“The will to resist is in your hands.”
Writer Yasumi Matsuno’s statement following the announcement of Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles—in which he candidly talked about the socio-political context for both the original release and this remaster—was a pointed one. Yes, this is a dramatic, high fantasy epic inspired in part by the War of the Roses, but the original was just as much a reflection on Japan’s societal upheaval following the collapse of the bubble economy in the early ‘90s.
“It was an era when many were robbed of hope, when dreams were measured by their price tag … And now, in 2025—a time when inequality and division are still deeply rooted in our society—I offer this story once again. The will to resist is in your hands.”
True enough, replaying FFT today, its tale of inequality and social stratification, of ambition and desperation, feels more potent than ever. Some of that will be due to the enhancements in this not-quite-remaster—more on that soon—but more than anything, it’s due to how relevant it feels to the state of the world today.
Final Fantasy Tactics is the story of Ramza Beoulve and Delita Heiral, two young knights from a kingdom in a state of civil war over competing claims to the throne. Ramza is a noble, the youngest son of House Beoulve; Delita is Ramza’s “lowborn” adopted brother—commoner by birth, noble by adoption, and thus an outcast in both worlds. Ivalice is a kingdom where poverty is rampant among the lowborn, and they’re considered by most nobles as being expendable—a problem made worse by the machinations of those vying for power, and the sacrifices they’re willing to make to reach their ends.
Such a premise is not unusual, especially in the world of fantasy fiction. Where Tactics stands apart is in the “heroes” and “villains” it chooses to focus on, and the thought-provoking story it weaves in doing so. This isn’t really a tale of warmongering nobles fighting over a throne, though the unfolding events in that space are an important backdrop throughout the game. Nor is this a tale of the oppressed rising up against their oppressors, though there are threads of that running through the game. No, this is the story of two young would-be heroes who see a broken world, the very different paths they take in an effort to create something better, the consequences of those ambitions, and the ways good intentions can get distorted.
This much has been true since Final Fantasy Tactics first landed on PlayStation in 1997. The Ivalice Chronicles doesn’t set out to change that, but it does bring this story to new, more dramatic heights through two major changes: new voice acting and additional combat dialogue. The voice cast does a fantastic job across the board, adding just the right degree of emotion, drama, and humanity in their delivery, elevating an already powerful script. New combat dialogue, meanwhile, adds a welcome new layer of characterisation to key characters through the context-sensitive conversations that unfold through major battles (while also creating an incentive to use different characters for subsequent playthroughs).
The other major changes for The Ivalice Chronicles come in the form of a complete overhaul of the user interface and a suite of features to make some of the more tedious aspects of the original more streamlined. Menus are far clearer and easier to navigate in the new version, while also providing a lot more useful information about character stats, job progress, and so on. Random battles are now optional, making it easier to move around the map in a hurry if you’re just trying to get somewhere or complete dispatch missions. In multi-stage battles, you now have the option of adjusting your party setup between fights, and even fleeing back to the world map—you’ll lose any progress made on that battle sequence, but it at least gives you a way out if you want to go level up before trying again.
The new version also adds two new difficulty levels, an easy mode, and a much tougher Tactical Mode. The latter increases enemy damage and reduces that of your own team, making even simple battles much tougher and making a good party setup and combat strategy essential for victory.
Lastly, there’s Classic Mode, which lets you play the original game in a mostly-unchanged form, the one exception being the English script. Rather than the very clunky original PlayStation localisation, Classic Mode uses the rewritten script from Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions—an understandable choice, although I do wish the original was included as well, just for novelty. The new version is a much more enjoyable experience in almost every way, but it’s nice to have Classic Mode as an option as well, as a way of recognising the game’s history and comparing versions.
For anyone who’s been around Final Fantasy Tactics for a while, The Ivalice Chronicles does have some noteworthy omissions: none of the extra content from the PSP release remake, The War of the Lions, is included. That means no Balthier or Luso as bonus characters, and no Dark Knight and Onion Knight jobs. The stated reason for not including them is that the developers feel they’re not a good fit, and the game is complete without them. I can understand that perspective to some extent, but it does still feel like a shame to not have them included, even if as just an optional bonus. Those War of the Lions extras don’t add a lot, sure, but they’re fun in the same way that Cloud Strife’s appearance in the original was fun, and their absence feels like the one small thing stopping this from being the clear, definitive version of Final Fantasy Tactics.
Still, even without everyone’s favourite sky pirate, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles easily earns its place as the best version of a fantastic game. The new version’s changes aren’t sweeping—this isn’t a remake—but they do a lot to elevate the best parts of the original and iron out its few shortcomings. The voiced dialogue and new battle scenes are a particular stand out, lifting one of the best-written stories in the history of video games to even more impressive heights. And for a game whose story about injustice and inequality is, sadly, just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago, that’s a significant achievement.
Version tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review code provided by the publisher.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is the best way to play one of the all-time greats, at a time when its story of inequality and injustice is more relevant than ever.
