One such product that was left behind was Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy Tactics. Directed by Yasumi Matsuno, Final Fantasy Tactics established the world of Ivalice (the setting of Final Fantasy XII) and utilised Matsuno’s achievements in the Tactics Ogre series to provide one heck of a strategy RPG experience. Unfortunately with the game never reaching PAL consoles, many fans had to wait until Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to get a taste of the series. To appease the PAL fans (well, the ones that have not already tried to get a hold of it in the last decade) and to cash in on the success of Final Fantasy XII, Square-Enix has decided to port Final Fantasy Tactics to the PSP with the new subtitle of War of the Lions.
The Ivalice dole queue
Our story begins just after Ivalice has ended its fifty year war with neighbouring Ordelia. Ivalice is in the middle of a crisis, suffering from economic hardship and the recent loss of its sovereign, King Ondorria. The heir to the throne, Prince Orinus, is too young to takeup the crown, thus a regent must be selected in his stead. The loyalists to the crown choose Duke Larg of Gallione, while the nobles support Duke Goltanna of Zeltennia. Both men served Ivalice in the Fifty Years War as generals under the banner of the white lion and black lions respectively. Thus the people split, some supporting Larg and others Goltanna, and civil war breaks out. Players take the role of Ramza Beoulve, a knight apprentice. With his childhood friend Delita, Ramza is quickly dragged into the conflict between the two Dukes after being involved in an attempt to stop a bandit group from kidnapping the princess. What follows is a story with twists, turns, political intrigue and a whole lot of turn based battling.
For those unfamiliar with the Final Fantasy Tactics flavour of battle, the game focuses on battleground scenarios, not unlike Shining Force or Fire Emblem before it, with battles broken up by lengthy narrative scenes. The action takes place on an isometric battlefield, with each side taking turns moving their units around the battlefield. Unit movement and ability is dictated by job class, which is basically that character’s role within your little army. Each opponent defeated yields experience points and job points – both of which level up with more successful fights. Many of the classic Final Fantasy jobs are here – Black Mage, White Mage, Fighter and so on, as well as a bunch of new classes – 20 classes in all (22, counting the two new ones). Side quests and random battles provide the means for one to build up their army’s levels, while one can also venture into towns to get new recruits. Monsters can also be recruited to the army and bred to become stronger. Up to 24 characters can be recruited to the player’s army – turning a simple band of roughnecks into a force to be reckoned with.
Better get out of there before things get rocky
Sounds good, right? Well it was, but that was 10 years ago. One has to keep in mind that War of the Lions is not a fully fleshed out remake of Final Fantasy Tactics like Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS, but a port with only a handful of improvements. War of the Lions’ extra features are likely only to be appreciated by those who never played the original game – new CG cutscenes that expand the overall story, widescreen view aspect to suit the PSP’s native resolution, a pair of new characters (including Balthier from Final Fantasy XII), a few new battles and changes to existing ones, a re-translation of the game’s script, a pair of new job classes and some tacked on multiplayer features are not really going to mean jack unless you’re one of the few PAL gamers that really got into the original game.
That basically leaves us with a port of a ten year old game to superior hardware – probably going to be fine with most people, given the portability and lack of console release, but Square has not taken the opportunity to fix the slowdown and other technical issues that had previously arisen in the original version of the game on the PlayStation. This level of neglect really strikes us as absurd – Square really could just have released Final Fantasy Tactics as it was on the PlayStation Store and only a few of us PAL gamers would have known any better (but then they wouldn’t get your extra $70). The game does show its age in a number of areas; for instance it takes not one but three menu commands to do a basic attacking move – obviously a throwback to Matsuno’s earlier efforts in Tactics Ogre, but if you are going to go to the effort of putting the game onto a technically superior format, surely one could have eliminated some of that cumbersome feeling given off by War of the Lions’ menu system. Ten years worth of strategy RPGs have lead to systems being streamlined and refined, and it's stupifying that Square-Enix didn't take this opportunity to bring Final Fantasy Tactics up to scratch.
Cloud is as insightful as always
Final Fantasy Tactics’ presentation still holds up pretty well, which is largely due to some high quality visual art and an excellent soundtrack – parts of a game which will always stand the test of time. Much of this remains untouched in War of the Lions – as previously mentioned, the game features a wide screen aspect ratio, but everything else remains the same as the PlayStation original. That also goes for the game’s issues with slowdown when casting spells, and an audio synching error which commonly pops up throughout the game. The CG cutscenes are very impressive – the cel shading really captures the design of the characters well, and the quality voice acting, animation and direction helps bring a deeper element of storytelling into the fray.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is still by all means an enjoyable game, but time hasn’t been all that kind to its gameplay, and most of the new content featured in the port fails to make a large impact on the overall experience. It’s a lengthy adventure with a great setting, excellent presentation, an awesome soundtrack and a style of gameplay that really suits the PSP, but we would have liked to see Square-Enix do more with the game – polish up some of the sprites, streamline the menus, fix the slowdown and sound glitches or perhaps, you know, try making a new game for a change.
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