FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles

Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT) is a game I had to take my time with. Steam says I played for 53 hours but it honestly felt like I played more then 100 hours. This was my first time experiencing this game and I had high expectations with how much praise it gets from fans. All in all I am not disappointed but there are a lot of things that left a weird after taste. FFT is a tactics game through and through. Battles are not won on flashy big moves, they are often won on everything that happens before the battle. Gear preparation, job choices, understanding the layout of the map and its enemies. What did I enjoy? - Its dialogue and story can be really enthralling. Compared to a lot of final fantasy stories its much darker and based a lot more on politics then usual. Your protagonists all have their motivations, but its almost all guided by the bigger picture that is forcing them to act. And its that forcing that leads to some really interesting decisions and honestly brutal and sad moments. The game confronts really depressing and heavy themes like inequality, discrimination, the results of war and the personal struggles of killing to prove your point. And it does so with grace and respect for these topics. Both sides have heavy takes on those topics and the game does a good job of showing of how incredibly complex they are, there often isn't a ''right'' answer, but its in how we interpret and try to do our best that we try to make these issues into solutions. Sadly that good intent sometimes leads people down worrying paths. - Combat scenario's feel hard but fair. I never felt like the game got too easy, especially if you never played the games before. Early on it shocked me how hard some challenges could feel. This sometimes sadly turns into a grind fest, but most of the time it really forces you to use your characters properly. - The presentation is fantastic. Its not a really flashy games with lots of cutscenes, but with its more simple models, fantastic voice acting, beautiful music and interesting story it manages to create gripping scenes that move you. - Character depth. While some characters get shafted, a lot of them don't. There are a lot of characters with very real and interesting motivations. And they almost always feel like they make decisions based on their conviction. Sometimes it feels like a dumb decision, but it never feels like a decision that a character wouldn't make. The main character Ramza is especially an interesting character. You can tell he struggles a lot with his identity and the state of the world, and every battle confronts him with the fact that what he is doing isn't perfect at all. Yet still he finds the courage to face that conviction and try to make the world a bit better. So many of these moments shine bright, even during battles they try to make sure characters get to say everything they probably should in that moment. Even with the story being so large scale, the personal stories still stand out as a small but incredibly important part of this story. What I disliked: - Everything in this game feels so painfully slow. Completing side quests, grinding up your party, even just the act of moving around in battle. Having played some more modern tactics games, I constantly am left wondering why so many QOL features are left out of this modern reimagining. I feel like a lot could have been done to speed up certain parts, even just something as simple as a slider to increase or decrease exp/JP gained would have solved a lot of pain points I have with this game, - Jobs and party members feel very restrictive. It takes quite a lot of hours before the game gives you an actual full party of story characters, up until that point you are using self insert characters. The problem I have is that I invested a ton in those characters, but if I want unique job skills from story characters, im forced to switch them out. So now I have to once again grind these story characters if I want to play around with late game classes. Not only that but some classes force you to use certain weapons, most of the time it forces you to use a sword. So now a LOT of characters have to grind out certain skills just to be able to use their inherent skills. It sounds like a small detail but it makes a lot of interesting idea's I had not possible or at the very least cost a ton of time to get. - Story chaos. While the political aspects are very fun, they are also at times a major downside. So many characters are introduced for 1 battle or 1 cutscene, and you are then expected to remember them 10 hours later just for them to die or not become relevant anymore. Not only that but the story just skips around a lot and doesn't always do the best job of explaining its characters. I felt like I had to spend way too much time on the in game encyclopedia just to understand who and what is relevant. Even some of the story characters just end up feeling like side characters because they get like 1 or 2 lines in total and after joining they just never become relevant again. -------- Some notes about bonus content, during the story there will be extra side quests and also reading material. I highly recommend doing all the side quests. But both the late game bonus dungeon as well as the reading material both suffer from being incredibly slow. They are both fairly fun to complete but I only would recommend it to people that want to get the most out of this game. The reading material has nothing to do with the main story but they are a very rare translated text and the stories told range from boring to pretty interesting. None of the content here is fantastic but it can be worth ur time. ------ Conclusion: Its not a perfect game, but its a game I hold in high regard, there is clearly a lot of passion and work put into it. All the complaints I have are things that leave a sour aftertaste, but for every sour feeling I also am reminded of a lot of fun times I had with this game. 50 bucks is a big ask for a game that is as old as this one, but on a sale I would definetly recommend you give it a play, especially if you are a big final fantasy fan and wondering how it holds up to the main line games. It offers something no other final fantasy game does, both in its combat as well as its story.

very deep strategy system, though i don't love the fact you have to grind

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the best RPG and Turn-based game of all time! The GOAT, I've never 100 percent achievement a game on steam before but I did for this one. I really wished Square-Enix would make a second part to the original FFT game or new story in this universe. Stick to a franchise that works!

Best FF

Shadows seven by doom star cast, mark the ending of your path! Recommend!

Things I like: . Combat . Job system is interesting . OP build is possible . Equipment Things I do not like: . Story is too convoluted . Dialogues start interesting, but get boring soon . Bland characters . Soundtrack is too repetitive

I was always addicted this game, ever since my mom found it at a game store back in '98. Love the updates voice acting. The only thing I wish they would have left in from War of the Lions port to PSP was the Dark Knight job. It was one of my favorites to build Ramza towards. I also love that you can flee from random battles easily.