Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles will make the PS1 classic playable on modern hardware in September for the first time since the PlayStation 3 generation over a decade ago. Why did it take so long for Square Enix to bring back the beloved strategy spin-off? It might have had something to do with missing source code.
“There were a number of major challenges, but all of them stemmed from the fact that the master data and source code from the original game no longer existed,” the remaster’s director, Kazutoyo Maehiro, said in a newly published interview. The writer behind Final Fantasy XVI decided to push forward with bringing back Final Fantasy Tactics after replaying it 2018 on a livestream for the first time since it released in 1997.
A lack of rigorous documentation procedures at the time made it hard, however. Back in the PS1 days, games were made quickly and once they shipped the company moved on. The Japanese version might be completely overwritten in English for the international release. As a result, the current Square Enix team had to cobble together the new enhanced The Ivalice Chronicles version through “sheer force.”
“We analyzed a number of existing versions of the game and reconstructed the programming of the original, but there were also times where we played the original game and worked it out by feel alone,” Maehiro said. The entire process was the result of cumulative hard work—on the one hand working to implement new features, while behind the scenes our work was similar to porting an old arcade game to the NES.”
The Ivalice Chronicles includes updated graphics (read: HD smoothing), voice acting, a re-edited script, and quality-of-life features like fast-forward and save anywhere. The original version of the game is also playable. But this isn’t the first time Square Enix has ported Final Fantasy Tactics. The War of the Lions version was released for PlayStation Portable in 2007, alongside a Shakespeare-ified script, some additional cutscenes, new job classes, and a wireless multiplayer mode. Surprisingly, none of that new content will be in The Ivalice Chronicles.
“We did of course consider the addition of new jobs, abilities, and characters—including the jobs featured in War of the Lions,” Maehiro said. “However, the original version of Final Fantasy Tactics is a very complete game both from a game design and story perspective. If we were to make major changes, it would only be a loss for not only fans of the original game, but also those new to the title.”
The director notes that the War of the Lions port was handled by a different team than the original game, and he suggests that having gotten some of the original game’s veterans back together—including original writer and director Yasumi Matsuno—the team wanted to stay as close to the original as possible. In an interview with Famitsu, there’s also a mention of how poorly optimized the PSP version was, with audio bugs and frame rate crashes. While I can respect that, it also feels like a huge missed opportunity to expand on one of the best tactical RPG sandboxes in the genre.
That could have meant adding new jobs for players to explore or new modes. Online multiplayer, a roguelite mode, or some other end-game content feels like an obvious addition to one of the best games ever made. Fortunately, it does sound like three new difficulty options in The Ivalice Chronicles will rebalance some of the gameplay. Once you’ve mastered Final Fantasy Tactics’ job system, it can make even its toughest battles feel trivially easy. A new tactical mode will add a new level of challenge, while some abilities that were useless in the original, like archer charging attacks, have been fixed in the standard difficulty. Another neat addition? Players will encounter the Final Fantasy VII sidequest to recruit Cloud much earlier this time around.
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