I first fell in love with strategy RPGs when I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on the Game Boy Advance. That tactical, grid-based battle system, the pause and planning, the sense of each move having weight, it awakened something in me. After polishing off that game, I felt the pull to go backward, to the origin. I tracked down the original Final Fantasy Tactics on PlayStation 1, and immediately I understood how amazing the genre could go. Ever since, I’ve followed its evolution eagerly, watching games like Triangle Strategy or Persona 5 Tactica take the concept in new directions. So when Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles landed, I knew I had to dive in and re-experience the adventure with its modern updates.
The Ivalice Chronicles is a full remaster of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, built around the War of the Lions translation as its foundation, but enhanced in many ways to modernise the experience. You get updated visuals, a smoother UI, new voice acting across the board, a speed-up option for battles, animated portraits in dialogue, and more. At the same time, for purists, there is a Classic Mode which sticks closely to the original (it uses the War of the Lions script, without the new quality-of-life additions) so you can experience it almost as it was back in the PS1 era.
From the outset, the world of Ivalice seems medieval in a fairy-tale way. Courts, rival dukes, knights, castles, but as you dig deeper, it becomes apparent how much darker the story is. You follow Ramza Beoulve, a noble-turned-mercenary, as he becomes entangled in the political and theological schemes of Ivalice’s ruling Church, the Kingdom’s factions, and an older, mystical threat emergent from beyond. Loyalty, betrayal, class conflict, corruption, these aren’t shallow tropes, but thematic threads that run throughout the entire narrative.
One strength of this remaster is that the script has been reworked, the team started with the War of the Lions translation, but then cleaned up awkward phrasing, improved clarity, clarified certain plot threads, and also gave some characters dialogue for the very first time. The changes feel respectful, I rarely felt like characters lost their intent, but the added polish reduces some confusion in later chapters. The story’s emotional weight is better delivered, partly thanks to the newly voiced performances too.
The cast is fantastic. Ramza’s internal struggles, Delita’s ambition, Ovelia’s plight, Agrias’s convictions, they’re characters that, in lesser hands, might slip into archetypes, but here feel real. Combine them with a combat system that demands you give them meaning, and the narrative and gameplay reinforce each other. You don’t just watch the story you earn it.
Combat in Tactics runs in discrete rounds, turn-by-turn, but layered with nuance. Each unit has movement range, attack range, skills, elements, status vulnerabilities, and terrain effects to consider. A battle proceeds with you choosing where to deploy your units, then by looking at the order timeline, you can see which unit’s turn is coming up, which allows planning ahead. Then for each player turn you’ll have the ability to alternate moves, use an attack action or skill, pick a target and then watch the turn play out. Then the enemies take their turn, so on, so forth. Tactical positioning matters. Heights, obstacles, chokepoints, and cover influence whether an attack hits, whether evasion is possible, or how a spell’s area works. And then the battle ends when all enemies are defeated, when a win condition is met or of course if your units fall in battle.
What I especially loved is how varied the maps are. Some maps are cramped and force you to fight in corridors, others are wide open fields with elevations, wind, or map hazards like breakable terrain. Those map differences push you to experiment, and each battle has a number of ways you can tackle it. Over time, I noticed I’d approach each battle differently depending on map layout, which made the system feel fresh even 20–30 hours in.
And the flow can be brisk. Enemies don’t take forever, movements feel snappy (especially if you’re using the speed-up toggle), and losing a unit is painful enough that every choice feels meaningful without feeling tedious.
One of Tactics’ greatest strengths, and a core reason I stuck with the genre, is its job(class) system. Every unit is uniquely defined by how you assign them roles: Knight, Archer, White Mage, Time Mage, Summoner, Geomancer, and many more. Each job has its own set of skills, stat growth tendencies, equipment limits, and synergies. Over time, as jobs unlock secondary and mastery skills, you can mix and match in ways that let you come up with some incredibly creative builds and create some really powerful units.
Because of that, no two playthroughs are the same. For some battles I chose to focus on creating a heavily defensive core utilising primarily tanky classes, backed up by some casters from a distance. While in others, I experimented with a faster, more risky group, constructed of mages, samurai and ninja units. That freedom is addictive. Each time I opened the menu to move skills, I’d think, “What if I put this skill here instead?” That kind of curiosity keeps me going back, especially if you want to challenge yourself on harder difficulties or complete side content.
One of the flashier new features in The Ivalice Chronicles is the fully voiced dialogue, both in English and Japanese, something that Tactics has never had before in its full form. The cast includes professionals who’ve worked on big games and anime, and in general their performances breathe extra life into scenes. Even dialogue-heavy moments, which in the original could feel dry if you slogged through text, now carry additional emotional weight thanks to inflection, tone shifts, pauses. It helped me care more about conversations that I might previously have skimmed.
That said, not every line lands 100%. In a few instances, delivery feels slightly stilted, mismatched to the emotional tone, or just off for certain minor characters. Occasionally, there’s a mismatch between the cadence of voice and the text (which can be noticeable in cutscenes with lengthy lines). But these are small quibbles in what feels like a net positive, adding voice to Tactics is a bold move, and for the most part it really pays off.
Some of the modern additions here genuinely elevate the experience, particularly for new players. The speed-up mechanic lets you speed through the turns of enemies or NPC-controlled units. It doesn’t trivialise things, but it helps cut down waiting time, especially in maps where the enemy takes many small moves. I used it liberally during grinding or side content. The game has been upscaled, cleaned, sharpened. Character sprites, background tilesets, and effects look better than ever. Dialogue boxes now feature animated portraits, giving characters visual expressions during conversations. It adds subtle life to scenes that were previously static. All of these are optional. If you want the pure experience, Classic mode disables the enhancements and delivers something close to the core War of the Lions experience, a thoughtful nod to long-time fans.
The music in Final Fantasy Tactics has always been phenomenal. Composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto with Masaharu Iwata, the score is dramatic, haunting, emotional, and heroic. Full of themes that get stuck in your head long after you close the game. In Chronicles, the soundtrack returns in full fidelity. Hearing that opening track again, in clean high quality, alongside climatic battle themes, ambient town melodies, and emotional character tracks it’s a joy. The soundtrack for the game is still one of my main listens in my music playlists and contains some of the Final Fantasy series’ best tracks from the whole franchise. It’s proof that good design is timeless, even though technology has advanced, the music still resonates. It still gives you goosebumps in the right moment.
Playing The Ivalice Chronicles now, I’m struck by how little the foundational design needed changing. The narrative, the world, the job system, they’re still compelling and functional decades later. What this remaster does well is polish the edges, make things smoother, more approachable, more vibrant without replacing the core. The fact that I can choose between Classic and Enhanced modes speaks to the respect the developers had for what came before.
It shows that Tactics isn’t just a relic, it’s a living design that inspired countless games since, and still holds up. Every moment I spent on the battlefield, every beat in the story, reminded me why I fell head over heels for this genre in the first place.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is not just a remaster, it’s a celebration of a classic, given the polish and accessibility it always deserved. For someone like me, who fell in love with tactics games through Advance and traced the lineage back to the PS1 original, The Ivalice Chronicles is a dream realised.
Yes, a few voice lines don’t land perfectly, but that’s a small blemish on an otherwise stellar package. The heart of Tactics, its story, its strategic combat, its customisation, its music, is intact and even more vibrant.
If you’re new to Tactics, this is the version to play. And if you’re a veteran, it’s a chance to revisit Ivalice in a form that respects what you loved while adding touches that make it easier and more engaging to experience again. I’ll certainly be coming back for more runs. The Ivalice Chronicles stands as a testament to how far a great design can carry you, and how a respectful remake can rekindle the magic all over again.
A Nintendo Switch 2 review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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9
- + Amazing grid based combat
- + Wide range of character builds and job classes
- + A deep, mature and engaging story
- + Fantastic musical score
