During the 16 and 32-bit eras, role-playing games reigned supreme. Also during those times, Squaresoft saw a phenomenal boost in the sales and popularity of their games. With Squaresoft’s rise to power came a conflict within Quest (developers of the Ogre Battle series of games,) and many of the former employees of Quest signed on with Square. The result of this marriage was one of the finest strategy-based role playing games of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics.

Final Fantasy Tactics incorporated all of the best elements of both franchises. The intricate battle and leveling mechanics from the Ogre series were a perfect match for the previously-established line of Final Fantasy jobs as well as the generally-grand plots and character developments from the more recent games in the series.

Final Fantasy Tactic’s storyline was one if its strongest and weakest points. After a long war, a struggle had broken about between the likes of nobles and commoners. Ramza, a young noble, and his friend Delita, a commoner, were separated by this rift and set out to right the wrongs done on both sides of the continuum. The two eventually end up on opposing sides of a new conflict between law and religion, Ramza seeking out truth, and Delita seeking out power. Both of the warring factions see the loss of kings, knights, heroes, civilians, innocents, and, of course, many terrible monsters.

However, it wouldn’t be Final Fantasy if the world was not at stake. Several key political figures discovered the power of the ancient Zodiac Stones, which long ago provided the world with machinery. The church seemed to be working to aid the government in finding this unnatural power. Right as Ramza discovers the truth behind the religion and the power being sought by the government, he is made an enemy of church and state. In an unnatural twist, it is revealed that the power of the Zodiac stones was going to be used to resurrect what was the God in the realm’s religion, except that their God is actually a gnarly demon.

That’s about as concise as I can get. The plot had a lot going on. Anyone that can pay close attention is sure to find plenty to be intrigued with, though many people (like myself, my first time through) will be utterly lost. Of course, like most SRPGs, the plot isn’t the meat of the game. When each battle takes between 20 and 90 minutes, players will likely be paying much more attention to their characters’ skills, abilities, battle formations.

The player would have to actively manage the range of their character’s movement and attack in-battle, as well as relative position to allies. Magic with an Area of Effect would hit enemies as well as teammates, and the cost for slipping up once could be huge. Characters who died in battle and were not quickly revived would turn into crystals. Enemies could then move over these crystals to gain some of their items or weapons. A player who had an ally fall would have to be quick to resurrect them before they were gone forever. It was a rough system, but many gamers found the game much more rewarding due to the steep difficulty.

In addition to having most of the spells and job classes from older Final Fantasy titles, Tactics also contained plenty of direct references to other Final Fantasy games. Chocobos were abundant, and could even be ridden or commanded in battle; Cid makes a return as Olan’s father; and lastly as well as most popularly, Cloud Strife from FF7 busts onto the scene as a recruitable character.

Final Fantasy Tactics means different things to different people. Some who came across the game were fans of Quest’s strategy-RPG titles, some were Final Fantasy followers who would likely pick up anything under the moniker. Whatever the case, the game serves an equal purpose for classic turn-based gameplay and nostalgia value. Final Fantasy Tactics is hands-down my favorite game of all time, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Title: Final Fantasy Tactics Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: Square Platform(s): PlayStation Release Date: January 28, 1998

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Tags: FFT, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Tactics, Squaresoft

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