I had just completed Final Fantasy VII when I received Final Fantasy Tactics as a gift. I was expecting the graphics that had blown me away in FF7 (that was my first game for the Playstation, so please no laughing), but I was instead treated to cutesy-looking characters. Although I was initially disappointed by the looks, the game play definitely made up for it.

~~ What is Final Fantasy Tactics? ~~
Final Fantasy Tactics is a strategy role-playing game (RPG) that uses a turn-based battle system. Unlike the futuristic sci-fi setting in FF7, Tactics takes a more medieval fantasy route complete with magical beasts and spells. Most games within the Final Fantasy series focus on exploring the world, freely interacting with other non-playable characters (NPCs), unlocking secrets, and discovering hidden treasures. Tactics focuses on the tactical aspects of the battles.

You don’t get to maneuver your characters through different towns and speak to the townspeople or poke your nose around in their houses. You have no control over the character interaction, so the characters will automatically play out the scenes without any prompts. The plot will slowly unravel during your actual battles as the characters converse with the other NPCs in the game.

THE STORY
Tactics has a pretty linear storyline where the story will not progress any further until you go to the next indicated location. Once you have completed a major battle, other locations will open up to you on the world map. After you have visited the cities and revealed more pieces of the story you can visit that location at any time. Some of those locations become towns or an open field where you can fight random battles to level up your characters.

The game opens at Orbonne Monastery with your character Ramza Beoulve, a noble squire, as you are hired to protect Princess Ovelia. After fighting your first battle, you see Delita Hyral, your childhood friend, kidnapping the princess. The game is then divided into 4 different chapters at this point. We start at Chapter 1 when Ramza and Delita are still cadets in The Gariland Academy training to become great soldiers.

You are initially given a team with 6 other characters, but you are free to remove and replace your teammates with other characters during the game. Your squad is hired out to rid the towns of the Death Corps, a group consisting of thieves, kidnappers, and rebels. Along the way, others you thought were your friends betray you. You rescue and join up with another noble, Algus Sadalfas, who befriends you and asks for your help in saving the kidnapped Marquis Elmdor.

We watch as Delita’s younger sister, Teta, is mistakenly kidnapped. With his haughty attitude, Algus informs Ramza that “he’d never send troops to save a common girl”. Algus leaves the party and Ramza and Delita go in search of Teta. We witness as Teta’s death changes Delita for the rest of the game. Chapter 2 then picks up where the prologue left off as Ramza joins up with Agrias, Ovelia’s bodyguard, to rescue the princess.

GAMEPLAY
~~ What you can do ~~
The world map consists of dots representing the color-coded cities. The different colors indicate your next destination and places where you’ve already visited. At each city, you are given the choice of going to the Pub to hear the latest rumors or undertake a Proposition where you send some of your party members to fulfill a short mission to earn Job Points (JP) and rewards. After battles and sometimes as a reward from Propositions, your team will earn Gil, which is the form of currency in the Tactics game. You can visit the Soldier office to recruit new soldiers for a price.

You can go to either a Shop or a Fur Shop to purchase items, accessories, weapons, and armor. While shopping, you will be shown the additional Hit Points (HP) and Magic Points (MP) and change in statistics the armor and accessories will provide to the character. The game will show who can or cannot equip the item as well as who is already equipping it. There is also the helpful Best Fit option that will automatically equip your characters with the strongest items.

~~ Dying during battles ~~
During the battles, if your team members or the enemies die, a counter appears above the character giving you time to use a Phoenix Down or a Raise magic spell to revive them. After each full round, the counter will count down.

If the character is not revived by the time the counter hits zero, it will turn into either a crystal or a treasure chest and you lose that character forever. While the differently colored crystals allow characters to replenish some of their HP and MP during battle, a yellow crystal allows the character that takes it to inherit an ability that the deceased character had.

If Ramza dies, and the counter reaches zero without anyone reviving him, it’s game over. If the NPCs die, there is no counter. Since they are a vital piece of the story, they will simply stay down until someone revives them. What I’ve noticed though is if the NPCs DO die during battle and a scene occurs which includes someone talking to the downed NPC, then that character will come back to life with 1 HP. Hey, at least it saves me a Phoenix Down.

~~ Recruit Monsters and Human Enemies ~~
You will get the opportunity to ride on Chocobos during battle, provided that the Chocobo is on your team. For those of you unfamiliar with the FF series, a Chocobo is a big fat bird you can ride on much like an ostrich. With the Mediator’s Invite ability, you have the chance to persuade most, but not all, creatures and human enemy units to switch over to your side.

While that creature is in your team, between battles they may reproduce asexually (only one creature is needed to reproduce). When the eggs hatch, the new creature might be a higher level than its parent and/or possess better abilities. Instead of dismissing the weaker parent, sometimes I take it into battle, and at the end I poach it using the Thief’s Secret Hunt ability. I know, pretty cruel huh? But sometimes, this is the only way to obtain great items at the Fur Shop.

For the humans, I invite them, add them to my party after the battle, take all of their equipment, and then dismiss them. This is much more successful than using the Thief’s Steal ability during battle to obtain better weapons, armor, and accessories.

~~ Miscellaneous Info ~~
There are no inns to speak of simply because they’re not needed. Your HP and MP are fully restored after each battle even if the characters die during battle, provided they do not turn into a crystal or a treasure chest before the end of the battle. Status anomalies, such as poison and darkness, are removed after each battle.

Much like FF8, the enemies you encounter WILL level up as you do. This did leave my weaker characters at a disadvantage. While I tried to level my weaker units up, the enemies continued to level up and surpass most of my party’s levels.

On each battlefield, there are 4 hidden secrets in varying locations. If you have the Chemist’s Move-Find ability turned on under your movement abilities, you will be able to discover a hidden item. If you do not have that ability, there will be a trap that will negatively affect the character that stops on that square.

BATTLE ENGINE
Unlike the other FF games where easy battles can be finished within a minute or two or even with a single blow, in Tactics, you can spend up to 20 minutes or more just fighting the random battles. This doesn’t even count the battles that you must fight in order to continue with the story. Some of these major battles can take well over 30 minutes depending on how well prepared you are.

If it is a major battle, sometimes you are given the choice of what action you want to take. Most of the time the goal is to defeat all enemies, defeat one main enemy, or save a certain character. Don’t expect only 1 or 2 enemies during the battles. There will be times when the enemy will outnumber you, be at a higher level than you, possess better equipment and abilities than you, and overall be stronger than you.

Unlike the other FF games, the battle is not fought within a small area on the screen where your characters are all on one side of the screen and the enemies on the other. Instead, your battle terrain consists of a 10 square X 10 square field, similar to a chessboard yet with differing height, depth, and terrain type. When you encounter a battle, you must make the decision of which character you want to use and where to place them. Unfortunately, you do not get a preview of what the battle terrain looks like, unless you have the Final Fantasy Tactics: Prima’s Official Strategy Guide.

There are times when you are only allowed less than 5 members on the field, but your NPCs will also join you in major battles. Since you don’t have control over them, NPCs have proven to be suicidal by rushing foolhardy into battle. Occasionally they will stay back if their HP is low, but most of the time they end up doing some foolish moves.

During the battle, each of the characters has an Active Turn (AT) and a Charge Time (CT), which will decide when your chosen action will take place. Unlike FF7, 8, and 9, you do not see a gauge meter indicating when your teammates will take a turn. Instead, you have the Active Turn list screen which has the order of the character turns of both team members and enemy units, the action that unit will take, and who will be affected.

Before you confirm an action you want to take, you can move the directional pad to the right and the AT list will show up and show you the exact order when that action will take place. Since the battles are turn-based, no other action will take place until you have chosen your plan of action. Like other FF games, if a speed-related status is cast upon a character, it will affect that character’s order in the AT list.

YOUR TEAM
You are allowed 20 characters in your team, although only a maximum of 5 can fight during the battles. The game includes special characters you can recruit such as Cloud Strife from FF VII. Tactics utilizes a Job Class system from which your characters can learn any of the more than 400 different abilities. As with other FF games using the job class system, the character’s job class will determine what type of weapon and armor they can wear and what physical statistics they will have. Other factors in determining the statistics and the character’s effectiveness in battle include the character’s gender, zodiac sign, and Brave and Faith Points.

~~ Experience and Job Points ~~
There are 20 main job classes you can train your party members in, with special job classes reserved for special characters. You may choose whatever job class you want your character to be, provided they have fulfilled the prerequisite job class levels. The character will have their primary action abilities from their present job class, secondary action abilities from another job, and differing reaction, support, and movement abilities from varying jobs.

In battle, your characters will earn experience points for the job class they are currently in and Job Points (JP), for every successful action they take in battle regardless of what action they take. During battle, there is a trickle down effect of JP allowing characters on the field to gain a percentage of JP from each other. Experience allows characters to level up in their present job class and open up new jobs for themselves. JP allows characters to learn new abilities within different job classes.

~~ Job Classes and Abilities ~~
The Squire is the basis of most of the jobs with its useful rock throwing and counter tackle abilities early in the game. You have the essential but physically weak Chemist who has the important ability to use items during battle, as well as the useful Move-Find ability.

Leveling up these base jobs, you open up the way to the stronger Knights, long-range attacking Archers, and magical but physically weak Priests and Wizards with their curative and attacking magic spells. We have the physically strong Monks with their cool Punch Art abilities allowing you to replenish your HP and MP as well as attacking your enemies. You have the Thief with the all-essential Secret Hunt ability. There is the Oracle who can cast status anomalies and the Time Mage with its speed-related magic.

The job providing my favorite secondary action ability was the physically strong Geomancer with its long-range terrain-based magic attacks that don’t use MP and can cause damage and status anomalies to multiple units. We next have the Lancer with its jump ability that I didn’t use too often. The Mediator possesses the amusing Invite skill, while the magically superior Summoner has the familiar long-range multiple-unit-attacking summons.

Finally we have the combination classes that require you to be at certain levels within multiple job classes. There is the Samurai whose draw out abilities will call spirits to aid you in battle. You have the Ninja with its double weapon and throw attacks. There is the Calculator whose math skills will actually calculate an attack without the use of MP. You have the female Dancers wiggling on the fields causing negative status effects to the enemies and the male Bards playing instruments causing curative and positive status effects to your team members. And finally you have the Mime, who will mimic its team members’ actions on the field regardless of what action is taken.


Ratings: 5-Best 1-Worst

GRAPHICS: 4
These aren’t the mind-blowing 3D graphics that we’ve come to expect from the most recent installments in the Final Fantasy series such as in FF8 & 9. They’re not even the blocky polygon characters that we saw in FF7. Tactics uses colorful 2D sprites with adorable detailed animation and cute little reactionary facial expressions. We still see the summons that we’re familiar with. Unlike in FF7,8, & 9 where Shiva and Ramuh engulf the entire screen looking larger than life, here they look like cute little genies in the clouds with a nice little light show. You even have the cute little Moogle summon flying around on the battlefield restoring your characters’ HP.

There are no awesome Full Motion Videos (FMVs) besides the one in the opening scene where we see 5 troops riding their Chocobos through the forest towards the large looming building known as Orbonne Monastery. But throughout the game, we see our 2D sprites acting out the scenes. Although I did notice some skipping in the animation during these scenes, I found the action during the actual battles moved somewhat fluidly. Overall, the animation was not very realistic; but it was impressively cute.

The battle terrain itself is an outstanding example of solid pre-rendered polygons. The illusion of depth was such that the battlefield appeared to pop out of the blue screen background. You have an isometric view of the battlefields as you fight in barren desserts, lush green fields, poisonous marshes, cascading waterfalls, dark dungeons, and within and around the walls of heavily fortressed buildings.

CONTROLS: 4.5
The controls for the world map and battle mode were very simple. On the world map, you simply point and choose the city you want to go to and your character moves there. After your first battle and while on the world map, you can organize your team to change job classes, learn new abilities, and equip different items as well as save whenever you want. Under the Brave Story option, you can view the past scenes and obtain background information on the characters in the story. When organizing your team to equip items, change jobs, or check abilities, you have the convenient option of using the shoulder buttons to scroll between characters.

During battle, you control your characters’ actions by choosing commands on a menu. You have the choice of moving and/or carrying out a single action or just waiting during your turn. When moving or carrying out an action, the game will highlight the range of the move or attack. Unfortunately, when the terrain is highlighted, you can no longer see what type of terrain the character will land on. This is important to know if you are using the Geomancer ability that depends on the terrain that your character is standing on.

Some job classes will have a longer range of movement. Other job classes will have long-range physical and magical attacks that encompass a larger area. Because of this and the fact that human enemies and allies within the same job classes look exactly alike, you might accidentally attack your own team members or cure the enemy. What I've found very helpful is you can highlight any character on the field and check out their equipment and abilities without wasting your turn scanning them.

During your battles you can zoom in and out of the battlefield with the touch of a shoulder button, as well as tilt the angle of the field. You can also rotate the field a complete 360°, 90° at a time. Sometimes however, no matter what angle you turn the field, you just can’t get a good view of some of your enemies or your characters.

There is an in-game help function and tutorial that will tell you what some of the actions, spells, and items will do. However, it was not very convenient pressing the Select button every time I needed to get out of the Help mode and check the next menu option that I wanted to get information on.

SOUND: 4.5
There is no voice acting in this game; instead, you have to pay attention to the written dialogue. You are treated to the different sound effects during the battles. You can hear the clank as swords strike and the knock of the Chocobo pecking your character on the head, the scratch of a panther, the thump of a dragon dashing into you, and the shattering of equipment thanks to the wasteful Knight’s break ability. I don’t know about them, but I’d rather steal the equipment instead.

Tactics incorporates a multitude of music that will set the mood for the scenes. From the calming sounds on the world map and formation menu, to the rousing battle horns during the fights, Tactics uses majestic music that can transport the player to a time and place of heroism and imagination.

OVERALL
I have played other strategy games such as Genghis Khan and Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and while the battles are similar in theory, Tactics is superior in graphics and detail. Whereas, the NES and SNES games I’ve played only had numbers and small pictures representing my troops, Tactics uses actual characters and animation set on an incredible battlefield.

This single disk game from Squaresoft has proven to be enjoyable even the 4th time playing through the game. The replay value stems from the desire to experience the full potential of the characters’ abilities and gain an edge over your enemies early in the game after learning from past mistakes.

Because of the 55+ hours you can spend playing this game, with the majority of the time spent fighting; this is not a game for those who are easily frustrated and bored with lengthy battles. For those of you who are into strategy games, with the familiar aspects of the medieval Final Fantasy series I highly recommend Final Fantasy Tactics for the Playstation.


I would like to give a special thanks to zhouse, the sweetie who previewed my review for me and to the Lead Quality Assurance Tester on this game, Clayton Chan AKA Alkaiser, for his assistance on some terminology.



Recommended: Yes