Forum - View topicGAME: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Game Review
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gsilver
Posts: 765 |
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I recently replayed Final Fantasy Tactics (WotL version; that version for the first time) and while I had fond memories of the original, the game balance really stuck out this time.
Don't grind and your characters can't do anything because unlock requirements are much higher than you would manage in story battles, do grind and it becomes trivial, and don't grind *enough* and certain boss battles are party wipes. Whoops. You grinded too much and now you defeated it in two hits. It feels like there's a fine line in a Final Fantasy Tactics party so that it isn't hopelessly outmatched or grievously overpowered. |
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 816 Location: PA / USA |
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This continues SE's infuriating track record of "two steps forward, one step back" remasters since it's not gonna be feature-complete with the missing War of the Lions content gone. It's not particularly hard to get it up and running on a PC if you're proficient with that, so I'll be sticking to my older copy for the duration of the new version's launch.
Once the price bottoms out, I wouldn't mind sitting in for the new voice track and character chatter. For the the FF fans on the outskirts of the series, particularly the ones that may not have been paying attention to Ivalice since the PS1 days, they've actually pulled these FF Tactics characters back up on Final Fantasy XIV in recent years. FF14 doesn't have a means to wander around more than a contested warzone outer-section of Ivalice, but its inclusion and the smart portrayal of the FF Tactics cast on the MMO foreshadowed that not only was a return coming, but that they were willing to do new stories with these characters as well. On that note, it will be interesting to see how much the extra character chatter and voiced lines add to the game, especially when I thought they were added&executed exceptionally well in the areas of the Final Fantasy XIV MMO that featured them. If you don't play the MMO, you can pull the scenes up on YouTube, but wait until after you beat the original game before peeking - and note that it's not just the raids but walking around & talking to the characters in the quiet moments that bring Ivalice to life. If you don't have your own character participating & doing it, watching a video doesn't entirely do full justice. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3847 Location: Finland |
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The link for Masaharu Iwata(岩田 匡治) given in the article points to the wrong person(正春 who's a background artist). Do we even have an entry for him as I can't find such?
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CreativelyFwrd
Posts: 99 |
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I lost interest in this when I hear there wasn't even going to be WOTL content in it. Remakes need to add substantial stuff to get me to double dip on buying the same game twice. WOTL did exactly that back in the day. This release removing all that content and throwing in voiced lines in combat is not enough to justify getting in my opinion. The biggest selling point of an official FFT release on Steam for me for the longest time was making it easier to do the multiplayer content which would have been great so it's disappointing that wasn't what this release was.
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An Unchosen One
 Posts: 206 |
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Everything WotL added was superfluous, whereas much of what TIC is getting is far more significant, so I don't get why people have an issue with it.
Aside from a few visual changes and the standard difficulty seemingly becoming even easier, this really seems to be the best possible version. |
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meiam
Posts: 3674 |
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I love FFT, but it also always remind me of how disappointing most of the writing in video game is, because despite being almost 20 year old, its still the bar as far as video game story writing. A complex world, made up of many character with shifting allegiance and personal goal, a world that evolve even outside the player involvement. Complex lore that affect the action the player does rather than just be locked in a codex.
Gameplay was great, marrying the FF3/5 class system to a tactics was a good move, allowing more ability type and more character at once. Class requiring other classes be used before being unlocked means fights are constantly shifting since your party is always changing. But the game does have pretty serious flaws, balance between classes is pretty much non existent, even among regular class, never mind unique ones. The game twice lock you in one versus one combat, better hope your main character is built for that. Many abilities have no practical use (who would ever use magic that takes turns to charge?) Despite those flaws, I think its best FF game, its a real shame we never got what FF12 was supposed to be, and it seems like there's very little appetite for this kind of complex world in the customer base, at least not enough to warrant any more attempt at it. |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2764 Location: United States |
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I tried to play Tactics on my PSP long ago, but I couldn't handle both the job system and the fact that the game punished you for trying to grind levels and save your items. I kept getting my butt kicked in every battle I tried, and it was just too difficult. So I'm glad to know this remaster has difficulty settings that can make the game easier for me, as I hear so many great things about Tactics and genuinely want to play it. So I'm really happy to finally be able to do so when it drops!
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2958 |
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I don't actually mind the WotL stuff being cut out because that was barely-veiled promotional material for the "Ivalice Alliance" that didn't really do much. Seriously, acquiring the Dark Knight or Onion Knight was more trouble than it was worth when my Ninja with Equip Armor or Knight with Dual Wield was more than adequate for the challenges ahead. Plus it's kind of hilarious how Matsuno just casually nuked the Ivalice Alliance from orbit by saying the Ivalice in FFXII and the one in FFT have no connection. What a legend.
Anyway, good to see Ivalice coming back and showing us why this game didn't really need many improvements from the original design. Now we just need a return of Vagrant Story. |
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Doubleclouder
 Posts: 163 |
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What significant additions did this release add? All I've seen is people saying are things like difficulty settings, voices during battles, and UI adjustments. So far I've yet to hear anything about the actual gameplay, story, or characters. WOTL added new jobs, new characters, multiple new story scenes that helped flesh out previously underdeveloped characters. I wonder if forget that scenes like Mustadio celebrating Agrias' birthday, Wiegraf joining the Temple Knights, numerous scenes with Delita and Ovelia, and Beowulf's entire backstory were additions in the WOTL version. There was a lot of stuff that version added that won't be here. I consider all of those to be much more significant. Even if one thinks the addition of Luso and Balthier are superfluous they're no more superfluous than Cloud's addition. This is without knowing if they censored/toned down any of the more heavy story segments as Square-Enix has a tendency to do with these re-releases as we saw with the Pixiel Remasters of 1-6; specifically 6. Is Rafa's backstory going to be the same, for example? |
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Zoltan Kakler
Posts: 100 |
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Yet another disappointing Square-Enix de-master. Sad to see. Especially with how much effort was put into Tactics Ogre Reborn. Clearly we know which one Square-Enix's favorite is of the two.
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harminia
 Posts: 2221 Location: australia |
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I haven't played FFT but I did play FFTA and they did that once, and ever since then I made sure whenever I play a game where you can take your MC out of the party, I make the MC have the highest level and wear the best armour, just in case something sticks me in one to one. Don't think I've ever encountered it again but I always do it just in case... Anyway, I've been looking forward to this release. I normally wait for discounts but maybe I'll buy this full price. Ivalice is my favourite world in FF (tho the crystal chronicle world is close second). I loved FFTA so much (FFTA2 not so much), it was a big part of my teenage years. I really want to see how it all started. It's a shame it doesn't have WOTL though. I don't know much about it beyond people speaking favourably of it. I wonder if they'll add it later, or was there a statement about it not being included ever? Meanwhile I totally should restart and finish playing Tactics Ogre LUCT on PSP some day. |
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Vent
 Posts: 343 |
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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time people complain about the WOTL content not being in. None of it was good! What does more stuff matter if the stuff isn't worth interacting with??
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An Unchosen One
Posts: 206 |
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There's new dialogue for characters like Agrias and Mustadio, an actual deployment screen, several ability changes, possibly new scenes at the end, and I'm sure a couple other things I'm not remembering right now. As for WotL, the new jobs entail a lot of grinding for not enough payoff compared to the Arithmetician (or any of the other top jobs, really) and the new scenes weren't written or even supervised by anyone on the original team. And you're gonna need to be clearer about what you mean by "censored" or toned down; putting aside the dialogue about what Barrington did to Rapha is all implication to begin with, the only things I can think of in the Pixel Remasters that got toned down were certain sprites and VI sticking with the GBA port's removal of Celes being struck before Locke frees her, neither of which is particularly noteworthy aside from the context of why the latter change was made. |
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Nekbone
Posts: 214 |
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According to Matsuno they have zero faith in this release and most of the budget went into the UI and graphics and they would be surprised if this sold over 1 million copies. They lost the source code and had to rebuild a lot of stuff from the ground up so focusing strictly on the original game was for the best probably.
I enjoyed the numerous additions to the story and the gameplay adjustments to make the game more in line with the Japanese release of the PSX version (the original PSX version was made easier and more casual for American audiences) and I think they even made it even more difficult which was a welcome addition. From what it sounds like this version was made easier though. The online was also fun although I only played it years later through emulation and online clients since no one I knew had a PSP let alone this game at the time. I view this release like I do the Pixel Remasters. They're fine for newer people who just want a convenient and casual way to experience the game but there's much better options out there to play the definitive versions of these games. |
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lufia2rocks
Posts: 69 |
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The official answer from Maehiro is that he feels preserving the original game is the most important thing and it would do a disservice to new fans to have a changed remake be their first exposure to the game.
"We did of course consider the addition of new jobs, abilities, and characters - including the jobs featured in War of the Lions. However, the original version of FINAL FANTASY TACTICS is a very complete game both from a game design and story perspective. If we were to make major changes, it would only be a loss for not only fans of the original game, but also those new to the title. With this in mind, our first step in reviving FINAL FANTASY TACTICS in the present was to adhere to the original and put a spotlight on the original game’s characters and jobs, as well as the original gameplay experience. The development team were passionate when it came to bringing an experience as close to the original as we could, and as a result we have recreated and used the original VFX and SFX - something I hope fans of the original in particular will enjoy as they play." Source:https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/final-fantasy-tactics-interview However this falls apart when you realize there's still changes made to the gameplay anyway including a lot of intrusive pre-order bonus junk like a JP Ring and making Cloud recruitable earlier no doubt to promote the FF7 Remake series. This is not the 1997 original regardless of what Maehiro claims and it sets a dangerous precedent for gaming preservation if companies make it a trend of passing off altered versions of a game as "the original". My own personal take on this is either 1) They didn't want to make their other current releases of the game completely obsolete. If people want to buy an official version of the game with the War of the Lions content they can buy the mobile version of the game. If this one had War of the Lions content there'd be no reason for that one to exist. 2) This leaves the possibility of a future Definitive Definitive version that does include WOTL content later on so they can charge players yet again in the future with a new release 3) Laziness I'll be passing on this version personally as the War of the Lions version is not only easy to play on PC but has a very dedicated modding and challenge community. |
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