FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles

Great game. I'm very fond of the general vibe, and I love the English writing of Ivalice games (that sort of half-Shakespearian tone, and an understated undercurrent of theatricality). The story is genuinely compelling, though a bit complex at first. Though it could be because I have a terrible memory for names, and the Ivalice games are very fond of referring to their characters and factions with various synonyms and titles that are actually all referring to the same thing. Which is why it's amazing that they included a sort of in-game encyclopedia that dynamically updates after every single scene, that has a scrollable timeline that makes pivotal moments of the narrative far easier to parse, and a list of every single scene with a "replay" button. I was afraid that they were going to retranslate the game and move away from the "War of the Lions" version script, but as it turns out, interviews were misleading; there are only some very, very minor changes to existing text, and there are tons of completely new dialogue that can trigger if specific named party members are present in most fights of the 2nd half of the story. And it all follows the WoTL style of writing. It's all an improvement as far as I'm concerned. The voice acting is VERY good. However the direction does not always match the situation: sometimes, it really feels like characters ought to be raising their voice more, if not outright yell at each other. But the dialogue is acted as if they were talking quietly right next to each other. It's a bit jarring. The combat is serviceable, but hasn't aged too well. They really smoothed over a lot of the worst jank, though. The new interface is a great improvement, and simply being able to move to a tile, realize you needed to be on the next tile over, undo your move and do that instead — that's a massive quality-of-life upgrade. Unfortunately, I'd say the general pace of combat remains quite sluggish and it doesn't feel like the game is about skill expression, but more about knowing all the various ways you can get screwed over by spells heretofore unseen. Sometimes it can feel a bit like a FF trivia quiz. Here's an encounter with undead, you better know about using Phoenix Down on them! And unless you want to spend a lot of tedious time grinding, you will probably end up doing Arithmetician cheese in order to close out the last third of the game. It does feel like that game that kind of expects you to break it rather than master it on its own terms, if that makes sense. The visual upgrade is also wonderful, it's subtle but makes a huge difference. Exactly the kind of "it's as you remember it" kind of step forward, which is the right territory for a "remake" to land it. The added shadows and lighting almost feel vaguely impressionist from time to time, which is very fitting. THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: • The PSP version's animated cutscenes are included and redubbed, BUT... the audio mixing on the redub is strange (almost as if they turned off literally all processing on the mics), the videos are cropped from their original ultrawide format, and... they simply are not shown to you by default... and there isn't even anything that tells you "hey, this scene you just watched has an animated version, go look for it here" • The camera is "too low". Your focal point is always the very center of the screen, but this doesn't account for the new interface which takes up most of the bottom of the play area. You know how some FPS games don't have the crosshair in the center of the screen, but lower, so that you're more incentivised to look up? What I'm getting at is that the whole game should have been offset a bit higher in order to account for the fact that the new interface hides a lot of the play area. • The voice direction in a few moments, as mentioned previously. • The "fast forward" button is not very responsive: it takes a full second for fast forward to kick in, and a second for it to go away, so sometimes, if you're trying to simply fast forward through a fight, it might accidentally make you skip a line of all that new dialogue they added mid-fight. • While a lot of things are now explained very clearly, others remain bafflingly cryptic. For example, I don't think it's explained anywhere that there's actually 3 types of shops, all with different inventory. I also don't believe the accuracy penalty/bonuses for flanking, height, etc. are explained clearly anywhere? • Inventory and skills management kind of sucks. Switching back and forth between unlocking skills and equipping them is painful, especially when you're trying to make a hard decision about which new thing to commit JP to. • I checked out the French version, and it does not feature the same kind of style & vibe to the writing. Unfortunate. • The new visuals are great, but sometimes they commit sprite crimes (keeping them bilinearly filtered wherever they show up) OVERALL: 100% recommend playing it if you like Final Fantasy games, especially if you loved the other Ivalice games.

While it is the original gameplay recipe, the graphics look like someone smeared Vaseline all over the screen and then added a grain filter for no reason. Either that or someone brand new to Photoshop discovered the "Smoothing" tool and decided to smudge everything into oblivion. It just does not look good at all with whatever they did to it. Outside of battle it looks fine but no one plays a game to look at it outside of the battles - battles are the heart of the game. The true best version of this game is War of the Lions on PSP Emulator with the speed mod fix to crank it up to 120 FPS instead of the 30 FPS laggy mess whenever you cast spells.

GOAT game

No their levels of combat being based on the highest member is BS it should be based on the level of the party being chosen. they have had decades to fix the uneven fighting system.

One of the best games ever. Both story and tactical depth.

The best final fantasy game.

SQUARE SPANISH PLSS!!!

The original game on Playstation 1 is one my all time favorite games. This remaster helps capture a ton of the magic and character the original had with brand new polish and much needed QOL updates. Highly recommend if you are a fan of Final Fantasy but especially if you enjoy creating characters/teams that you can upgrade throughout the game. 9/10

I’m not a huge fan of the FF saga, but I’m very passionate about grid-based, turn-based tactical games. I thought this title might make up for my lack of interest in the franchise, but unfortunately, I was disappointed. The game feels like a title that has aged really poorly, and even the recent remake fails to remedy this. There are games out there today—even from indie studios—that are vastly superior in terms of gameplay and mechanics. The various attacks (and healing spells) are heavily affected by an RNG factor I just can't forgive: it’s ok for an attack to miss, but a heal—or even a resurrection—shouldn't. This is especially frustrating when it happens in critical situations, repeatedly, or with AoE spells; I tried to cast Haste on three characters with my Time Mage, and it missed all three. Then there’s the issue of farming and grinding: leveling up jobs and raising Bravery/Faith stats (which aren't even clearly explained in-game) is a long, tedious process. It forces the player into lengthy sessions of slaughtering monster after monster just to level up characters and build them the way they want. That might have been acceptable years ago, but not in 2026.

많이 현대화 되었다는데도 게임이 불편하다. SRPG 는 매우 사랑하고, 높이 요소는 좋아하지만, 이 게임은 아쉬움이 많이 남는다. 가장 짜증나고 불편한 건 지형과 시야. 높은 지형이 낮은 지형의 유닛을 가리는데, 카메라를 아무리 비틀어봐도 보이지 않는 곳이 굉장히 많다. 카메라를 돌리는 중에만 유닛이 보여서 계속 카메라를 왔다갔다하면서 봐야 한다. 좀 반투명화 같은 걸로 처리해 줄 수 없었을까... 이 문제는 스토리에서도 동일해서, 주요 이벤트 중에 지형지물이 가리고 있으면 속이 터진다. 전투의 재미는 나쁘지 않고, 육성도 괜찮지만, 짜증이 너무 남는다.