Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Review - Tactics Reborn
Like many in Australia and Europe, I never played Final Fantasy Tactics when it was initially released in 1997/1998 in Japan and North America, not for a lack of want, but for opportunity. Tactics never reached the shores of PAL regions until Square-Enix sought to bring the game to the PSP with 2007’s Final Fantasy Tactics: War Of The Lions. In the ten years that had passed, the new and improved version of Tactics came packed with widescreen support, multiplayer functionality, new cutscenes, and more. Now this 2025 remake falls in a more complicated realm. Due to the original source code being lost, The Ivalice Chronicles is a ground-up remake that includes many modern quality of life improvements, from voice-acting to improved and upscaled visuals, UI, difficulty modes, and more, and it’s worked out for the best; The Ivalice Chronicles is without doubt the definitive way to play Final Fantasy Tactics, and is now available to more players than ever before.
While it is easy to get swept up by the technical improvements, and content that has and has not made the jump to the Ivalice Chronicles from the original and War Of The Lions, if you’re looking for one clear reason to get into the game, regardless of your taste in gameplay, or your thoughts on the remaster itself, its the game’s story. Set only a handful of years following the conclusion of the ‘Fifty Years War’, unrest begins to settle in as the King passes away, and with his heir being only a baby, someone must step in to rule the realm. Still, as all fiction has taught us, seemingly everyone feels like they’re entitled to the role in some way, stirring up tensions, and eventually leading to yet another war, ‘The Lion War’, and our lead protagonist, Ramza, gets swept up in it, before going on to play a prominent role in shaping the outcome of the war. Despite being a two-sided conflict, the player is introduced to many heavily invested parties from all sides of the political spectrum, making the evolution of the conflict and the twists and turns depicted in the narrative all the more intriguing to consume.
Though the player needs to wade through significant amounts of dialogue, The Ivalice Chronicles now boasts voice acting, improving the investment that the player can now make in the stories of cast. It was fantastic hearing the likes of Joe Pitts, Greg Lowe, Emily Carey, and Ben Starr assume the roles of Ramza, Delita, Alma, and Dycedarg respectively, and there are countless other exceptional jobs performed by other actors to bring to life what was previously unspoken, dialogue. If you’re one to find it a bit tough to push through huge numbers of repeated text boxes, the voice-acting will be just what the doctor ordered.
Something that The Ivalice Chronicles includes, which for anyone who cannot be 100% swept up in the world for every second of the day (such as myself due to two young children who aren’t super responsive to “Daddy is having some unwind time”), will be incredibly valuable, is the ‘State Of The Realm’ feature. Similar to what Square-Enix included in 2023’s Final Fantasy XVI, The Ivalice Chronicles’ latest addition provides the players which encyclopedic knowledge of the world with much to wade through to learn of characters and their backgrounds, key world events, and more. Utilise this often, because a lot transpires in this world, and connections are often made to events that played out before the timeline of the game, making the information consumption much easier with this remake.
For as much as the story and the way it’s delivered are significantly improved, Tactical RPGs are defined by their combat. There’s a reason that we don’t see many games in this genre, and it’s honestly because they’re just so hard to balance correctly, but The Ivalice Chronicles executes on that job so exceptionally well. For the most part, what players can expect is the standard fare from the genre, with sprinklings of Final Fantasy laced atop it. The turn-based systems are here, the menu options open up with each character’s turn to make offensive, defensive, or even quite neutral moves to push the conflict forward. With The Ivalice Chronicles including fast-forward functionality, it is also more appealing to breeze through the moves of the opposition and relaunch your next round of maneuvers. The Ivalice Chronicles now allows you to suspend and save the game mid-encounter, and select from one of three difficulty modes, Knight (normal), or two additional levels, Squire (easy), and Tactician (hard), and from the games’ boot menu you can also opt to choose from the modern, enhanced version of the game, or play it exactly as was initially the case with the 1997 release.
While The Ivalice Chronicles is a ground-up remake, it doesn’t come with the enormous visual overhaul that you come to expect with such a title. The remake nature of it stems from necessity, but in the presentational realm, The Ivalice Chronicles looks more like a simple remaster. The visuals have been upscaled, and much like War Of The Lions, the game now supports widescreen display ratios, while the sound effects, coupled with the aforementioned voice-acting, make the experience even more immersive.
Though much of the original content included in War Of The Lions has been left behind as the team has focused primarily on reviving the original, PS1 version of the game, there’s still so much to enjoy about this vastly superior release. The tweaks to the dialogue to make the voice-acting flow better, leading to better narrative delivery, the gameplay is still as richly deep as always, and the visuals, while quaint and dated, still look uniquely Final Fantasy and Tactics. If you’re a returning fan or someone new to the genre looking to experience one of the genre’s greatest moments, then you’ll do well to pick this one up, a game now available to more players than ever before.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles was reviewed on PS5 with a code kindly provided by Square-Enix.
