted a sequel to the original title but were instead treated to a portable adventure in the form of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the GBA. Despite receiving critical acclaim, fans yearned for a true sequel and to this day still wait.
Telling the tale of yesteryears and the great War of the Lions, Final Fantasy puts you in the role of Ramza Beoulve, a former soldier during the war. Along with Ramza, there was another soldier by the name of Delita Heiral, a hero who would put an end to the War of the Lions and become a hero across the land of Ivalice.
Several years after the war, Ramza and Delita meet again but on opposite sides of a conflict. Delita has kidnapped a Princess in which Ramza has sworn to protect. With two allies now becoming foes, the dark history of Ivalice is about to be unfolded. As you get deeper into the title the storyline develops and you discover why Ivalice has become so split and how two allies could end up on opposite sides of the battlefield. The storyline keeps you entertained and wanting to find out more about the past with the War of the Lions and the current state of Ivalice.
What’s Hot
To help the titles storyline progress the game uses a series of cut scenes. Each cut scene is fully animated with a very unique art style that holds a grainy look to make it appear as a painting. One look at this type of cut scene you’ll simply fall on love with it. Each cut scene also features voice-overs. Each character is wonderfully voiced and sounds just as you would expect out of them. Since the title is incredibly long, the voices are a pleasant thing to hear when you have a storyline of 70 hours to go through.
Outside of the voice-overs, the music in the title is one of the strongest in any Final Fantasy title. The music is powerful and the sound effects are crisp and clear.
The battle system is simply marvelous. The title offers a variety of customization for each characters job class and how they will do battle. Since each job class carries its own strengths and weaknesses, it is vital to have a variety of characters at your disposal in battle. At the start of the game, all your characters will either be a Squire or a chemist. You’ll gain experience in battles to give your characters new jobs and even assign them second jobs. Some of the jobs include monks, mages, assassins, summoners, oracles, archers, Onion Knights, Dark Knight, and many others. The Onion Knight and Dark Knight are new jobs for the PSP edition of the title. The Onion Knight is essentially a character that can use all abilities. The Dark Knight is better suited for experienced players. The ability to even choose this many options is staggering.
Each battle will have a certain level of intensity and will push you to your limits of strategy and character development. Once you engage in battle you’ll need to properly plan out your actions before just running into battle and hoping to win. Enemies will surround your characters and try to take out the weaker characters first and then leave the stronger ones to team up against. Since the enemies have a battle plan made out, it is great to see a high level of difficulty in a handheld title.
Another thing that will catch some attention is the games actual graphics engine. Even though the title uses the same 2D sprites from 1997, they have aged well. Each character is drawn with a lot of details and the summons are among the best animated characters in any handheld title. Everything in the title looks great on the PSP, with 16×9 support.
What’s Not
Although the graphics are solid, they aren’t exactly great. It is true that this is a port of a ten year old PSOne title but it isn’t an excuse for the dark look of the graphics. The game has a dim look to it, even where bright colors are used. With titles like Disgaea offering bright and vibrant 2D graphics, it is surprising to see Square-Enix not trying to brighten things up in this port. When Square-Enix decided to port over the first two Final Fantasy titles onto the PSP, they didn’t change the original look of the title but instead made improvements on it and that could have done the same for this title.
The battle system may be challenging but the battles are also very long. Some battles can take upwards of 45 minutes to an hour. Since this is a portable title, battles that long may seem tedious and if you lose the battle then you have to do it all over again.
Final Word
Final Fantasy Tactics is a great port of a classic title. Had Square-Enix made more of an effort to make the title more portable and made a slight update to the titles graphical appearance, this title would have been even better. Nonetheless, the title is a great tactical adventure and offers tons of customization, tons of jobs, intense battles, and a great story.
