Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics (often abbreviated as FFT) is a tactical role-playing video game developed by Squaresoft for the Sony PlayStation. It was distributed in Japan by Square, and in North America by Sony Computer Entertainment America. It was not released in Europe.
Combining thematic elements of the Final Fantasy series with a game engine and battle system unlike anything previously seen in the franchise, Final Fantasy Tactics is Square's answer to Quest's successful Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre series, with which it shares a number of key conceptual and stylistic elements. This is due, in part, to the presence of former Quest staff members in its development crew, including director Yasumi Matsuno, character designer Akihiko Yoshida, art director Hiroshi Minagawa and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, all of whom had left Quest to work with Square. In stark contrast to other 32-bit era Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy Tactics uses a 3D, isometric, rotatable playing field, with bitmap sprite characters.
A spinoff was created in 2003, called Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance, and in 2006, a stand-alone title for the Playstation 2 called Final Fantasy XII was released. All three games take place in the world of Ivalice; Tactics and XII share the same world, though in different time periods, whereas Tactics Advance is a dream version of the world.
It has been announced that a reworked version of Final Fantasy Tactics with widescreen support, updated graphics, new jobs, and cel-shaded FMV will appear on the PlayStation Portable under the title Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War.
Gameplay
Gameplay in Final Fantasy Tactics differs from standard Final Fantasy fare in several key areas, the most important of which is the battling system. Instead of a generic battle screen, with the player's characters on one side, and the enemies on the other, encounters take place on three-dimensional, isometric fields. Characters move about on a battlefield composed of square tiles with distance determined by the character's statistics and job class. Battle is turn-based, with a unit's turn coming up when its CT (Charge Time) reaches 100. Charge time is increased once every Clock Tick (a measure of time in battles) by an amount equal to the unit's speed statistic. When CT reaches 100 or greater, the unit takes its turn. During battle, whenever a unit performs an action successfully, it gains both EXP (Experience Points) and JP (Job Points).
The battles themselves also require a greater use of strategic planning in order to emerge victorious. Rushing headlong into combat may quickly result in defeat. Many different factors can determine the outcome of the battle. Certain magical attacks cause area of effect damage. Many of the more powerful magical attacks require several turns of charging, and compensation must be made, lest the enemies move out of the path of fire. Certain attacks, such as archer attacks, become much more effective on higher terrain. Move a unit too far into the field alone and enemies may try to surround it. Hit Points of enemy units are also visible to the player (except in the case of certain bosses), allowing the player to know exactly how much damage they still have to inflict on a particular unit.
Another difference is the manner in which random battles are encountered. As in other Final Fantasy games, random battles occur on the world map. However, in Final Fantasy Tactics, random battles only occur in pre-set locations, marked in green on the world map. Passing over one of these spots may result in a random encounter. Random enemies level up with the player characters (as in Final Fantasy VIII) while enemies in storyline battles are on a set level of experience. Although leveling characters up may initially give the player an advantage in these required battles, weapons and armor sufficient enough to harm or protect against some enemies in random enounters can be lacking as they only become available as the story progresses.
Movement on the worldmap is limited to a number of predefined paths connecting the towns and battle points. The towns cannot be entered or explored, but when over a town, a menu can be opened with the options "Bar", for taking sidequest job offers, "Shop" for buying supplies, and "Soldier Office" for recruiting new troops. Later in the game, some towns contain "Fur Shops" for obtaining items by way of poaching monsters. The player has very little control outside of battle sequences, and this lack of freedom often discourages players new to the tactical-RPG genre.
Job classes
The game makes extensive use of most of the original character classes seen in earlier Final Fantasy games, including Summoners, Wizards (Black Mages), Priests (White Mages), Monks, Lancers (Dragoons), and Thieves. Proper usage of the Job Class system is essential to victory.
All new recruits start out as either a Squire or a Chemist, the base classes for warrior and magician jobs, respectively. In battle, JP (Job Points) are rewarded for every successful action, such as attacking or casting a spell. JP are also used to "buy" new abilities within each job class. Accumulating enough JP, furthermore, results in a job level up, and new jobs are unlocked by attaining a certain level in the current job class (for instance, to become a Priest or Wizard, the unit must first attain Job Level 2 as a Chemist), which also allows the character to gain more JP in that class in battles. Once all of the abilities of a job class have been learned, the class is "Mastered", and a gold star appears by its listing.
A soldier in a specific Job must always use its innate skill (Priests must always have "White Magic," Knights must always use "Battle Skill") but a second job-skill slot and several other ability slots (Reaction, Support, and Movement) can be filled with any skill the particular soldier has learned. There are many combinations and possibilities in character customization. There are a total of twenty basic job classes that can be accessed by normal characters in Final Fantasy Tactics.
Plot and setting
Setting
The story takes place in the world of Ivalice, which is also the setting for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII. It is a world where castles and forts are the stronghold of nobles, the church is a powerful religious entity, and warring factions remain in the struggle for dominance over the land. The story is told by Alazlam J. Durai; he attempts to piece together the truth of what happened during the Lion War.
Plot
The plot revolves around the Lion War, a war of succession modelled after the Wars of the Roses. The war erupts when King Omdoria of Ivalice dies without leaving a clear heir to the throne. In the ensuing power vacuum, two powerful nobles, Prince Larg, the brother of the widowed Queen Ruvelia, and Prince Goltana, the late king's cousin, put forward rival candidates. When Goltana coronates the king's adopted daughter, Ovelia, Larg declares war on behalf of his candidate, Orinas, the king's infant son. Although political alliances were difficult to place in this violent period, it seems that Larg had the support of the knights and supporters of the royal family, whereas Goltana had the support of the senate and other nobles.
Against this backdrop, the game relates the personal story of Ramza Beoulve, the youngest son of an aristocratic nobleman and war hero, and his best friend Delita Hyral, who was taken in at a very young age by Ramza's family. Ramza and Delita are caught in the turmoil of the Lion War, and Ramza must choose between his conscience and his duty, while Delita grapples with the issue of achieving and maintaining autonomy despite his lower class status. The plot thickens when it is later revealed that some party conspired to start the Lion War and was manipulating it to their benefit. The Zodiac Stones, twelve mysterious and ancient stones, were related to this conspiracy.
Characters
- Main article: List of Final Fantasy Tactics characters
The main character's name by default is Ramza Beoulve, the second-youngest of four siblings who is conscious about his surroundings and remains firm is his quest to seek the truth behind the war. He is joined by a cadre of characters which include Delita Hyral, his closest friend who cares deeply for his sister Teta; and Agrias Oaks, the knight in charge of protecting Princess Ovelia, candidate heir to the throne of Ivalice. Alongside Ramza are more than a dozen characters that are recruited to join his quest.
There are also many NPC characters that join in the fray, each playing a role in the many factions' elaborate plots to control Ivalice. The most prominent factions at the beginning of the story are that of Prince Goltana and Prince Larg, of which both seek to obtain control of the throne by being guardians of the young heirs. The story then progresses to include characters from the Glabados Church that is engineering the war in question.
All characters are designed by Akihiko Yoshida, who is also in charge of the illustration and character designs of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story, to list a few.
Development
The Final Fantasy Tactics game that was released was actually the second project to bear the name. In 1995, Square began work on a game for the Super Famicom under the working title Final Fantasy Tactics. However, as the project took shape it was decided that it didn't include enough elements from the Final Fantasy series to merit the name. It was retitled Bahamut Lagoon and released in Japan in February 1996.
The U.S. release of Final Fantasy Tactics was fraught with several indications of a rushed import job. The translation is rough and nearly unintelligible in some places, rendering an already intricately plotted storyline even more cryptic. Names of characters and locations are often spelled more than one way ("Omdolia" vs. "Omdoria", "Murond" vs. "Mulondo," "Luveria" vs. "Ruvelia"). Several historical and mythological references are reduced to gibberish by translators: for instance, the Norse World Tree, Yggdrasil, makes an appearance as Yugodorasil; the word "breath" is consistently rendered as "bracelet" in attack names; and the idealistic yet deluded antihero Wiegraf is actually named for Wiglaf, a character in Beowulf, to name a few. Even the main character's last name, "Beoulve", could also suggest a mistranslation of the name Beowulf (as "Beoulve" and "Beowulf" would have identical spellings in phonetical Japanese, though because there is a character who actually bears the name Beowulf, it was probably intentional). In addition, there are at least two cases of a name being translated different ways during the course of the game. The character Velius is sometimes referred to as "Bariaus", and one type of monster is referred to as both "Morbol" and "Moldball". In the latter case, both translations are incorrect, as the monster in question (which appears in multiple Final Fantasy games) is actually named Molbol. The in-game tutorial function is also plagued by Engrish, including bizzare lines such as "This was the darkened Items won't appear."
Before it was re-released under Sony's "Greatest Hits" label in 2001, it was highly sought after and went for prices exceeding $100 on eBay and elsewhere [citation needed]. At the time of its reissue, it was the only game to be re-released under that label without meeting Sony's guidelines of breaking sales of 200,000 copies. The official strategy guide is also highly sought after and commonly listed online at relatively high prices.
The game also includes references to several specific characters, places, and situations from earlier games in the Final Fantasy series -- Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife is a playable character (Aeris Gainsborough also has a cameo), and through the "Proposition" system in bars scattered around the world map, treasures and lost areas such as "Matoya Cave" (a reference to the first Final Fantasy) and various colors of materia can be found. To keep with tradition, Olan's adoptive father, Cidolfas Orlandu, is nicknamed "T.G. Cid" (the T.G. stands for "Thunder God", but oddly it's never said together with "Cid" in the English version's in-game text), and there are chocobos present in the game as well. Additionally, although most missions feature Ramza and his allies facing human opponents, most of the monsters appear in one Final Fantasy game or another, although the Lucavi are entirely new.
Several of the random human characters encountered are named for the testers, American Square Soft, Inc. employees, and people that they were fans of, such as They Might Be Giants co-founder John Flansburgh, American cyclist Andrew Hampsten, and Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain who are referenced in-game by their last names.
Final Fantasy XII is also set in a world called Ivalice. It appears to be the Ivalice of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance as the two moogles Montblanc and Nono make appearances as a clan leader and an airship mechanic respectively. No characters from Final Fantasy Tactics are present, however certain story elements are.
Legacy
In 2003, Square (now Square Enix) released Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The game setting and engine are similar to the ones of its predecessor, but the characters and plot are notably different; the cast of characters is considerably smaller, and the plot is considerably simpler, earning praise from some who saw the original Final Fantasy Tactics' plot as too complicated, but causing disappointment with those who enjoyed the complex political nature of the original. Additionally, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a shorter main campaign, but more side missions, and a secret campaign at the end of the game.
In December 2006, Square Enix announced a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for Sony's PlayStation Portable. It will contain some special features, such as new jobs and some cel-shaded FMVs. Few details have been released about the remake, and the company has not yet set a release date or said whether the remake will make it to the United States. In the same announcement, Square Enix said it is working on a new game in the series called Final Fantasy Tactics A2, although it has not released any details concerning this new game. Square Enix called the FFT remake, FFT A2 and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings its "Ivalice Alliance" in the announcement.
Critical Reception
Final Fantasy Tactics received positive reviews upon release, and critical opinion of the game has only grown over time. However, one major flaw did stand out, that being the shoddy localization of the game which was rife with mistranslations that could ruin an otherwise excellent story. Some critics also took issue with the game's overly complex plot.
However, most of these issues were eventually seen as just quirks of the game as time has progressed and the game itself has aged rather gracefully. GameSpot has named FFT as one of its Greatest Games of All Time - the first Final Fantasy game to make it to the list.
References
- Kenji, vism, and Joshua Slone. "Game Credits for Final Fantasy Tactics." MobyGames. Accessed on 3 January 2005.
- GameSpot: The Greatest Games of All Time: Final Fantasy Tactics
External links
- Official site
- Template:GameFAQs
- FFT: Online an MMOG based on the Final Fantasy Tactics world of Ivalice
- Final Fantasy Wiki category list for Final Fantasy Tactics
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