Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Switch 2, Switch

Final Fantasy Tactics launched for the original PlayStation in the late 1990s, hot on the heels of Final Fantasy VII, and was met with rapturous praise — unless you lived anywhere in Europe, where the game wasn’t released. As a result, it became something of a white whale for players, especially as school yard rumours spread that you could unlock FF7 hero Cloud. For some, Tactics became the first title they’d import, while others took less salubrious routes to getting their hands on the game.

Thankfully, there are no longer any such hoops to jump through, with this beautifully presented update reaching global audiences at the same time. The Ivalice Chronicles — named after the setting of this turn-based tactical RPG — bundles together an “Enhanced” remastered version of the original game that offers spruced-up visuals, variable difficulties, and full voice acting, alongside a “Classic” recreation of the PS1 version (the original code was lost, leading to the development team having to rebuild it as closely as possible).

Whichever version you opt for, you’re going to be getting one of the finest, deepest stories to grace video gaming as a medium.

While the latter is a fantastic effort for game preservation, it does feel its age. The pixelated characters, low poly battle maps, and pillar-boxed screen aspect ratio hold nostalgia value for those who did play the original, but the updated Ivalice Chronicles version is an improvement in just about every respect. The remaster is incredibly respectfully done, maintaining the layouts and designs of the PS1 iteration, but recreating it all in modern detail. For instance, characters maintain their squat, super-deformed style, but are now smoother, more detailed, and appear almost cel-shaded. Battles, meanwhile, still take place on floating pieces of map but the Enhanced version has more detail again, and a painterly quality to its arenas. This is all mirrored in cutscenes, which leap from blocky PS1-era cinematics to lushly animated sequences that look like a fusion of anime and medieval tapestries. Nothing is going to be pushing the limits of your 4K TV, but it all looks lovely, and perfectly captures the vibe of the original.

Whichever version you opt for, you’re going to be getting one of the finest, deepest stories to grace video gaming as a medium. Players follow Ramza Beoulve, son of a noble house, drawn into a civil war when Ivalice is split between the forces of Prince Goltana and Duke Larg, each vying for the right to rule after the previous king died. It’s not just a simple game of thrones, though — Tactics was renowned for its exploration of class politics, with Ramza and his commoner friend Delita being lenses through which to view the conflict, and their respective journeys examine how religion and capitalism are used to manipulate people into fighting against their own interests. It was groundbreaking territory for a game in the ‘90s, and its messages and themes feel even more relevant now. The addition of voice acting in the Enhanced version bolster this further, with the likes of Ben Starr (Clair Obscur, Final Fantasy XVI) bringing the story to greater life.

Mechanically, Tactics remains a highlight of the genre, even though many of the gameplay touches it helped pioneer might be better known in the West thanks to series such as Fire Emblem and Disgaea now. Each battle sees you lay out your party members – consisting of both major story characters such as Ramza and Delita, and custom units that can be tailored in function and abilities — on an isometric grid, taking turns to move, attack, or perform various other combat actions.

Once you’ve grasped the game’s secret language and understood its rhythms, dominating a battle is supremely satisfying.

The added Final Fantasy magic means every character can take on various “Jobs”, from familiar franchise faces such as Knights and Black Mages to quirkier combatants like Mimes and Time Mages. Every action taken earns both Experience Points and Job Points for that particular unit, levelling up your forces and their skills in a particular role, and unlocking further Jobs to specialise in. Skills that a unit unlocks from one Job can be equipped when they switch to another, allowing staggering complexity in how you grow and develop your forces, in turn opening up ever more complex strategies for the battlefield. The result is something like chess, but with a thousand more variables.

It still feels unforgiving in places, with some basic genre conventions being locked behind certain character Jobs — simply using items is restricted to the Chemist role, for example, so a unit needs to gain some experience in that Job before being able to fling a healing potion as anything else. Other details may go unexplained until you discover them accidentally. The Enhanced Ivalice Chronicles eases the steep learning curve though, with three difficulty levels — Squire for first timers, Knight for confident players, and Tactician for those wanting a real challenge — while some quality of life tweaks, such as being able to fast-forward through enemy turns, make encounters smoother. Final Fantasy Tactics was always notoriously tough and remains so here, but once you’ve grasped the game’s secret language and understood its rhythms, dominating a battle is supremely satisfying.

Getting to that stage can take a lot of level grinding though, running through battles on repeat to power up each unit. This eases up when the ability to send units on errands opens up, letting them gain experience “off camera”, but even reaching that relatively early point can take a while.

The biggest downside, though, is that despite the remaster, this still isn’t a truly definitive edition of the game. While the translation for both versions of the game here is based on that of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, the 2007 PlayStation Portable remake of the game — which did get a UK release — The Ivalice Chronicles lacks any of the extra content from that edition, including additional character classes and recruitable characters from other Final Fantasy games, such as Balthier from Final Fantasy XII.

Still, this stands as a highlight of both the tactical RPG genre as a whole and for Final Fantasy as a franchise. A rich, complicated, and uncompromising story meshed with demanding, thoughtful combat, this remains an absolute masterpiece.