Final Fantasy Tactics Ivalice Chronicles Review
It’s hard to fully process that Final Fantasy Tactics is nearly 30 years old as the original was released in 1997 on the original PlayStation. Final Fantasy Tactics was slightly misunderstood at the time as it released just months after Final Fantasy 7, which is still considered by many, one of the best RPG’s of all time. This makes it one of the hardest acts to follow, especially considering how much of a contrast Final Fantasy Tactics was to FF7. Instead of ground breaking visuals there was a grid based tactical experience.
Despite its age, many of its elements feel fresh generations later including a well written narrative that is more relevant than ever and an extremely unique job system that still feels novel in 2025. With an HD treatment, many small, but valuable quality of life changes and full voice acting throughout for the first time, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is as good, if not better than the experience has ever been.
THE IVALICE CHRONICLES REVIEW
In Final Fantasy Tactics you play as Ramza, a noble born cadet who opposes the royalty that runs through his veins that was gifted to him upon birth as he finds himself in the middle of a war for the throne between the White Lion, Prince Larg and the Black Lion, Prince Goltana. In the realm of Ivalice, after the Fifty Year War, there is now a vacancy for the throne of all the land. There are two heirs Princess Ovelia, who is supported by Prince Goltana and Prince Orinas, who is supported by Prince Larg. Ramza is caught between his royal bloodline and doing what he feels is right for the people of the land.
However, it is far from black and white though because Final Fantasy Tactics is filled with plot twists as ulterior motives are ever present, conspiracy is abound, allegiances will be tested and nobility is questioned. As there has always been since the beginning of time, at the center of this power struggle is a desire to acquire the zodiac stones, which are said to offer ultimate power to the holder, not unlike the spear of destiny or the fountain of youth.
What’s great about the narrative of Final Fantasy Tactics is that you don’t need to have any prior knowledge of the series to get invested and appreciate the experience. The plot is just as relevant today as it was neatly thirty years ago, and thanks to the newly fully voice acted experience, it’s more engrossing than ever.
However, the true highlight of the experience is the job system and the freedom it provides. You begin as a squire and must work your way up the ranks by earning enough experience in battle to be able to buy a promotion to the next job.
The job system provides a freedom to create your party and your experience that is nearly unrivalled. After squire, you have the choice to decide what professions you want to pursue. Do you want to excel in healing, combat or harnessing the power of magic with classes like the geomancer or summoner or the many mages. The requirements become stepper as you unlock new jobs with later jobs requiring you to master multiple professions before being able to get promoted.
In addition to twenty different classes, you have the power to mix and match by bringing your knowledge learned in other classes. You have the ability to bring not only your current classes actions into battle, but also another classes you have learned as well as a reaction ability, a support ability, and a movement ability. Every class has something extremely beneficial to offer.
Despite being two of the earlier classes, the squire and the chemist provide meaning and benefit throughout the entire experience. The lowly squire has a support ability that provides extra job experience in battle, which is essential to learn new skills and the chemist has an invaluable reaction skill to use potions automatically, which keeps your party healthy without having to waste an action. This is just a taste of the freedom of choice that Final Fantasy Tactics provides to the player.
You will need to constantly be shuffling your abilities and managing your party because Final Fantasy Tactics is a very challenging game even with the balancing updates that came along with The Ivalice Chronicles. The challenge comes from having a difficulty that scales with you, which discourages grinding and ensures that the challenge will always be balanced.
CRITICISMS
There were a few missed opportunities as it would have been incredible if Square would have remade Final Fantasy Tactics using the HD-2D technique that they have used on many other titles of theirs that they introduced with Octopath Traveller, but have implemented in other remakes including Live A Live and Dragon Quest. These visuals would have made The Ivalice Chronicles almost faultless. It also likely would have made it easier to easily identify who is who on the battlefield without the help of the dialogue bubble.
The other issue I had was that you do have the ability to rotate the camera around the battlefield, but only at 90 degree increments, which can cause a lot of obscured vision. Having full three hundred sixty degree vision would have been a nice option.
Final Fantasy Tactics is a difficult game, even with the new quality of life changes and balancing, which means that you will likely have to repeat some of the stronger battle numerous times. Sadly, most of these monumental battles have large amounts of exposition at the start and there is no way to skip right to the battle. You can fast forward through them, but it’s still a slight inconvenience.
Is Final Fantasy Tactics Worth It?
It doesn’t matter if you have played Final Fantasy Tactics on the PlayStation in 1997, on its first re-release on the PSP in 2007 or never played it before. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is an excellent game for any tactics or strategy fan regardless of your history with the Final Fantasy IP.
In terms of remakes, it’s very good, but I wish there would have been a little more work done, however in terms of strategy games, Final Fantasy Tactics was one of the best strategy games that released in 1997 and it’s still one of the best strategy releases of 2025.
