Final Fantasy Tactics holds that rare honor of being a relatively niche spinoff to a blockbuster gaming franchise that many fans would argue outdoes some of the series' most beloved main entries. Even 30 years ago, RPG fans knew that there was something special about Yasumi Matsuno's dense, complex, and fiercely bittersweet tale of class warfare, personal betrayal, and the devastating machinations of the powers-that-be. This is, of course, to say nothing about the equally dense and complicated tactical strategy gameplay that FFT flaunted in stark contrast to the more traditional, party-driven battles made famous by the likes of the mainline Final Fantasy games.

It would be difficult to blame someone for struggling to connect Matsuno and his team's unique vision for the Final Fantasy formula at large, at least if it weren't for the presence of reliable franchise elements found in the monster designs, magical summons, and character classes - not to mention an infamous cameo from a certain spiky-haired mercenary who was making plenty of waves in the gaming industry himself back in 1997. Still, you will find no shortage of diehard FF-freaks who have been enthralled by Tactics' singular vision for the franchise ever since it debuted on the PS1. For a long time, the primary way for less familiar fans to see what all of the fuss has been about was to dig into the War of the Lions version of the game, which has been confined to mobile devices and Sony's dead handheld platforms for the better part of twenty years.

This is the first thing that Tactics fans new and old will want to be clear on: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is very much a remaster of the original game. It has jettisoned almost all of the new story and gameplay content added in the War of the Lions remake from 2007. The only material that Square Enix has preserved from WoTL is the heavily revised localization of the English script, though even that has been tweaked to flow better with the addition of voice-acting for the games many dialogue-driven story scenes.

All of this is to say that, while The Ivalice Chronicles might not be the from-the-ground-up HD-2D remake that fans were hoping for when rumors of a return to Ivalice started frothing up a couple of years ago, this is still a very new and distinct product compared to the original, which is plain to see if you ever take a few minutes to boot up the port of the PS1 version included in this package. On a graphical and presentation front, I think The Ivalice Chronicles accomplishes the very tricky and important job of giving us a new version of Tactics that looks and feels just like the original game did in our memory of playing it. If you actually glance at the redone maps, sprites, and UI elements, it becomes undeniable that The Ivalice Chronicles looks and feels better than the original in every way imaginable. That alone makes this remaster a worthy successor, in my opinion, and a worthwhile addition to any Final Fantasy fan's collection.

Just about the only thing that feels like a 1:1 preservation of the game's original presentation would be its soundtrack, which, as far as I can tell, is identical to what Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata produced for the original Tactics in 1997. On the one hand, this is great news because that OST is absolutely legendary, and new fans will get to lose themselves in the moody and atmospheric score that has managed to stand out amongst the absurdly stiff competition in Square Enix's catalog for thirty years. That said, given how the recent Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games made such a to-do of producing brand new arrangements of Nobuo Uematsu's scores that you could swap out for the originals at any time, I can't help but wonder what could have been if The Ivalice Chronicles had been given the same treatment.

As for the gameplay itself, I will be honest and tell you that I am not the kind of dyed-in-the-wool TRPG fanatic that can give a comprehensive breakdown of the class balancing and job development changes that separate The Ivalice Chronicles from the original, which I only revisited for a little bit of for comparison in this review. All I can say is that The Ivalice Chronicles feels great to play through in its modern iteration, provided that you can reset your expectations to a slightly more old-school pacing and mentality. The battles are fairly small-scale for the majority of the game's four chapters, pitting a half-dozen or so of your own units against mobs of enemy monsters and soldiers, with all of the units needing to navigate maps of varying elevations and environmental hazards to wage their little diorama wars with each other. These are much more thoughtful and slow-paced affairs than modern gamers raised on Fire Emblem and the like might be used to, but they are very satisfying to puzzle your way through. Plus, the remaster includes a fast-forward toggle to help speed along the encounters that call for lots of spell charging and hopping around elevated arenas. Combine that with new difficulty options that allow players to adjust the overall curve of conflict to their needs, and this is as accessible as Final Fantasy Tactics has ever been.

As you level up your roster of up to 50 story-specific and custom recruited units, you unlock a whole suite of different physical and magic-based job classes, each of which has its unique roles on the battlefield. Dragoons can leap upon the enemy with devastating spear strikes, for example, while Samurai use their collections of mystical katana blades to unlock Iado powers that can strike down foes and buff allies when the situation calls for it. Black Mages will cast extraordinarily powerful attack spells at the cost of needing lots of time and mana to make use of their abilities. In contrast, Time Mages and Mystics can use support spells to speed up the flow of battle and disorient the enemy.

Sure, we might be missing a couple of bonus classes from The War of the Lions, but The Ivalice Chronicles is already intricate enough to give its battles the right balance of friction versus fun. When you factor in the many side-quests, optional battles, and mixing-and-matching of jobs and skills that can occupy your time, I think Final Fantasy Tactics contains more than enough adventuring to satisfy new players and returning fans alike.

For me, the real draw of The Ivalice Chronicles is its captivating tale of political intrigue and bitter rivalries in a world gone mad with lust for magical power. I've honestly always had something of an ambivalent relationship to the stories of Yasumi Matsuno's Ivalice-centered Final Fantasy games - both Tactics and XII. I genuinely appreciate the commitment to crunchy, boots-on-the-ground worldbuilding that prioritizes verisimilitude and grand conflict over the more operatic and personal dramas that most Final Fantasy games indulge in, though I often find myself feeling a bit too distant from (and overwhelmed by) Matsuno's sprawling cast of characters. With this new entry, I wanted to see if I could finally connect to Tactics' storytelling in the way that I wasn't ever quite able to with its previous iterations.

For one, I have to give The Ivalice Chronicles credit for including the vast and interactive lore encyclopedias that made Final Fantasy XVI feel much more accessible despite its similar approach to story and worldcraft. More significantly, is the impact that the revised, expanded, and fully-voiced script has on the experience. The excellent vocal performances do liven up the fairly static and often quite lengthy narrative scenes. Still, my favorite part of the new presentation has to be the surprising number of new, mid-battle conversations that have been included for protagonists like Ramza, Delita, Agrias, Gafgarion, and more. I had to constantly go back and check footage of original Tactics and WotL chapters to confirm that these exchanges were, in fact, unique to The Ivalice Chronicles, because they feel so perfectly fitting with the narrative on the whole. In past playthroughs, I often stuck with parties consisting entirely of my own recruited units, because I simply never felt attached to any of the prioritized party members who would always find their way into the relevant story scenes anyway. Here, I found myself going out of my way to pick Agrias the Holy Knight or Mustadio the Machinist because I genuinely cared about them, and wanted to learn more about them and their conflicts. It's a seemingly small, yet genuinely revelatory, expansion to an already well-told tale.

When you take in the full experience of The Ivalice Chronicles, it is easy to see that this game is a true labor of love from Final Fantasy Tactics' original creators, and it delivers a superlative refinement of one of the franchise's best entries. It doesn't go as far in overhauling the visuals, gameplay, or music that some folks might have wanted from the first new Final Fantasy Tactics project in years, but I don't think that's what The Ivalice Chronicles needed to do in the first place. Instead, it offers an expanded glimpse into a classic tale of hubris, folly, and defiance that stands tall as one of Final Fantasy' most mature and well-developed yarns. It captures the appeal of an era that gaming has long since passed by, while still appealing to a generation of gamers with more modern sensibilities. It just may capture the attention of enough new fans to reignite the spark of inspiration at Square Enix and light the way to a new era of the Final Fantasy Tactics legacy.