Revier's Chronicles of Ivalice - Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 1

 So I am playing Final Fantasy Tactics, and writing to the Internet about it. But, why? Isn't this a game "everyone" knows about? What could my perspective possibly add?

Well, let me share a story.

About five years ago, I discovered a colorful, intriguing game, called Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. It was a strange game where you controlled none of the battles, instead merely moved units across a map and sometimes casted powerful spells with cards. Most of the "gameplay" was thus merely in optimizing units for power and several strategic purposes. Despite its strangeness, or perhaps because of it, I fell in love with the game.

But, despite my best efforts, I couldn't finish it. The gameplay eventually got rather tedious and uninspiring, and there simply wasn't much rewarding to keep playing through it.

Later, I discovered that the man behind it, Matsuno, had created two other strategy games, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and Final Fantasy Tactics. I tried both of them, but found them too hard, and, in my childish brashness, dismissed them.

Fast forward three years.

My tastes had matured considerably. I tried Tactics Ogre again and was thoroughly surprised and impressed by what I saw. The gameplay was flawed (though still very enjoyable), but the political depth and intrigue made for a very captivating and mature story rarely seen in games of its age, or to be honest, even today.

Considering my newfound realization, I thought that I would perhaps appreciate Final Fantasy Tactics more, and set off to revisit it too...but before I could truly enjoy it, life set in, and I ended up leaving it on the wayside, despite liking most of what I had seen of it.

Fast forward two more years.

Square Enix had announced a remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, which was great news to me at the time. Finally, I could get my playthrough restarted on a brand new version of the game, with lots of quality of life features and some cool new stuff, like voice acting! And difficulty modes!

But then the bad news hit.

It turns out, this version would not include any content from the earlier PSP remaster, the War of the Lions. People were disappointed, as, from what I could gather, it was a substantial remaster that fleshed out a lot of things about the game. The director behind the new remaster gave no solid reason for such drastic cuts, instead merely vaguely stating that he "wanted to preserve the original vision". Many rightfully called him out on his bullshit, and the hype around the remaster instantly deflated.

I was one of the many people who were disappointed. But hey, it had done one good thing - it gave me the motivation to revisit Final Fantasy Tactics and see it to the end, after a fond, nostalgic jog through Tactics Ogre, of which you can read some fun and sly recollections here.

I plan to play both the PS1 version and the PSP version, as, from what I've heard, the PS1 version has punchier lines, while the PSP version obviously has a lot of added content in its cutscenes and such. My commentary will be less focused on recreating the game experience, and more on commenting on my personal feelings, observations etc. There will also be more than a few comparisons to Tactics Ogre, as that is supposedly this game's predecessor.

Alright, that's hopefully more than enough to "get" my perspective. We shall begin this journey in earnest next time!