Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

"A deep and enjoyable Strategy RPG, but the flaws will scare away more casual players"

The original Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT) came out for the Playstation One about ten years ago, and became a surprisingly hard-to-find classic that had fans begging for a sequel. Ten years and one Gameboy Advance sequel later, Square-Enix has decided to port over the original game to the PSP to whet the appetites of PSP owners who were starving for a new, good tactics game. Can the port of a ten-year-old Playstation game - even with the addition of extra story events and characters - appeal to fans and casual gamers alike, or has Square-Enix (SE) butchered the port to the point of no hope for success?

Graphics (In-Game):

As mentioned before, Final Fantasy Tactics is a direct port of the same game for the Playstation One. SE did not take any effort to significantly touch-up the graphics of this PSP game, but then again there was no need for significant improvements; more than half of the game's graphics are sprite-based, while the majority of the 3D graphics were used on the landscapes to give them a feeling of depth as well as on spells to make them stand out from the comparatively dull regular attacks. Sprite-focused games like Final fantasy Tactics tend to show their age far less than games rendered fully in polygons, so the graphics for Tactics do not feel that antiquated even when viewed on a PSP screen. The characters are also incredibly well-made, as almost all character actions are animated very fluidly. Furthermore, SE did take the time to optimize the game's resolution to fit on the PSP's wide screen and the graphics do not suffer from any noticeable pixelation.

However, there is one major problem with the in-game graphics that may very-well drive away players who are new to the FFT franchise: considerable slowdown. For whatever reason, Square-Enix did not properly port over the code to the PSP and as a result nearly all the the skills - ranging from flashy black mage spells all the way down to simply throwing a rock - slow down the game for a second or more. This slowdown results with a significant delay between the sound and animation for skills and spells with fast-moving graphics, with the sound finishing a good second or so before the graphics do.

Considering how the PSP is completely capable of running a properly-coded playstation one port at full speed (or even better than the original game, as the PSP port of Tales of Eternia has shown), this slowdown is completely inexcusable. People who are dedicated strategy RPG players and FFT fans will be able to look beyond the slowdown to the meat of the game and eventually get used to the reduced graphical speed, but many casual gamers who will be playing a game like this for the first time will be turned off by these flaws in the graphics.


Graphics (CG):
One of the new additions that Square-Enix gave Final Fantasy Tactics is a plethora of movies done in computer graphics (CG). These new movies are done well as the characters are consistent with their in-game and artistic designs. The characters are drawn in a distinct, cell-shaded style that makes the movies look as if they are paintings that have been magically brought to life. The movies are smooth and fluid, and succeed in displaying a large amount of emotion in each scene. Thanks to the large range in emotional display, events that were done with the in-game graphics on the PSX version - whose emotional impact were hampered by the relatively limited expressions of the game - now have a better impact on the viewer. These movies, coupled with the voice-acting (explained later) make the story enjoyable to see even for people who have finished the original game.


Sound:
Unfortunately, the FFT port was hit the hardest in this area due to the previously-mentioned lack of optimization. Many of the sound effects in the game have the same noises as they did in the PSOne version: Swords sound like tearing paper, the camera movement still sounds as if a rock is slowly being rolled, and so forth. However a good half of the effects have gotten butchered especially with summoning spells and unique skills and abilities. The affected sound effects now sound as if they were ripped directly out of a badly-made Gameboy Advance game or from a regular Nintendo, and sometimes parts of the effects will occasionally not even play. The problem with the sound is worsened by the fact that the echoing from the original game has been taken out, so even properly-working sound effects (such as the death cries) sound cheap.

Not everything is lost though as the soundtrack has - aside from the lack of echoing - made it to the PSP version intact. The music in general is brilliantly done with each event having the perfect music following it. It is very rare to find a soundtrack that enhances the game as much as this one; battles feel like they are epic in proportion rather than just fun, serious events have just enough tension to keep the reader on edge and the events which are relatively calm feel all the more soothing thanks to the music in this game. Also, the voice-acting in the CG Movies (a feature that is exclusive to the European and US versions of the game) is done very well with none of the voices coming across as stilted or awkward but rather that they fit the characters that are speaking at the time. It brings a new dimension to the story scenes and enhances the enjoyment gotten out of them.

Story
The plot of Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the deepest and most deceiving stories I have seen in a strategy rpg or regular RPG. The game takes place in Ivalice, several hundred years after the events of Final Fantasy XII. The player takes on the role of Ramza, a young warrior who belongs to the noble house of Beoulve. The story - seperated into four chapters - follows Ramza as he stumbles upon a secret plot that would shake the world at its core if successful. There are myriad number of twists and turns in the story, and very often the player will think that the villain and plot revolve around one character when in fact it is part of something far larger. There is a good amount of character development for most of the story-characters especially Ramza, and oftentimes Ramza will come into company of people who either sympathize with his ideals or are after his blood.

The plot for the game was very convoluted in the Playstation One version due to a very lackluster translation (complete with mistranslations and mistakes that almost reach the level of "All your base are belong to us"), but the PSP version has a completely retranslated script that explains the characters and their ideals far more efficiently, as well as adds a medieval flare to the talking that fits the society in Final Fantasy tactics. The people who localized the port even went so far as to alter the manner of speaking for any of the special characters who do not originally come from FFT world or current timeline. A very good effort on their part, and its high quality shows.

Unfortunately, the game also has many optional special characters who get very little - if any - development at all; many of them have one special scene to introduce them and then disappear from the story completely. While SE did try to alleviate this problem with a few of the extra PSP-only story scenes and battles, many of the side-characters still lacked screentime and character growth and are just in the game for the sake of being there.

Gameplay:
The battle system and extra features of Final Fantasy Tactics are the primary reason why the game has such a large fanbase. The FFT system can be split into two groups: the battle system and everything outside of battle, which include a relatively linear overhead map, propositions to help boost up your generic soldiers, and sidequests for new characters and/or items.

The battle system is the meat of the game. The player is allowed up to five characters to take into battle, with the main character Ramza being obligatory for any story-related fight. The system is turn-based and is affected by the speed of each unit in the battle. Once a person's turn comes up, they can move in a limited range and then attack, use one of their skills, heal and so on. A person is knocked out when his/her Hit Points is reduced to 0, and if he/she is left alone too long the unit will disappear forever (and if it is one of your units, you lose the ability to use him/her), leaving either a treasure chest or a crystal that can either give whomever that grabs it extra abilities or a full hit point and magic point recharge. When the mission objective (which is normally kill all enemies, but has a few protect-a-person objectives thrown in the story quests here and there) is completed, you win the battle.

This is looking at the battle in the shallowest way possible, as there are huge number of things that can effect you in battle. For one, the game sports a job system which enables characters to access different abilities and skills, as well as unlock abilities that either help the player counterattack or enhance some other part of the character, like his move range or attack power. In the beginning of the game, the player only starts out with access to a paltry two classes. The only way to unlock the other, generally-more-powerful classes is to level up jobs you have access to via job points (which is earned with every non-movement-based action taken, such as a successful attack or magic casting), which in turn allow you access to stronger abilities and classes upon levelling them up, and so forth.

There are also numerous statistics per character that affect how good they are as a fighter, mage, etc. such as Brave (which affects your ability to deal and take physical attacks) and Faith (which judge how strong magic spells are when the character casts them and how much damage is taken from enemy spells). Furthermore, there are monsters that you can fight (and recruit, given the right class) in the random battles that have inherent strengths and weaknesses that force you to change your strategy from time to time. Fortunately, despite the incredible depth of the battle system the game has a good learning curve, so the enemies are considerably weak when the player is new to the game, and the enemies become harder as the player becomes more experienced with the gameplay.

However, there are several battles early in the game that can and will test a player's patience and will - along with the already-mentioned slowdown - result with many new players abandoning the game. These particular battles have a sudden rise in difficulty with the enemies either starting off with more troops and advantageous positions, with unusually powerful troops or even both. To make matters worse, there are several occasions in the game where the player has to fight a series of consecutive battles with no means to buy anything between. While this may not seem bad, several bosses are fought with this consecutive battle system and are literally impossible to defeat if the player is not prepared, and no warning is given by the game beforehand. If the player has saved while between two of the consecutive battles and has saved over the primary file, he or she may find that s/he will need to completely redo the game because the only way to win the next battle is by equipping or using an item that is in a shop that is currently unavailable.

Extras and Replayability
While the game starts off very linearly it becomes more open-ended as the player experiences the story, opening up more generic-enhancing propositions in taverns as well as tavern rumors that enable sidequests that will help get new characters. Furthermore maximizing jobs can take a while, and the two new classes included in the port are hard to get and hard to level up. Both of these things gives players the incentive to strengthen their teams between story battles. Another fun extra that enhances replay value is the multiplayer battles. Players can join up together via ad-hoc and either duke it out or cooperate together to save someone or complete a particular quest. Square-Enix promotes the multiplayer aspect highly, as a good chunk of the more powerful gear is only available by completing the multiplayer-only missions. The game has enough things to do to keep people busy.... if they can get past the several difficult battles and ignore the graphical slowdown.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy Tactics will keep a veteran Strategy player or FFT Fan busy for hours on end. Not only has the already-deep battle system been enhanced thanks to the addiion of new jobs and multiplayer, but the story is well done and will keep many players at the edge of their seats. However, this game will unfortunately push away many inexperienced players thanks to the slowdown and early-game difficulty, making them miss out on the gameplay - the primary reason to play this game - of this PSP port. If you are any sort of Strategy and/or RPG fan, buy this game and be prepared for hours upon hours of enjoyment. However, if you're a casual gamer or have little patience for slowdown you'll probably not enjoy the game due to its lack of optimization.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/07

Game Release: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (US, 10/09/07)