Final Fantasy Tactics Interview
Image: Push Square

Final Fantasy Tactics is widely regarded as one of the best strategy RPGs ever made, and with The Ivalice Chronicles now confirmed — an enhanced remaster of the PS1 classic — we wanted to find out more about this long overdue revival.

Fortunately, Square Enix gave us a chance to get in touch with three of the project's key staff members: Producer Shoichi Matsuzawa, original writer Yasumi Matsuno, and director Kazutoyo Maehiro.

Here are their responses to our quickfire questions...

Push Square: It's great to see Final Fantasy Tactics being revived after all this time. How long has Square Enix been thinking about bringing the series back, and why now?

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Shoichi Matsuzawa (Producer): It all started when I worked with Matsuno-san on Final Fantasy Tactics crossover content for Final Fantasy 14 called “Return to Ivalice”, and after that, it was Maehiro-san, the director for The Ivalice Chronicles who had the idea of resurrecting Final Fantasy Tactics.

However, at the time, members of the development team were working on Final Fantasy 16 and updates and expansions for Final Fantasy 14, and Matsuno-san had his hands full with Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Because of that, development work only started in earnest thereafter, which is why we are releasing the title at this time.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the original game, can you give us a brief overview of Tactics' themes and story?

Yasumi Matsuno (Original Script, Scenario Writer and Editor): Final Fantasy Tactics is set in the medieval kingdom of Ivalice during a conflict known as the War of the Lions. It explores themes of truth and lies, class and discrimination, and asks the question, "What is justice?". In doing so, it depicts another, lesser-known version of history.

The protagonist, Ramza, comes from noble heritage, but he is confronted with the contradictions of the society in which he lives, and breaking out of its confines, he sets out to pursue his own form of justice. At the same time, Ramza's childhood friend Delita rises through the ranks of society, and makes his own mark on history, as king.

Through these two contrasting characters — Delita, who was lauded as a hero, and Ramza, who faded into obscurity — the story questions the nature of justice and truth.

The Ivalice Chronicles includes both an enhanced version of Final Fantasy Tactics and the classic experience. How important for you was it keep the game playable in its original form?

Kazutoyo Maehiro (Director): We knew that there would be fans of the original who felt that it didn't need a lot of extra polish. It's a title that means a lot to them, so they don't want it to be ruined by heavy-handed developers but would just be happy for it to be playable on modern systems with quality-of-life upgrades.

No matter how faithfully a game gets remastered, the more you consider yourself a fan of the original, the more you will find to be unhappy about a newer version. I have felt this way about a number of the remastered titles that have been released in the past.

Because of this, we knew that it would be important for fans of the original Final Fantasy Tactics that we create a classic version of the game based on the original.

That being said, the original game is around 30 years old. We felt that if we kept things exactly as they were in the original game, then people would likely just boot up the game to feel the sense of nostalgia and then quit after a few minutes without actually playing it — we didn't want this.

We wanted fans of the original to actually play the game, and we wanted them to be able to play to their hearts' content on modern platforms, so we added many quality-of-life features, such as autosave, and fixed a lot of bugs, so that players would get the same feel as they did from the original game.

When making The Ivalice Chronicles, were there any particular parts of the original game that still impressed you, all these years later? Any gameplay mechanics or story beats, for example?

Matsuno: Final Fantasy Tactics is a title that enjoys a deep level of support from fans, even all these years since its release. The story touches on complex themes, such as class structure, political intrigue and religion, and it has been worked in such a way that the gameplay gradually reveals these themes to the player.

I think that even Ramza's portrayal as a figure who has been forgotten by history adds depth to the story. When the game was first released in 1997, many video game protagonists were still your stereotypical strong and powerful heroes. Yet we have Ramza, who perseveres through suffering to achieve his goals, but is ultimately struck from the history books — while this is tragic, I do think it leaves an impression.

As a tactical epic, it combines the job system from the Final Fantasy series with combat that is affected by height differences and direction, all of which enhances the satisfaction of planning out your battle strategy. I think that within the genre, it is a more well-rounded game than Tactics Ogre, if I were to say so myself.

Can you tell us about some of the main enhancements in The Ivalice Chronicles? Are there any specific additions or improvements that you're proud of?

Maehiro: When it comes to the story, we've added voice acting for all dialogue and made adjustments to the script accordingly.

We have made a number of UI updates to make the game more suitable for modern platforms and audiences, including a job tree to aid users in the fun of advancing their characters, and a feature equipment. We have also made enhancements to the Chronicle feature, which helps players to understand the story.

For combat, we have added a number of features that weren't in the original game, such as the ability to cancel movement, a combat timeline that shows players the character turn order at a glance, and we have also added a tactical view, which gives players an overview of what is going on within the map.

And on top of all of this, we've made so many improvements in the Enhanced version that I wouldn't be able to list them all here.

We've included a lot of additional features and improvements, but speaking honestly, there isn't one standout feature that I could say is better than the rest. By gathering all of these elements together and balancing them so beautifully, I think that we have created the ultimate solution for anybody wanting to play Final Fantasy Tactics in this day and age.

Huge thanks to Matsuzawa-san, Matsuno-san, and Maehiro-san for taking the time to answer our questions. Special thanks to Tom Goldberger and the team at Square Enix for making this interview possible.

Are you a big Final Fantasy Tactics fan? Are you happy to see the game being revived after all this time? Gather a small army and march into the comments section below.