Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Strategy RPG
Release: October 9, 2007
Platforms: Playstation, Playstation Portable
Reviewer: Dan
A few weeks ago I decided to finally buy myself a PSP. I've been reading all of
the glowing reviews Eric was giving to the RPGs
coming out for Sony's handheld and the Bundles they were offering at my local
Gamestop were just too good to pass up. The first game I decided to get for this
underrated system was Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. Eric said he
was enjoying it and I did put a lot of hours into the Gameboy Advance version, so
I made this my first choice. However, I think it was a mistake for me to make this
my first PSP choice because I'm now prone to staying up waaaaay too late and spending
looooong hours playing this game.
If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics for the original Playstation then you
already know what this game is about. This version of FFT is basically a port of
the original PSone game that came out nearly a decade ago, with the nice feature of
not requiring a fixed location to play, which comes in real handy because you're
going to find as many ways as possible to find time for this game. I never played
the original PSone version, but from what I've heard, there have been some names of
people and places changed from the original, but the great story remains behind.
The cutscenes are also different, taking advantage of some nice cell-shaded animation.
Other than those changes, the gameplay hasn't been changed too much.
I need to warn you about the addiction you will have in leveling up in this game.
It is possibly more addictive than crack...and herioin...combined. During the first
"chapter" of the game, I probably spend a good 15 hours just leveling up my characters.
The reasons behind this are twofold. First, like (almost) all RPGs, you just want to
have characters with generally better stats so it makes the game easier down the road.
The other reason I level so much is the JP or Job Points. There are a crazy amount of
different jobs your characters can assume, each with their own abilites, strengths, and
weaknesses. Not to mention that jobs also have levels, which by increasing them, you
unlock even more jobs your characters can assume.
The combat system in this game is very good. Like it's title suggests, this is a
tactics game, in which battles take place on a grid. The thing that I thougth was a
really good idea was how the enemies in random encounters were done. They all basically
keep pace with your characters, meaning they're at about the same level as your
characters no matter where you encounter them. This is probably the biggest reason
random encounters are not boring in this game. They always remain somewhat challenging
and the higher level creatures means that your characters will continue to gain a
decent amount of experience points with each battle. Also, for the truly lazy RPG
player, there are AI controls you can set during battles. You can set each character
to be attackers, defenders, healers, or cowards. The AI that goes into your characters
is actually pretty darn good and will adapt to the changing conditions of the battle
very well.
Final Verdict
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is a great release for the PSP and nearly
justifies the purchase of the Sony handheld by itself. As I've said before, if you
played FFT for the PSone, then you know what this game is all about, except now it's
portable, so you can play it when watching bad
movies or when you're yobbing.
It makes me glad I'm now the owner of a PSP. 10 out of 10.
