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Final Fantasy tactics
Crazy One-Shot #6
Type of Game
The best feature in the entire Final Fantasy saga, exploited to the full in an entire game, because it's so cool. Yes, I’m talking about jobs.
Release date on our machines
January 1998 in the USA, the most affordable version for us poor Europeans.
Developer
Square Co., Ltd. riding high, releasing blockbusters every 10 minutes.
Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Well, alright, I've got nothing to say.
Final Fantasy Tactics: unavailable anywhere in its original version. The release of the remake, The Ivalice Chronicles, has replaced the old one everywhere! But go ahead, it's worth it.
One day, while we were hanging out in Leyland Lampion's room, Randall Geyser grabbed the PlayStation, fiddled with it, and assured us that he would show us a crazy game imported from America. For a few years, this guy set himself up as a sort of dealer in pirated PlayStation games, preferably ones that weren't available on the European market. It all came from his sister's boyfriend, if I remember correctly. A really nice guy, but even more of a cliché than the slightly (very) antisocial geeky hackers we saw in crime series in the 90s and 2000s. We needed Action Replay to make the thing work, that semi-illegal gadget that allowed us to play with burned CDs, cheat at just about anything, and much more. That and leaving the console cover open, with a LEGO head to fool the mechanism, so we could still play the discs. Hence Randall's tinkering. DIY like they don't do anymore, which is probably a very good thing, but which will also allow me to act like a grumpy old man one day, with phrases like ‘In my day, we tortured our PlayStations with [...], not like the young people of today who [...]’. Oh, I'm being told I'm already doing that, well, sorry. Anyway, the manipulation worked and the intro cutscene started. Riders were riding chocobos, those big chickens I had already encountered in Final Fantasy VII. Everyone looked both angry and very cute, but Randall, in complete ecstasy, convinced me to wait a little longer before making up my mind.
Final and fanciful tactic
Then I saw him doting on his little group of pixel art characters, and I succumbed just like him, just to show off my independent personality and how I'm not easily influenced. I fell in love with the graphics a little, and the gameplay a lot, which seemed to me to be one of the best inventions ever imagined. It was nothing like the other Final Fantasy games I knew, VII and VIII. And I thought it was great. So, did I bother to embark on the adventure myself? No, not at all, absolutely not. Damn, I could kick myself when I think back on it. But why, why, when I loved absolutely everything about this game, when I even had the right to take it home for an indefinite period of time once Randall had finished it, did I cowardly abandon it, knowing full well that I would be missing out on one of the best gaming experiences of my life? And the excuse of ‘yeah, but I already had too many games in the pipeline’ doesn’t fool anyone, okay? You can always find the time by cutting back on sport, sleep, brushing your teeth... Right, self-slap on my face.
Fair and Square (Co. Ltd.)
The folks at Square may have thought they were Midas, turning everything they developed into gold, but I wonder what they were thinking when they released a new game four months after FFVII. I mean, this game already blew everyone away, so give us a break before you hit us with another crazy killer! No one had even recovered from the shock and here comes a new iteration of the franchise. What difference does it make to little French kids who never saw a glimpse of this title before its re-release on PSP in 2007? None, I'm just pretending to be cultured. For Americans and Japanese, it made a difference, in any case. At least they didn't have to remake an RPG in the purest sense of the word, but a tactical one. I'll talk about that later, I don't feel like it right now. I can still say that everyone who was able to get their hands on it loved it. Those who didn't like it aren't taken into account in the analysis, because who cares? First of all, the thrilling story grabs us by the gut through an outside character.
I didn't follow any of it, either at the time or now, but I believe the people who talked about it and seem to agree with each other. The narrative is told from the perspective of a historian who recounts the facts, drawing on his memories and research. I think that's really cool. I also think it's really cool that the storyline deals with very real social issues, such as the role of religion, the privileges associated with wealth, and surely other things that I didn't pick up on when skimming through the game's playthroughs. But hey, I trust the reviews I've read: the story is awesome, period. And you know what I find even cooler than all that? The world we're in, Ivalice, also serves as the background for Vagrant Story. Too good. Apparently, you can also play as Cloud and say hello to Aeris in her flower shop. But did I mention that I don't care about FFVII?
Replace them with Squall and Linoa from FFVIII, and I'll bow down and roll on the doormat. Although I still don't really want to talk about the tactical genre, I'll have to get down to it to cover up my shortcomings as best I can. Basically, you get rid of the exploration and adventure aspects usually found in role-playing games and focus on turn-based combat, with a whole bunch of additional parameters to take into account. This mode of operation is also found in Legend of Kartia. Not that it's the benchmark for the genre, I just wanted to mention a game I'm familiar with. For once. FF Tactics allows you to take up to five characters into battle together, drawing from a pool of up to sixteen fighters. Each of them, as well as enemies, creatures, monsters, etc., is assigned a zodiac sign.
You don’t see that in english, but in french, my phone auto-correct mode, obviously far right oriented, changed an inclusive equivalent of “them” to “Uematsu”. I swear that’s true ! Anyway, depending on this zodiac sign and their gender (male or female, we're still binary in the nineties), they cause more or less damage to others (depending on their sign too, of course, but not their gender, thankfully). To this analysis, we must add the nature of the terrain and its elevation so as not to be caught off guard. You equip your companions in the traditional way with weapons, capes and armour to give them better health, attack and defence stats... basic stuff, but well done. No doubt optimisation fanatics must have torn their hair out trying to find the most effective teams. Watch out, it's getting exciting. On top of all that, there are jobs (a feature introduced in Final Fantasy III, I believe). Each fighter can be assigned a job (like a class, but a bit cooler).
Every action taken, every blow struck, every spell cast in battle earns ‘Job Points’, which unlock abilities related to the character's current job. I said current, because these clever characters can change jobs at will to specialise in other things, while retaining the skills they learned from their previous job! There are even advanced jobs, which require a minimum level of mastery in several others to become available! In total, there are around twenty different jobs, plus a good dozen that are exclusive to specific characters linked to the story. All of this gives us access 400 skills in total, offering almost infinite possibilities for synergies between different passives and buffs. You could spend hours fine-tuning your teams before each battle. Battles that you then win in two minutes. But that's just it! You HAVE to struggle to navigate the menus and spend more time thinking than playing, otherwise you won't understand tactical games.
In fact, I dream of a game where the only gameplay involves agonising over menus and nothing else. Pampering our army, preparing our squad down to the last detail, and resolving the fight with a single click. There must be a few madmen out there who have developed something like that. Beyond basic stats such as armour, health points, strength... and astrological signs, people are also being judged on their bravery and faith. As I write these words, I learn that men possess greater bravery than women. That's just how it is. Is this going to start a crusade on Bluesky, or what? I'm in ! Bravery allows you to strike harder with certain weapons, increase your defensive reflexes, and find treasure more easily through a specific skill. The same goes for faith, but with a focus on magic. And women don't have higher (or rather lower) faith than men to balance things out, what did you expect?
I'll skip the explanations on how to raise or lower these two indicators, as this modest, approximate article risks turning into a chaotic encyclopaedia thesaurus. How can you write something clear and concise without actually having played the game? Not by doing what I'm doing, anyway. Just know that characters with very low bravery or very high faith will flee from combat, or even flee from the game entirely. Easy, the PlayStation cap is wide open (VERY bad joke). Developers don't seem to like it when we believe in God (and they don't like cowards either). In fact, one of the skills used to decrease faith is called ‘Enlighten’, as in educating, shedding light on things. Haha! Come on, another crusade to wage; but this one, I'm not getting involved in.
The entire progression system is so enjoyable that a method of exploiting the game has emerged to improve troops as quickly as possible: during battle, just group them together in a corner of the map and make them cast as many useless spells as possible, or even attack each other before healing themselves, because all of this yields experience points! The scene unfolds before the astonished eyes of the enemy creatures, who won't come into contact for another eight or nine turns. That's the kind of absurdity you end up with when you design such a gem of a gameplay! Ladies and gentlemen who develop video games, take note and scale back your skills, thank you. Ah, I'm told that this trend towards mediocrity has already been well established for quite a few years. OK then, that's fine, my dear little nineties can sleep easy.
Final Fantasy Classics
Apart from the attempt to censor inclusive writing mentioned above, no Nobuo Uematsu there! WHAT??? But stick around, because composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, whom I should really get to know better, is not easily forgotten. He had already worked on quite a few projects before this one (Gauntlet IV, Ogre Battle, a benchmark in tactical games, well well), and his career continued well after that (Vagrant Story, Odin's Sphere, Muramasa: The Demon Blade), right up to the present day. In collaboration with Masaharu Iwata (who has an even more impressive CV), he delivers a soundtrack in the purest old console JRPG style, with all the good vibes and musty smells that entails. At times, it feels like you're playing on the Super NES, which is one of the best compliments I can give. But lol, who am I to say, after all. Clearly, this kind of sound could often be used in any other video game of a similar style, and no one would bat an eyelid. So what? It's still awesome. I'll argue against my own reasoning if I feel like it. It sounds good, but it lacks a bit of identity, yet at the same time you immediately recognise the role-playing game, except that if it had a little more charm, you'd get a little more attached to it. No, but we couldn't get so attached to it if... Another slap in the face, but I'm feeling better now. Just one small detail I'd like to point out: I haven't found any amazing compositions that capture our walks in the forest, and that... THAT! That's almost a red flag. So yes, okay, no exploration, so no forest. And what... well, nothing. So, in a broad admission of defeat, I find myself choosing a battle anthem.
Final Fantasy Tactics (PlayStation) - Decisive Battle
00:00 / 02:23
Final Fant-Lazy
As for certain games, researching and writing this kind of text reassures me a little. I manage to convince myself that, well, if I missed out on it, it's no big deal, even if I pretend to whine and regret it to add a couple more lines of text. As for FF Tactics, having looked down on it in 1999 really pisses me off! Tactical RPGs could have become my favourite genre! The one that fascinates me day and night, the one I would have wallowed in without any consideration for real life. But my legendary laziness, which can make me forget my toothbrush in the middle of a staircase as easily as it can distract me from video game masterpieces, decided otherwise.
Seriously! That's why my gaming culture remains at rock bottom. My culture in general, in fact. Even the way I manage my life. There, I'm saying it: if I had played FF Tactics, I would have become a much better person in every way. I would have had a great professional career, saved millions of animals, and wiped the far right off the face of the planet. Yeah! But it's not my fault that none of these happy events happened, it's my laziness's fault. Incidentally, I would have loved the character specialisation, tweaked with the utmost attention to details. But only incidentally. Not to mention the heated discussions with Randall that it would have sparked; he was just waiting for that, for us to talk about the power of the mages of time, and all he got from me was semi-indifference on the subject. That's one more entry on my list of things that would have made my already awesome childhood an ultra-stylish, mind-blowing childhood. Ultra-high priority, S-tier and all that.
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