I'd like to lay my bias bare before we get started here; I love Final Fantasy Tactics. If pressed for my favourite game of all time I'd more than likely tell you it's this one; I've played the Playstation version, the PSP version, and now this latest remake being around probably my fourteenth or so playthrough of the game, and I still love it. From the strategy RPG gameplay I find so addicting to the job system's constant progression, the stellar character writing, prose, and overall timeless narrative I consider one of the best in gaming, this game is still my favourite. However, this game isn't just Final Fantasy Tactics, is it? Ivalice Chronicles is a solid enough remake that leaves the meat and potatoes of one of the best strategy RPGs ever made in tact and more accessible than ever, yet really skimps out on the carrots.
Starting off, where this remake makes great improvements over previous releases; quality of life. New difficulty options are available as this game is quite difficult for beginners. The new tactical top down view is a complete game changer and I'm not sure I can play this game without this feature anymore. The infamous slowdown from the War of the Lions version of the game has been fixed, you can fast forward now which is really great when there's a lot of enemies to wait for, and when you find yourself at a dead end in a hard battle you can quickly and easily retry that fight without needing to go back and reload a save to try again. The UI has been greatly improved, with a super great turn order list so you can always keep track of who moves when easily, and damage predictions are much more clear and reliable than they've ever been. The new high quality rendering for character sprites looks excellent, and the freshly made 3D terrain is all improved;, but for me the absolute biggest revolution here is the addition of full voice acting. There's no skimping out here, every line of dialogue, every cough, and even every thought from the narrator is fully voiced with a new voice cast and it is magical. The voices fit the characters perfectly, the accents work great for the setting, and line delivery is excellent; this alone breathes massive new life into the story and characters. Of course, we already had voice acting in the cutscenes in the War of the Lions version, but.. wait, cutscenes?
Bafflingly this remake chose to stay "pure" to the original release of the game, the 1997 version for the Playstation. Of course this means using stuff like the far superior War of the Lions translation where they saw fit, and cutting content otherwise for very flimsy reasons that ultimately just feel like anything that wasn't in the original didn't "belong" in the game to them. The cutscenes from War of the Lions are in the game, remastered and redubbed, but aren't actually played in the story at all, instead can be found buried in a side option in what is essentially the glossary. You aren't given any options to have these scenes play at their correct points in the story, nor are you given the choice to play with any of the other bonus content that's been removed. Jobs, characters, side stories, and the multiplayer mode have all been removed and instead replaced with... nothing. For no real reason content is yet again taken away from a "definitive" game release, and while the quality of life is great, having less content than the version of the game that's been on the market since 2007 is genuinely baffling. The addition of the original 1997 game in its full is cute, but doesn't really make up for what was removed, especially since the War of the Lions version with all that additional content in tact was not included.
Now, onto the game itself. It's very good. It's not without flaws, though. The job system gives constant progression, you're always levelling your current job and buying new skills, and while leveling your next job to unlock even more jobs, you can use those skills you've learned previously so it never feels like you've wasted time leveling and upgrading things you won't use. Your movement, range, and base skills are also determined by your current job, giving surprising depth to the character building. Where the problems with this system start to arise is in how you level these jobs, or more like in how few ways you can.
This game is hard. I haven't played the new easier difficulty, nor am I really interested, but even on standard and as an experienced player, this game is tough at times. And that's okay, the game absolutely wants you to feel like the underdog in the main story battles, but sometimes you'll hit a new main battle where you're very obviously outclassed in terms of job progression and while you probably could slam your head into the wall until it worked, more than likely you'll want to go and build up your characters and jobs a bit, only to realize there's barely any way to do that. There's errands, which are like dispatch based side quests you can send your allies off to, which gives decent amounts of job points, but they're in limited supply and only generic units can undertake them; so Ramza and your other special units will be left behind. So what options does that leave you? Side quest battles? Bounties? Nope, just random encounter battles, which even for someone who loves the gameplay gets pretty old pretty fast, leading people to use a method where you farm experience by hitting your own units which just feels like cheesing the game due to oversight. There can also be frustrating amounts of RNG in some encounters, and losing multiple times due to bad dice rolls never feels great in any game.
Narrative is where this game gets it's legendary status. The gameplay is great and fun, but the writing and overall story is on another level entirely; a deep, winding, complex story about politics, class, religion, and morality. The star of this story, Ramza, is a young nobleman who loses more and more the more right he does; after witnessing atrocities committed in front of him, he abandons his nobility and finds himself entangled deep in conspiracies of the church, and the noble families doing anything they can to clutch power and secure the crown during the ongoing turmoil. I don't want to put any spoilers of the story in this review, because I think the story is best experienced first-hand, but I want to make it clear that this is in fact as good and special as you've likely heard before; the translation on display here is also stellar. Making great use of old English terminology and prose, it's the most realistic sounding old English dialogue you'll hear.
Final Fantasy Tactics is probably still my favourite video game, nearly everything about it clicks for me. If you've heard the praises about how good the writing is in this game, they were right, and you owe it to yourself to play this game if you care at all for well written and unique stories. Oh, and the soundtrack is absolute heat too. There's some frustrations here but I can't think of many games from 1997 or earlier that don't have a thing or two that's questionable; and while this is far from my ideal remake and I think removing content from previous versions for silly reasons is completely dumb and stupid, Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles is an acceptable overall release, especially with it regularly going on sale nowadays. While I will mourn what was lost from the previous releases, I can for the first time since the release of FFTA2 in 2007, feel hopeful to receive more from this sub-franchise in the future. Square please put FFTA and FFTA2 on Steam, I'll take straight ports even man just get it done.
