Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) - MobyGames (2024)

Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) - MobyGames (1)

Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) - MobyGames (2)

aka: FFT

Moby ID: 4522

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Released
June 20, 1997 on PlayStation
Credits
100 people
Releases by Date (by platform)
  • 1997 (PlayStation)
  • 2009 (PlayStation 3)
  • 2009 (PSP)
  • 2012 (PS Vita)
Publishers
  • Square Co., Ltd.
  • Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
  • Square Enix Co., Ltd.
  • Square Enix, Inc.
  • Square Enix Co., Ltd.
Developers
  • Square Co., Ltd.
Moby Score

8.1

#1,688 of 25.4K
Critics
86% (25)
Players
(103)
Review Ranking
  • #42 on PlayStation
Collected By
366 players
Genre
Role-playing (RPG)
Strategy / tactics
Perspective
Diagonal-down
Visual
Isometric
Pacing
Turn-based
Gameplay
Tactical RPG
Setting
Fantasy

PlayStation Specs

ESRB Rating
Teen
Input Devices Supported/Optional
Gamepad
Number of Players Supported
1 Player
Number of Offline Players
1 Player
[ view all 11 specs ]

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Conversion (official)

  • Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (2007)

Special Edition

  • Final Fantasy Tactics (Square Millennium Collection) (2000)

Description official descriptions

Final Fantasy Tactics was a big move for the whole Final Fantasy franchise into different fields. Tactics combines traditional elements of the Final Fantasy series with a completely different game mechanics and battle system. It was the 1st game during the Final Fantasy 32-bit era using a 3D, isometric, rotatable playing field, with bitmap sprite characters and a turn based strategy system.

In the game you build up a team by recruiting many available characters you meet during your travels and stocking up plenty of items, to defeat various enemies waiting on your path. The game features a very complex character class(job) system where each character begins his way with a job such as Squire or Chemist. Successfully participating in battles, characters can later select one of more advanced jobs, with a total of 19 to choose from. In addition there are certain monsters and computer controlled "guests" with their own jobs and special abilities available to learn. In total, over 400 abilities are available which leads to nearly endless combinations.

Groups +

  • Console Generation Exclusives: PlayStation
  • Fantasy creatures: Dragons
  • Fantasy creatures: Goblins
  • Final Fantasy games
  • Final Fantasy Tactics series
  • Gameplay feature: Monster capture / training
  • Ivalice Alliance series
  • Ivalice universe
  • PlayStation Greatest Hits releases

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

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Credits (PlayStation version)

100 People (95 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Art Direction
  • Hiroshi Minagawa
Character Designed by
  • Akihiko Yoshida
Battle Maps
  • Hideo Minaba
Character Animation
  • Rumiyasu Sasaki
Visual Effects
  • Jiro Mifune
Battle Map Creators
  • Yuko Abini
  • Yuki Aguma
  • Akane Haruki
  • Nobuyuki Ikeda
  • Akiyoshi Masuda
  • Koji Matsuhita
  • Yuka Miyamoto
  • Toshiyuki Mogi
  • Tsutomu Mouri
  • Rena Sasaki
  • Sachiko Tanabe
  • Misako Tsutsui
  • Takahiro Yamashita
  • Takaharu Tanaka
Character Animators
  • Mieko Hoshino
  • Konomi Ishizuka
  • Kiyofumi Katō
  • Toshiaki Matsumoto
  • Eiichirō Nakatsu
  • Tsuyoshi Namiki
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 103 ratings with 5 reviews)

The love child of Final Fantasy and Shakespear's Macbeth

The Good
The storyline is original and full of surprises, if you feel like following it. Aside from that, all players will enjoy the ability to fully customize their party, unlike in other console strategy games like the Shining Force series. There is no shortage of sidequests, which is always an asset. In fact, about half the game can be played in sidequests, such as the recruitment of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and the exploration of the Deep Dungeon.

The Bad
Well, it doesn't look like anybody put much time into the translation. It's not as bad as that famous "all your base are belong to us" but some phrases don't exactly flow together and there are inconsistencies such names being spelled differently throughout the game and names of skills being different in various instances. Also, the final boss is WAY too easy. the hardest battle takes place about halfway through the game.

The Bottom Line
If you like RPGs, you'll like this game. If you like strategy, you'll like this game. If you like video games and Shakespear, you'll like this game. Not a perfect gem of a game, but certainly one to add to the collection.

PlayStation · by Sam Tinianow (113) · 2001

Impressive Strategy-Rpg Hybrid

The Good
Well-thought battle system and nuanced characters personality.The game's job system allows for a wide array of characters' advancement options which are mostly cool and fun to play.Fascinating plot that slowly unravels through many twists.Nicely drawn Super-Deformed graphics.

The Bad
Long, tedious, sometimes stilted and badly translated dialogue that really drag down the atmosphere and very interesting plot.Cryptic characters' "levelling" system and skills selection make for a steep learning curve, some of the skills are crap and some classes feel overpowered.The battles can sometime last very long and be very difficult, this leads to repeating key battles and backtracking a lot.Repetitive music score.

The Bottom Line
Addictive Strategy-Rpg Hybrid, hard to master but even harder to put down.

PlayStation · by Paolo Cumin (11) · 2005

This is an experiment done well. Really, really well.

The Good
This is what happens when a brilliant game designer gets the idea of taking all of the skills and job classes that's been developed throughout the Final Fantasy series and dumps them into a turn-based strategy game. With seven games of experience to draw from, Tactics achieves a rich ability system -- and that's just what they started with! Each job class is further fleshed out with as many applicable skills as you can think of, and if that's not enough, there are some twenty-plus special job classes used by important characters you could recruit throughout the game.

But while the sheer variability of the totally customizable abilities play a very large part in what you do, it never overtakes the game so much that story becomes secondary. In fact, the storyline drives the game, fuels the battles, and gives your character a very good reason to fight. This isn't your random-battle-for-the-sake-battling sort of strategy game. There's always a reason: you're trying to save someone, or someone's out to get you, and so on and so forth, so every battle is not just another level up but also an accomplishment, as if you've done something useful. And outside of the battle, the storyline presents a sordid tale of deceit and malice between all levels of people, so that there is no line between "good guy" and "bad guy," which can be a common plot fallacy. There are plenty of good people with misguided morals that get them in trouble, there are plenty of bad people who just look good and end up tricking you, and there are plenty of bad people who change their minds later on. Shoot, there's even a good guy who must appear bad to do good but in reality is bad -- it's complex, and that last statement only makes sense if I told you who that character was and what he was doing, which I don't really want to give away in this review. But that's precisely the point of the storyline, which thankfully stops short of really preaching anything: don't trust everything you see!

On top of all that, factor in some really beautiful graphics -- a very nice mix of 2D and 3D -- and a great soundtrack, and you're on your way to something magical.

The Bad
The story, while wonderful, is generally too convoluted for anyone playing through the first time to understand. While you could just play the game and ignore the story, that's just missing one of the best things about why you would play a game such as this one. The programmers do make an effort to help you out by logging major game events and allowing you to review cutscenes, but the game won't record every scene, which you will discover when you're trying to hunt for that crucial plotline only to find that it's been lost forever. And the shaky translation doesn't help matters too much, either.

The Bottom Line
It's challenging, fun, and different. Squaresoft put very little marketing behind this game, as opposed to many of their other Final Fantasy titles, but they failed to realize what a gem this is. Many gamers are now picking it up years later to get a taste. You should, too -- you won't be disappointed.

PlayStation · by SAGA_ (953) · 2006

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Final Fantasy Tactics appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Characters

None of the characters in the game have noses. Not even the main characters or the guest appearance from Cloud.

References

Cloud Strife and Aeris Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII make cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics. Cloud is a playable character; Aeris is a flowerseller in Zarghidas Trade City.

Re-release

The game was re-released as part of the Playstation "Greatest Hits" collection. Unfortunately, the first batch of CDs for the re-release were defective and would not work on the Playstation. Oddly enough, they worked fine on Playstation emulators for the PC, such as Bleem or Virtual Game Station.

Save games

The game counter for number of hours played on a saved game does not display above 99:59:59 (1 second away from 100 hours).

Spells

For some unknown reason, perhaps an error in translation, the Glacier Gun shoots Fire spells while the Blaze Gun shoots Ice spells.

Tactics Ogre (Spoiler!)

This game actually bears striking similarities to Tactics Ogre, another tactical RPG that was released for the Super Famicom (the Japanese equivalent of the Super Nintendo) two years before Final Fantasy Tactics was made. This is not surprising, as many members of the Tactics Ogre staff were also programmers of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Both games have a similar menu layout, consist of four chapters, and feature "Zodiac Stones" as a prominent part of their storyline. There's also quite a bit of similarity between the game's main characters, as Ramza, Delita, and Alma are more or less mirrored in personality and role as their Tactics Ogre counterparts. To top it off, in both games the final battle features the resurrection of a long-dead legendary hero (often mentioned in the course of the game) who turns out to actually be a demonic jerk.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • April 1999 (Issue 117) - Strategy Game of the Year
    • April 1999 (Issue 117) - Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • April 1999 (Issue 117) - Best Music
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #45 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll

Information also contributed byAlan Chan,atadota andWildKard

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • FF-Fan
    A fansite that offers all kinds of information on the entire Final Fantasy franchise, including walkthroughs, game media, discussion boards and fan art.
  • Final Fantasy Hacktics
    A modding community for the game, providing downloads of patches, tools and other resources (English)
  • Final Fantasy Online Strategy Guides
    Tips, tricks, walkthroughs, and just really useful information for Final Fantasy VII.
  • Wikipedia: Final Fantasy Tactics
    Information about Final Fantasy Tactics at Wikipedia

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 4522
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

PS Vita added by Fred VT. PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. PSP added by Alaka.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Shoddyan, SAGA_, Alaka, DreinIX, —-, Trypticon, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added July 15, 2001. Last modified October 13, 2024.

Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) - MobyGames (2024)

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