Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP - 1st completion)
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is a 2007 enhanced port of the 1998 (1997 in Japan) PSone original Final Fantasy Tactics game. The original came out months after the best-selling Final Fantasy VII and it it became another hit for Square, though obviously not as mega popular as VII was. This game was influenced by Tactics Ogre but made the tactical-RPG genre more appealing to console gamers at the time as it used Final Fantasy staples. This was the first game in the Final Fantasy series to open the world of Ivalice, a world that would be expanded upon with future games including Vagrant Story (which I reviewed just shy a year ago here), Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and even Final Fantasy XII. I borrowed this game from a friend after he bought it on day one and eventually finished it sometime later. I had trouble in the beginning but he gave me some tips in building up my characters and jobs that I got better at it. I later bought my own copy sometime over 15 years ago (I think at then-Zellers in Surrey Place Mall). I've beaten the original PSone version twice and fondly remembered this game. This PSP version is the same game with some enhancements: new cel-shaded cinematic scenes with voice acting, a couple new jobs, a new English localization, and new sidequests with a couple new characters you can recruit. Now, should you abandon your PSone original copy in favour of this enhanced port that is the same exact game except with added content? Honestly, no. As I detail in my review below, some added content is welcome while others... may be a deal breaker to keep the original. Someday I may play both these versions again but I plan to use special save files to breeze through the game as the level and job grinding is tedious. Funny thing about my playthrough in this version though, I did the end of the game without really realizing it at first! On Saturday night, I thought I was entering the second last event in the game but it turned out it was the final one! I didn't save my game the entire time as a precaution and after a couple of levels, knew that I was going to the end. So I pressed on and... the final battle was a cinch! Seriously, the final boss in both it's forms didn't even get to attack me once and I beat the living shit out of it! There was one last sidequest I wanted to try out (Midnight's Deep) but it didn't appear on the map as I didn't properly activate it. Ah well, I wanted to get the game over with and with my party being pretty powerful, it was all I needed. I beat the game in about 54 hours, with a main party of two males and two females, average level of 66, with about half the sidequests done, and most hidden and secondary characters found. For the first time, I managed to finally recruit Cloud Strife (of Final Fantasy VII) into my party as I never figured to do it in the original PSone version. This review is specifically about the War of the Lions version but will be compared to the original at times.
Final Fantasy Tactics begins with Ivalice just recovering from the Fifty Year War against Ordalia. The power vacuum caused by the death of its ruler, King Omdoria, soon sparks another conflict. Princess Ovelia and the younger Prince Orinas are both candidates to the throne, with the former supported by Prince Goltana of the Black Lion, and the latter by Queen Ruvelia and her brother, Prince Larg of the White Lion. This erupts into a full-scale war known as the "Lion War", with either side using whatever means possible to secure their place in the throne. This includes bearing an illegitimate child, killing other possible heirs, betrayal, assassination and false identities. Throughout the game, nobles regard commoners and peasants as animals, and many commoners try to take revenge on the nobles, who abandoned them after the war. Most joined the so-called Corpse Brigade (a.k.a. Death Corps) to fight against the nobles' soldiers, and many die in vain. Ramza, part of the noble Beoulve family of knights, and Delita, his childhood friend who was an ordinary commoner, are witnesses to this phenomenon. Events such as meeting an arrogant noble named Argath (a.k.a. Algus), as well as the negligent killing of Delita's sister Tietra (a.k.a. Teta) during an uprising, cause Delita and Ramza to abandon their ties to the nobility, both going separate ways. Ramza joins a mercenary group, led by Gafgarion, who protects Princess Ovelia from being hunted by both sides. Delita joins Prince Goltana's forces to rise up through the ranks and gain control over his own destiny. Ramza and Delita are reunited when Gafgarion attempts to take Ovelia to Prince Larg, though this proves futile. Agrias suggests visiting Cardinal Delacroix (a.k.a. Draclau) of the Glabados Church to protect Ovelia, while Delita continues to work in the shadows, working with multiple sides to realize his ambitions. Along the way to Lionel Castle, Ramza meets Mustadio, a machinist in possession of a holy relic called the Zodiac Stone. Hunted by a trading company for the power it contains, Mustadio also seeks Delacroix’s intervention. However, soon after the encounter with Cardinal Delacroix, Ramza discovers that an elaborate plot was set by the Glabados Church. In their desire to control Ivalice, the Church, particularly the High Confessor Marcel Funebris (a.k.a. High Priest Marge Funeral), uses the legend of the so-called holy Zodiac Braves to gather the Zodiac Stones, and fuels the Lion War between Larg and Goltana. To stave off Ramza's interference, Delacroix uses the stone to transform into a legendary Lucavi demon, and Ramza has no choice but to slay him/it. As a result, Ramza is regarded a heretic of the Church and give him chase.
To see most of the gameplay, go here or below (This is sadly the only video from War of the Lions I could find. You may have to watch it in 480p or else the screen may go funky and the video has emulation and sync issues):
Click to view
Graphics/Art-9
+ Beautiful 2D sprites and isometric 3D worlds. The sprites are well animated and the PSone-era graphics have good detail. It is virtually exactly the same game on the PSP.
+ Some abilities and Summons look great and colourful.
+ War of the Lions has new, cel-shaded animated scenes in some of the game's key story points and conversations, but only a handful of them. The majority are still the original in-game scenes. They look great given the difficulty of the art style.
- Obstacles can block the view of characters and enemies on the field that you constantly have to shift the camera to see everything.
- For whatever reason, the War of the Lions cut out 3 intro movies from the original! This includes the Backborn Story, original PSone P.R. Movie, and Character Introductions movies. Why?
Sound/Music-10
+ A beautiful soundtrack by Masaharu Iwata and Hitoshi Sakimoto! I'd argue this game made Sakimoto be noticed as he would later be the main composer for Final Fantasy XII in 2006. If you listen to both games, you'll notice how similar the styles are. He also composed the music to The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, a game I reviewed here. For whatever reason, Iwata doesn't get credit for helping compose with Sakimoto so I assume most to be Sakimoto's work for the most part.
+ The music really captures the emotion of some of the battles and in-game cutscenes.
+ Great and varied sound effects.
+ War of the Lions has voice acting in the animated movie scenes. It's actually quite good!
- As I mentioned above of the cut intro movies, 3 songs in the original PSone version are cut in War of the Lions as they are unique to those movies.
Music Samples:
Bland Logo - Title Back
Backborn Story
P.R. Movie
Character Introductions
Character Making
Prologue Movie
Pray
Trisection
Hero's Theme
A Chapel
Desert Land
Tutorial
Random Waltz
Ovelia's Theme
Apoplexy
Delita's Theme
Back Fire
Antipyretic
Ovelia's Worries
Battle On the Bridge
Requiem
Control-8
+ Controls in the original PSone game are relatively easy and play like most RPGs.
- Because of the controls in the PSP version, shifting the camera is done with the control stick. It can take some getting used to.
- Micro managing your party can be time consuming given how the system works. Having to check abilities, job levels, etc. will make you wish it could be more streamlined.
Gameplay-9
+ The gameplay of Final Fantasy Tactics differs in several key areas from other titles in the Final Fantasy series. 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 on a battlefield composed of square tiles; movement and action ranges are determined by the character's statistics and job class. Battles are turn-based; a unit may act when its CT (Charge Time) reaches 100. Charge time is increased once every CT unit (a measure of time in battles) by an amount equal to the unit's speed statistic. When CT reaches 100 or greater, the unit may act. During battle, whenever a unit performs an action successfully, it gains Experience Points (EXP) and Job Points (JP).
+ Another difference is the manner in which random battles are encountered. Like 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. Another major aspect of battles is magical attacks. Certain magical attacks cause area of effect damage, and many of the more powerful magical attacks require several turns of charging. 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.
+ Movement on the world map is limited to predefined paths connecting the towns and battle points. When the character icon is over a town, a menu can be opened with several options: "Bar" for taking sidequest job offers, "Shop" for buying supplies and equipment, and "Soldier Office" for recruiting new characters. Later in the game, some towns contain "Fur Shops" for obtaining items by way of poaching monsters.
+ Like several installments in the series, Final Fantasy Tactics features a character class system, which allows you to customize characters into various roles. 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. New recruits start out as either a Squire or a Chemist, the base classes for warrior and magician jobs, respectively. The game features twenty jobs accessible by normal characters.
+ Throughout the game, unique characters also join the party. As well, some characters join as "guests", which are computer-controlled characters that fight on your side. Many of the unique characters have custom classes that replace the base squire class. It's also possible to recruit monsters into the party. Monsters have unique abilities, but cannot change jobs. Monsters can be captured from battles or bred from existing monsters.
+ In battle, JP are rewarded for every successful action. JP are used to learn new abilities within each job class. Accumulating enough JP results in a job level up; 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 the abilities of a job class have been learned, the class is "Mastered". A soldier in a specific Job always has its innate skill equipped (Wizards always have "Black Magic," Knights always have "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 from any job class. This deep level of customization and flexibility grants nigh-infinite replayability, contributing to the game's unusually enduring popularity.
- Despite being ported on superior hardware, the PSP version suffers major slow down when certain abilities and spells are used. This may be a deal-breaker for some. For example, casting the "Holy" spell on multiple targets via the Arithmetic skill can take an eternity in the War of the Lions version compared to the original. Also, the sound and animation are off sync for many of the abilities and summons! This was because of poor coding while porting from the original version and the coders pretty much "given up" on trying to correct it (I've heard of game hacks that fix the problem if you have an emulator).
- Grinding your characters and jobs can take a long time and is very repetitive. I usually use the Squire ability "Focus" over and over again while running away from a single enemy on the battlefield to strengthen my party and when I feel I've done enough, end the battle and spend my points. Rise and repeat for hours.
- The game is quite difficult as enemies in regular battles strengthen at the same time you do. They can kill you in 1-3 regular hits, no matter how much you level grind! Required, story-based battles have the enemies at set levels so you can overpower them for the most part if you grinded beforehand. There is very little room for mistakes and saving your game regularly (with multiple save files) will ease frustration. But I'll admit it does make the game more rewarding when your character-builds and planning pay off in the end.
Fun/Story/Misc-9
+ The game is very addictive when you know the rules and plan your character-building properly.
+ A great, albeit complicated-at-times story. While there are some religious overtones, especially Christian ones, it isn't particularly blasphemous given it is fiction. It could be argued that the game shows a powerful church hierarchy with sinister motives in the background to control the populace through lying about the origins their faith. Essentially, the Jesus-figure of the Church, Saint Ajora, is not all cracked-up to be. You can understand about it later in the game when you read the "Germonik Scriptures" - think of it as the kind-of gnostic Gospel of Judas. There are some select similarities between Christianity and the game's fictional religion but there are a number of differences too. For one, the Church is polythestic (emphasized more in the War of the Lions than the original) contrasted to Christian monotheism. Another is declaration of each founder's divinity. St. Ajora was given a divine title because of miracles and teaching though was only a human, while Jesus was already part of a Triune Godhead who became human of his own will. More could be said, but overall the game borrows Christianity and twists it enough so not to be too similar. It tries to raise objections the same way, but it misunderstands real early Christian history in which there are plenty of sources for the layperson to pour over compared to a fictional religion in a video game. This was a time when Square made games with some questionable jabs at religion in favour of Humanism.
+ Ramza and Delita are very well written characters and I'd argue quite underrated in all of gaming. They are friends who are after the same goal, but use different methods in achieving it. Ramza is branded a heretic and is sneered but through alturism and humility, ends up being the true hero of Ivalice. Delita, through manipulation and deceit, also saves Ivalice but ends up paying for it in the end. In fact, Delita's final lines in the epilogue, he questions who truly won in the end after all their accomplishments. Both of them are truly tragic characters.
+ War of the Lions has a multiplayer feature, both for completing scenarios with a friend or battling it out against each other. I've never tried it of course, but it's a nice addition to this version.
+ The extra content and sidequests make this a definite play if you beaten the original PSone version. I never tried the new classes but the new characters are pretty cool.
+ The new English translation is excellent and sounds more in line with the King James tongue than the original. Still, some may prefer the original, simplistic translation despite the problems it has.
- As I mentioned above, this version lacks a few of the introduction movies so it has cut content. While I like the new animated scenes, I didn't like the new opening and ending ones - I felt that the old PSone-era FMV looked better and had better direction that synchronized with the music.
Total: 45/50 (Grade Level: A)
The main Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions website is here (I was on it earlier but some reason, can't access it again via the web archive). While the original 1998 game's website still exists, it is archived and a mess. The Wikipedia article for the original game is here and the War of the Lions is here.
Next Game: Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded (DS)
Currently playing: Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360)
