Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is Square-Enix’s new release in the Final Fantasy Tactics series, and has been branded as part of the new ‘Ivalice Alliance’ franchise (Ivalice being the place that the Tactics series and Final Fantasy XII take place). The game is only available on the PSP, having been released in parallel with the Nintendo DS's release, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2. The game has a rating of 12+.

The game follows the story of Ramza, the youngest of four siblings born into the Beoulve family, a family which holds a lot of power and controls the famed knightly order, the Order of the Northern Sky. The game starts during the aftermath of the Fifty Years War, when the land has yet to settle back down again. Hardly any time passed, when the land was split by conflict again, with the outbreak of the War of the Lions, one faction fighting for the supremacy of the crown, the other against. Ramza quickly learns that his eldest brother isn’t being quite as honourable as he could be in his methods, or his goals. He ends up turning his back on his household when he discovers this, and finds himself hunted by members of both factions, as well as members of various other denominations. The story then follows Ramza’s path through the war, trying to find the truth and also to end the war, despite treachery, deceit, and many people fighting to block his path.

First things first, I said that the game was a new release; however, it isn’t actually a new game. It is actually an updated version of the original Final Fantasy Tactics that was released for the PSone. A number of changes have been made to the game, such as a much better English translation, two extra hidden characters, cel-shaded cut scenes, numerous game balance changes and so on. Full lists of changes are available on the internet if you’re particularly interested, but I won’t carry on with them here (not least because I haven’t actually played the original game).

Now, onto actual gameplay. If you haven’t played a Final Fantasy Tactics game before, you may be wondering how one of these is different to a regular Final Fantasy game. Indeed, some aspects are very similar, for example that the game revolves around a main plotline, with a few optional extras, that you control the characters actions by use of a menu, the stat system and equipment system and so on. The class system used is similar to that of the earlier Final Fantasies, there are a range of jobs to choose from, special characters generally get a character specific job (which always replaces the basic job, squire) and the two genders each get one gender specific job (namely bard and dancer). You buy equipment from shops, get ‘Errands’ from taverns, and so on, as per usual. However, the map system and the battle system work quite differently. Travelling the map is simply a case of selecting where you want to go, and then Ramza will walk along the various paths on screen to the place you have selected. Places on the map are coloured, blue for towns, cities, outposts etc, and orange for everywhere else. On any of the orange places, you can enter a random battle with a group of enemies, much like the random battles in most FF games. However, battles in Tactics tend to involves more people than other Final Fantasies, and are very different. Battles in Tactics take place in generally large places, which have a wide variety of terrain. All units have set move distances that they can move during their turn, and a height that they can jump. All abilities have ranges, melee attacks and so on requiring (generally) the units involved being adjacent to each other, whereas a bow can fire at a target a number of squares away. This means that weaker characters like archers and mages can hide at the back of your group out of the way, whilst the melee characters can keep the enemies away. This makes battles more tactical than normal Final Fantasy games, hence the name.

The game’s tone is a lot more serious than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance’s was, and the character’s speech is all done in an old fashioned style of English, similar to that from Final Fantasy XII. I personally feel that this creates a deeper storyline than the former game, and means that the characters and events are more believable (even if the events in the storyline aren’t exactly things you’d find going on normally). The gameplay is good, although if you’re trying to gain lots of experience by just entering lots of random battles repeatedly, it can get a little repetitive, until the game pits against a bunch of enemies that can cause all kinds of silly status ailments and destroys your party with ease. The game is rather unforgiving in this respect; if one of your party members (or in fact, if any unit) is KO’d, then if they aren’t revived within 3 of their turns then they die forever, turning into a treasure chest or crystal upon their death. Losing a character you’ve spent a long time training up is greatly annoying, even more if you forgot to save anytime recently. This isn’t helped by the fact that white magic spells don’t always hit, unlike normally, meaning that the Arise that you’ve just spent a turn charging may miss the KO’d character, which will then die forever before you get to try again. Which is rather annoying. Definitely makes the game more of a challenge though.

Overall, the game can be rather tough at times, but there’s a definite sense of triumph when you beat some of the harder battles. The storyline is strong, the characters are well written (apart from some of the main ones seeming to phase out somewhat in terms of importance at times) and the game play is good. I’d recommend this game to people who’ve played other Tactics games and want more, people who’ve played Final Fantasy and what to try something a little different, or people who like fantasy but prefer more tactical battles to the battles of normal Final Fantasy games