Long have been people have been awaiting a return to the Final Fantasy Tactics series. Finally, fans are just seeing that with Final Fantasy The Ivalice Chronicles later this month, a remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics. After a hands-on session with the game, it’s shaping up to be a revisitation of a classic that updates and changes just enough while keeping the important parts of its soul.
Thankfully, players can also never feel all that left out. You can play the original as it was from the main menu. However, it’s in the new version, labelled Enhanced, you’re getting new voice acting from prestige talent, further transforming its rich, fantastical and political world. Prioritising checking this out in my preview, players are in for a treat.
Final Fantasy Tactics’ story follows a young noble by the name of Ramza, set in the fictional world of Ivalice. There’s an intense power struggle happening across the lands as a great war erupts, and as nobility, you’re situated in the middle. While the classic version uses the War of the Lions (a 2007 PSP remake of the original) translation and text, the new iteration has wholly new text and voice acting. With voice acting talent brought over from the Final Fantasy VII Remake series and even the likes of XVI‘s Ben Starr, performances are a big emphasis this time around. Even though only experiencing a few cutscenes thus far, they’re enthralling and very operatic, feeling like you’re almost living out a Shakespearean tale amidst this war.
Thankfully, The Ivalice Chronicles is otherwise an incredibly respectful and reverent revisitation thus far. The art style and remastering are touched up just enough that it feels exactly as you remember it, with enough new flourishes. The topography of the 3D maps makes for exciting encounters, with battles taking place on cobblestone streets while above you, others are duking it out on rooftops. The very rounded, chibi-like design of the characters is as charming and vibrant as ever, feeling like a wonderful and enchanting blast from the past. Even all these years later, Final Fantasy Tactics is still magical.
As was the case with the original, there’s a lot of specialisation and classes to work with to bring you to glory. A lot of beloved Final Fantasy jobs return here: Black Mage and White Mage for all your offensive and defensive magical needs serve you well. A chemist is vital for helping you pull through tough battle encounters, while a Dancer can help turn the tide in minute, meaningful ways by changing statuses for enemies on the battlefield.
Unit placement and abilities are everything, and even in these hyper-specific slices of gameplay I was privy to, there’s a lot to work with. Spells that rain chaos from above can help in being offensive while keeping your distance from enemy units. If all else fails, rock throws are available to chip away at enemy health, even with the little damage they do. On more than one occasion, they were the last little nudge I needed to take down a pesky foe. Of course, your real MVPs and heroes are the tanky ones that can move around the battlefield with ease and take the brunt of enemy attacks to protect the squishier, weaker teammates.
Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles is utterly delightful so far. It looks to be everything fans want, remaining warm and nostalgia-infused while also being a vibrant offering for newcomers. It’s so unbelievably good to have some of Final Fantasy’s best back again.
It’s quite the short wait, too: Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles releases on September 30 for PC, the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
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Checkpoint Gaming was flown to Sydney as a guest of Square Enix for the purpose of this preview.
About the Author
Charlie Kelly
She/Her, They/Them
Charlie loves her video games as much as she loves dumb, charming JRPG protagonists: probably way too much. You can often catch her spending too much time being emotional over LGBT stories in games. She also thinks Yakuza 6 is the best one.
