Final Fantasy Tactics

"Proving that there is no kind of RPG Square can't master"

Whenever I think of the term "RPG", the first word to come into my mind is "Square". Despite the fact that almost every major Japanese company now has a popular RPG franchise, none of them quite measure up to the caliber of Square's. They are simply the best of their time, and often remain the best in their genre. At the time, I wasn't really sure what differentiated Final Fantasy Tactics from any other of Square's games, other than that it didn't have a numerical title in the Final Fantasy series. This I later found out was with good reason, as Final Fantasy Tactics is, like Final Fantasy Legend and Mystic Quest, a different game with the FF name tagged onto it to grab sales. However, after playing it, I find it to be just as worthy of the name "Final Fantasy" as any of the other titles in the series.

Final Fantasy Tactics is not a regular console turn-based RPG, but rather a Tactical or Strategy RPG, following more in the footsteps of such series as Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem (which is not surprising, since much of the game was worked on by Ogre Battle staff members). Rather than focusing on training only a few members of a party at a time, you are given control of a small army to engage in large-scale battles. The battles are not focused so much on attacking and using magic, but also moving around the field, using long-range attacks, and attacking from different sides to take advantage of the enemy's defenses. Final Fantasy Tactics is not something you can easily win by simply building up and using the attack command over and over. Because not only do you have to worry about training up to 16 fighters, but the monsters also level up with you. This means only using 5 characters or so through most of the game then building up your weaker ones near the end of the game to catch up won't work. Your warriors must constantly be put into battle if they wish to remain of any use. And the sheer amount of characters you control requires you to be figuring out the best situations for each character to use.

But at the same time, there is still a ton of customization within each character, which is what makes the system so good. Final Fantasy Tactics revitalizes the infamous Job system, popularized by Final Fantasy's III and V. And, as with the jump from FF III to FFV, the Job system has become even deeper. The system begins with each character in a starting class, usually a Squire or a Chemist. As characters fight in these classes, they gain JP (Job Points), which allows them to progress through their jobs. While gaining job points works like experience in that after a certain amount is reached the characters excel to a new level in their job, the points themselves can also be used to learn new skills. Each job is specialized for a certain skillset, so if it's a skillset you want it is best to keep the character in that job until it is mastered. However, if you find that certain jobs have only one or two skills that appeal to you, it is perfectly fine to get only enough JP to learn those skills and move on. Jobs beyond the base jobs only become available after characters have become experienced enough in their current jobs. Thus, one cannot become a Lancer until they have spent a respectable amount of time as a Knight. And from there, one must be a Lancer for a short period of time until the Samurai class becomes available to them. There are also jobs such as the Ninja, which needs experience in a Thief as well as an Archer and a Geomancer to become useable. This system of classes provides an almost infinite number of combinations for one character, let alone the cast of over twenty you will encounter in the game.

One can spend a lifetime figuring out what sequence of classes will provide the perfect stats for a character, also adding in the large variety of equipment to further specialize your character. Like your Samurai cutting down enemies? Give him the Ninja's Two-Swords ability, and watch him swing two katanas for twice the damage. Add in his own ability, Blade Grasp, and he'll be nearly unstoppable. Experimentation is your friend, as you may discover that characters you would think as fighters may not really shine until you try them out as a mage, and vice versa. A Geomancer can make a deadly elementalist and at the same time be a formidable warrior at the front lines. And even beyond class abilities are their armories, which can make your knights more powerful, your Wizards more feared, and your Thieves and Ninjas more agile. On the contrary, you can also make your Ninjas stronger, your Wizards more powerful, and your Knights more agile if you so desire. Characters in your party will soon find each one has a specialized purpose to be carried out. One might be your Meat-shield- strong, heavily armored, and there to absorb damage in the front lines as your archers and chemists take position to fire. Another might be your elusive Thief/Item finder, hanging in the shadows, quickly appearing behind enemies only to swipe their rare equipment. The list goes on.

And while fooling with your characters is fun enough, it's not nearly as entertaining as actually watching your characters in battle. Accompanied by movable 3d environments and large, detailed sprites, the game looked great for its time. There's nothing quite like watching your Monk pound the living daylights out of unsuspecting monsters, or watching your Wizard nuke one single enemy with a flare, or even seeing your Summoner destroy half the field as she calls out a huge hand-drawn monster to wreak havoc. While the ingame cutscenes somewhat lack the beauty and excitement of fully 3d modern-day games, it is more than made up for with it's stunning opening and ending FMV.

One of the more innovative features of Final Fantasy Tactics is its adaptation of the FFIV-VIII ATB system. The ATB, or Active Time Battle system, is a little mechanism in the game which makes monsters attack you while you're figuring out what moves you want your characters to do. That way, monsters don't always wait for you to attack, giving the game an extra bit of challenge. Tactics has altered the system to do more with sequence and timing. Every character in a battlefield is put into a line of sequence according to their speed. Fast characters (obviously) will be able to attack more quickly than large monsters or slower characters. Any move that is not a physical attack in Tactics requires time to charge up. So, while a Monk can run up and punch a monster in the face within one turn, a mage can only begin to cast “Bolt” before his turn must end. The charge time then falls appropriately back into the AT sequence, and the spell strikes not too long after. However, within this time, there is nothing stopping a monster from walking over to the mage, avoiding the spell (unless it was locked on to him, in which case moving next to the mage will cause the mage to be hit by the spell as well) and then beating the mage to a bloody pulp. Characters' turns are determined by how quickly their AT meter reaches 100 (starting from Zero immediately after their previous turn is finished or a match starts). This allows characters to use such well-known spells as Haste and Slow to alter the rate at which a character is allowed to make an action. Mastering this Time-Battle system is important; characters which blindly run into battle without looking at who might actually get to strike first will find that they will absorb the force of more fireballs than the enemy, and manage to hit back considerably less.

Following the trend of most Strategy-RPG's, however, is its somewhat clichéd story. The plot centers on Ramza Beoulve, a typical noble of the Hokuten army. Ramza experiences the obligatory guilty conscience about repressing a rebellion, has a "falling out" with his older brother, and ends up, like every main character in a strategy RPG is forever doomed to do, fighting his own army. From there on we get the expected "Corruption in the house of nobles" plot, the "Dark secret of the church" subplot, and the well-known "Save your kidnapped sister" quest. That is not to say the story is that bad by any means, but with somewhat bland characters and so many clichés, one is left with a somewhat uncompelling story that left me bored for most of the game. The only reason this really strikes me as a disappointment is that it comes from Square, who wrote the wonderful stories of Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears. I suppose not everything they do can be flawless.

To accompany the game is a fairly solid soundtrack. There were a variety of battle themes and army melodies, with a few stranger tunes here and there, and a lot of fairly happy, upbeat tracks. The sounds, for the most part, are incredibly realistic, down to the slashing of the different weapons to the magic blasts echoing throughout the speakers. I do have the complaint, however, that there are occasions when a few sound bytes seem to be recycled (most specifically the "grab" sound, which is also the "hug" sound, as well as the "strangle" sound; maybe there's not much of a difference in the actions themselves at this timeframe). Besides that, the overall sound quality of the game is good.

Controlling the game came easily enough. I was afraid that the relatively new format of 3d strategy games would create a large problem when moving your characters over the terrain or issuing attacks. But everything follows through and works great. Clicking on any character can allow you to see their movement range, as well as their attack range, and even the range of a spell or summon if it is being cast. While there are a ton of options in battle, the menus are relatively well arranged, and the layout is easy to scroll through. The movable camera is good, but not without a few faults. When they say the camera is “movable”, that means in only 4 views. While I sympathize that creating 360 different views for each sprite in base position (not counting attacking position, spellcasting position, etc.) would have been a bit much, there are times when four views just doesn't cut it, and I'm often stuck struggling to figure out where my character is, or who he is attacking. I also would've liked to have been able to cancel a movement command before the character's turn is completed, as I have lost many a turn thinking I could move far enough and be within range to attack only to find out I wasn't, and have then left my character not only idle for a turn, but also open to attack.

There is, sadly, the glaring issue of the translation to this game, which at times is almost detrimental. Characters not only have grammatical errors in a lot of their speeches ("I got a good feeling!"), but at times were so bad that during one mission, actually following the written objective would result in a game over. Minor language problems really give the game an uncharacteristic amateurish feel. The main artist of the game is also one of the most untalented people I have ever seen, as every character not only lacks a nose but also looks exactly like every other character. A rather small complaint, but quite creepy when you start comparing character portraits.

Above all, Final Fantasy Tactics will keep you occupied for a very long time. With several secret characters to recruit (including Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife), as well as an entire library of recruitable and breedable monsters, tons of items, and an incredibly long and difficult optional dungeon, Tactics will take no less than 40 hours, and can easily last well over 100.

What's great is how every monster has their own little set of moves and special abilities. You may just think of them as wannabe party members, but they can be fairly useful if used properly. Not only that, some of them are just cool. If you happen to bring along a Chocobo into a battle, one of your characters can even hop onto it and inherit lengthened movement ability, as well as the ability to walk over water and scale mountains (More importantly, who wouldn't want a Chocobo knight?). And it is very possible to have an entire army (save your main character, of course) consisting of nothing but monsters. It may even wind up beating the game.

I found Tactics to be a great game to play through. The Job System is perhaps the best I have ever seen in an RPG, and the pure customizability of your characters is amazing. What prevents me from giving this a 10 is it's somewhat boring story, its few localization errors, and the sheer amount of time I spent leveling up. While I loved battling, I'm fairly sure had I not been worrying about what level my characters were at, I could've completed the game in 20 hours. Regardless, this is still one of Square's best efforts. They've proven that making Strategy RPGs is something they can do without breaking a sweat, and still somehow set the standard for other Strategy RPGs around it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/04