Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Aims to Remake a True Classic

By Moises Taveras | September 5, 2025 | 10:30am

Video Games Features final fantasy tactics

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Aims to Remake a True Classic

I’ve been here before. I’ve chased Delita and Ovelia to Zeirchele Falls before. I’ve pursued them only to be foiled and eventually betrayed by Gaffgarion before. I’ve formed a temporary alliance with Delita and laid waste to the traitor, as well as the foot soldiers of the Order of the North Sky, before. I’ve sniped soldiers from across the river bank with help from my eagle-eyed archer before, and I’ve certainly laid waste to a man or two with a well-placed Thunder, compliments of our party’s Black Mage. I’ve cut Gaffgarion down and revealed a plot greater than Ramza could’ve imagined at the outset of his journey.

I’ve been through all these motions before, but it does feel damn good to be back and doing it again in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. The quickly approaching remake of the beloved tactical RPG, which is due out on practically every console and game system on September 30, is likely what longtime fans of the classic have wanted for a while now.

Final Fantasy Tactics is getting up there in years—in conversations with other critics during a recent preview, we realized I predated its Japanese release by about a month—and though it doesn’t necessarily need a tune up, it’s getting one that gives it a modern shine. The remastered version of the game has squeaky-clean visuals, new gameplay features like a battle timeline, additions to the script, and a fully voice-acted cast, which all help it feel as fresh as ever. For those opposed to any of these additions, Ivalice Chronicles also boasts a classic version of Final Fantasy Tactics that attempts to adhere to the original PS1 release as closely as possible despite the trouble that the developers had reconstructing much of its lost code.

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Despite the clear strides Ivalice Chronicles takes to update the source material for a new audience, Final Fantasy Tactics’ heart still very much shines through this done-up remake. My preview session was heavier on the newest version of the game than the original–comprising the opening levels and two separate runs at the Zeirchele Falls fight–but it never felt lacking or soulless, as other remakes have. Perhaps it’s because at the end of the day, the team behind Ivalice Chronicles is being co-led led by Kazutoyo Maehiro, who worked on Final Fantasy Tactics as a fresh-faced designer who, in his own words, didn’t know “left [from] right.” Fortunately Maehiro seems to recognize how to build atop its already-winning foundation and preserve what is so beloved about the game rather than try to recreate it.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles

For example, Ivalice Chronicles almost did boast the HD-2D treatment that other games and properties under Square Enix, like Octopath Traveler and the Dragon Quest remakes, enjoy. In my conversation with Maehiro, he revealed that the team considered it, but said, “When I thought about this project, from the perspective of really wanting to rebirth the original game, what came to mind was the charming, pixelated artwork of the original, as well as the isometric map,” likening its aesthetic to that of a storybook and seemingly confirming the sacrosanct status of some of its tenets.

My conversation with Maehiro was littered with asides like this. On one hand, he constantly showed a deference to the original text above almost anything else. He and Square Enix want Ivalice Chronicles to be as big for oldheads as it is for newcomers to tactical RPGs and the Final Fantasy franchise. On the other hand, he also communicated how much he and his team understood the precision they needed to update Tactics without making the remake feel alien or lazy.

At one point, Maehiro honed in on the interface and UI of the game, a part of the video game experience that goes largely unremarked upon by most audiences and critics, and highlighted it as a prime example of the team’s attempts to fine tune rather than rewrite. He also brought up the State of the Realm menu, which is a new addition to Ivalice Chronicles that summarizes the game’s plot and backstory from a birds-eye view, similar to a feature introduced in the most recent mainline installment of the series, Final Fantasy XVI.

And while the team isn’t playing fast and loose with the story or much of the writing that players remember—the remake script is adapted from the War of the Lions—the team behind Ivalice Chronicles is looking forward to fleshing things out where it makes sense. Maehiro mentioned how Final Fantasy Tactics‘ original director Yatsumi Matsuno had a hand in many aspects of Ivalice Chronicles‘ story, such as expanded interactions between characters, refining the script for a voice cast, and leading the casting process for the remake.The move makes sense, since Matsuno served as the original game’s scenario writer and director and seemed best equipped for the job.

For what it’s worth, I couldn’t help quipping at times that the characters sounded exactly like I pictured them, though I did find that fully voiced scenes between turns dragged the action out a bit. Thankfully, Ivalice Chronicles features a fast-forward function among its many quality-of-life additions to ameliorate things. As an aside, I found it quite funny to hear the way in which Gaffgarion announces his signature move, Shadowblade, in the tutorial before his betrayal. Had I heard that specific read of it the first time I played the game, I could’ve easily identified him as a traitor.

The best thing I could possibly say about Ivalice Chronicles is that it seems well-intentioned. Matsuno’s initial statement around the remake’s announcement made specific mention of Tactics’ criticism of inequality, a theme as relevant and resonant today as ever. And as Maehiro has expressed already, the project’s impetus is rooted in his own retread of the original game, and a desire to make this tale of revolution readily available to others. He also hasn’t been too coy about Ivalice Chronicles opening up future possibilities for Tactics and its setting, telling me at one point that the success of the game could prove there’s an appetite for TRPGs and pave the way for the team to “be able to do something new with the world of Ivalice.”

At first blush, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles has everything working for it: a storied legacy, a veteran team, and an excellent game to start. Its modern flourishes are bound to bring in a new audience, but its vintage heart and soul seem intact enough to properly honor and pay respect to the original while bringing Tactics to an even greater number of players. Soon enough, we’ll know whether or not its mix of modern and classic sensibilities is enough to once again inspire another generation of tactics sickos.

Moises Taveras is a struggling games journalist whose greatest aspiration in life at this point is to play as the cow in Mario Kart World. You can periodically find him spouting nonsense and bad jokes on Bluesky.