FINAL FANTASY TACTICS THE IVALICE CHRONICLES

I was raised hearing the saying “patience is a virtue” constantly, from my childhood to the present.

- Words by Jose Alvarez

I first played Final Fantasy Tactics in 1997, and its port, The War of the Lions, to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in 2007. From that point on, I wanted a port to the PC. A lot of (non-)numbered Final Fantasy games had gotten this treatment. After all, many games outside of Nintendo-developed games are (or will be) no longer console-exclusive. Many years later, the NVIDIA leaks named Tactics as a game that would potentially get a remaster or remake. Video game journalist Jason Schreier also confirmed that it was in development in 2024. This made the question turn into when, rather than if, the game would ever come out. An entire childhood and some change later, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles would finally come to all current popular platforms. Would the wait be worth it, or would it be just another cash grab for the folks at Square Enix?

Investigating why it took so long for the game's remaster, it was much simpler than I had originally thought: the game's source code was lost, so this wasn't a refusal to remaster one of the best (if not the best) non-numbered Final Fantasy games. This isn't uncommon in the gaming industry, and fans keep the memory of games alive either through emulation or owning physical copies of the game. Thus, the game had to be rebuilt from scratch, which, like anything in life, has its pros and cons.

While the game stays intact for the most part, the