Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Review!

This is the most definitive version of Final Fantasy Tactics!

Creative Studio 3 continues to be one of the best studios of Square Enix. They have truly outdone themselves with the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics with The Ivalice Chronicles. Considering their work with Final Fantasy XIV and XVI, I had high expectations of them delivering a quality remaster of FFT.

But I didn’t expect them to create an excellent, modern remaster. We’ll be diving deep into why I think this is the definitive version of Final Fantasy Tactics. Also, why veterans and newcomers should experience this revamped, awesome remaster of the timeless tale of FFT.

Presentation

The Ivalice Chronicles has two modes: Enhanced and Classic. Classic mode is the original game with the War of the Lions translations. Players can experience the original version of FFT.

Enhanced mode is the revamped version of Final Fantasy Tactics. This version has updated visuals that make the sprites and environments look clean and smooth. The UI had been cleaned up.

The updated menu UI is a cleaner, sleeker version compared to the original game’s menu. The new UI is a welcome change from the one in the original game. It is more efficient to find things as the menu is more streamlined.

State of the Realm

A new feature adopted from FFXVI is the State of the Realm. This great new feature presents what is currently happening in the story. The current event also reveals the impact this is having on the characters, the story, and Ivalice.

Battle UI

The battle of UI has also been updated. There are plenty of quality-of-life improvements. These quality-of-life improvements provide a modernized and better gameplay experience.

Turn Order

On the left side of the battle scene, this is now a turn order. The turn order gives you a look at each combatant’s upcoming turn. This is extremely useful when planning your actions, especially when it comes to charging attacks and spells.

Move Reset

Another welcome addition to combat is Move Reset. You can reset any movement you make. Another extremely useful feature that allows you to rethink your moves.

Action Predictions

Lastly, there are new action predictions for any action that characters will take. Action predictions will allow you to see how an action you’re about to perform will succeed or fail based on a percentage. Another excellent feature is that it allows you to plan your actions accordingly. This feature is also another potential game-changer.

Tactical View

Lastly, there is a new Tactical View. During battle, you used this new feature to view the terrain from a flat bird's-eye view. You can even view before battle while selecting your units and formation.

Gameplay

As you can guess from the title, Final Fantasy Tactics is a tactical RPG. Battles take place on isometric grids. Your party will start in a designated formation. The formation is where you place your units.

Once the battle begins, your units will advance towards the enemy. The distance your units can move forward depends on their move stat. The higher the move stat, the more distance your characters can cover.

Once your units have reached the enemy that they can perform actions to defeat them. Of course, your units can act from a distance through long-range attacks and spells. If the enemy is range of these actions.

The objective of most battles is to defeat all enemies. This goes for both story and regular battles. In a lot of story battles, there will be different objectives, such as defeating a specific enemy. Or, you’ll have to protect an important character or guest.

Job Class

Final Fantasy Tactics’ progression system is job classes. Job classes are beloved staples of Final Fantasy. Jobs are essential to FFT because a character’s job determines their action and abilities.

The two initial classes are Squire and Chemist. Typically, squires are bound for higher warrior classes such as Knight, Monk, and Archer. Usually, chemists are more suited for higher magic-based jobs such as Black Mage, White Mage, and Summoners.

The beauty of the job class system allows your characters to learn different skills from every job. You can also equip your characters with secondary abilities from another class. In addition, your characters can equip movement, reactive, and counter abilities from what they learn from other jobs. There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to building your party.

Keep in mind that your characters’ physical and magical strengths depend on their bravery and faith stats, respectively. Characters with higher bravery make for powerful warriors. While characters with higher faith stats will be potent and effective mages.

Some characters are exceptions because they can have both a high bravery and faith stat. Ramza starts with both high bravery and faith stats. Naturally, Ramza can be both a powerful warrior and a mage.

Job Points

Job points are what allow your characters to grow their jobs. In addition to earning experience, your units are awarded job points whenever they act. Job points are essential for not only leveling up their jobs. They are necessary for acquiring abilities.

I usually let my units learn the basic skills they need. That way, they can start performing actions to accumulate job points. Most of my characters have the Focus ability, so they can accumulate job points.

A Neat Trick

One neat thing about job points is that your units can gain JP from their allies in other classes. If a chemist performs an action and gains JP. Then your other characters will get JP for the chemist class. But they will only get a quarter of those points.

You can turn other units into chemists. This increases the amount of JP you get. Also, a high-level chemist will receive a massive amount of JP. In turn, non-chemist units will receive higher JP for their chemist job.

Using this method will allow you to have your other characters learn different jobs. More importantly, you won’t have to change a character’s job only for the sake of learning a useful ability. I did this with several characters like Ramza and Agrais, so they could learn Auto Potion.

Story

Voice Performances

While the Ivalice Chronicles has no new content or story updates, there is one thing that elevates this timeless tale. It’s the voice performances.

In the enhanced version, Final Fantasy Tactics is fully voiced. These performances are fantastic! The Ivalice Chronicles has star star-studded cast with the likes of Ben Starr and Harry McEntire.

Once again, Ben does a brilliant job as usual. This time, Ben voices Dycedarg, his first villain role. Ben makes Dycedarg into a poetic, power-hungry, and devious villain.

But the one who steals the show this time is Joe Pitts as Ramza. Joe Pitts is the perfect casting for Ramza. He masterfully brings Ramza’s heroic persona to life.

Joe brings that same mastery to other aspects of Ramza’s persona, especially his naivety and his initial yet malleable hypocrisy. The hypocrisy was born from his noble yet complicated upbringing.

Ramza was always a multilayered hero. But the voice acting displays and elevates more of Ramza's other sides. This is true for all the major characters in the story. The superb voice acting allows you to experience the rest of the cast’s personalities.

The voice acting makes battles even more thrilling and engaging. Hearing your unit's shouts out battle quotes is awesome. I could never get tired of hearing battle quotes, especially from Agrias and Orlandeau.

Dialogue

The dialogue in this game is amazing. The dialogue still carries that Ivalice script. New dialogue has been added battle.

The new dialogue gives us more depth into characters like Agrias and Orlandeau. In the original game, a major character’s arc would come to an end. Then you wouldn’t hear from the story.

Now these characters have extra story dialogue that continues their story. They even engage in conversations during battle. These conversations allow us to learn more about these characters.

Some characters have the coldest and harshest lines in the story. Although I hate his guts. Argath is one of those individuals. You can really hear the bigotry and superiority in Argath’s voice and dialogue. The dialogue, along with the voice acting, really drives home the story and themes of FFT.

Main Narrative

Final Fantasy Tactics has one of the best stories in the series. The untold heroic story of Ramza is the focal point of the story. Delita’s story is equally important due to the classism that exists in Ivalice.

The nobility looks down upon commoners. The game begins with a conflict between the nobility and the commoners, who are denied wages from the Fifty-Year War. The Fifty-Year War has ravaged Ivalice’s resources.

Ramza and Delita battle with the Death Corps. As they fight the Death Corps, however, they start to see the true colors of the nobility and Ivalice. Causing them to embark on separate paths of heroism and revolution.

Ramza discovers and fights the true enemy, manipulating the war. Delita shakes up the hierarchy of Ivalice as he rises from a lowly commoner to become Ivalice’s new king.

Themes

Classism is the first major theme of FFT. There is major political intrigue in the story as two sides seek the crown to rule Ivalice. Other prominent themes of Tactics are economic strife, religion, and supernatural elements. Thanks to the Glabados Church, religion plays a major role in the story as the Church has its role in the story.

All of these elements make for a compelling narrative that seamlessly ties all of these elements together. But we must acknowledge that Yasumi Matsuno’s original message for the game. Japan was experiencing turbulent economic turmoil thirty years ago. Ramza’s tale and the story of FFT were Matsuno’s message at that time.

But thirty years later, Matsuno’s message is prevalent to this day. This time, it’s on a worldwide scale. Thanks to the Ivalice Chronicles, FFT, and Matsuno’s message are now even more prevalent and powerful.

Conclusion

The Ivalice Chronicles is the definitive edition of FFT. I’m impressed by how CS3 created this remaster. The revamped visuals, the quality-of-life improvements, voice acting, and dialogue truly make this remaster brilliant.

Amazingly, I'm ecstatic I got to play this excellent remaster. But I am happy that other people, whether they are veterans or newcomers, get to experience this awesome game. More importantly, they get to experience one of FF’s greatest stories with its powerful themes. These themes are prevalent and potent now.

Images and Gameplay provided from my Switch 2.