Final Fantasy VIII? Who cares?! Gimmie d’at Final Fantasy Tactics on Switch!

Final Fantasy Tactics is a video game that can be enjoyed on multiple levels, and many of these levels depend entirely on the player’s imagination.

Of course, as with all RPGs, the game features a story mode, and this is where most people play and enjoy the game. Final Fantasy Tactics’ story, written by mastermind Yasumi Matsuno, doesn’t pull inspiration from earlier video games or lift trends from the latest anime that the kids watch. Matsuno’s games always turn to a far superior place to pull inspiration from: history. Whether its the Balkan Wars for Tactics Ogre or, in Final Fantasy Tactics’ case, War of the Roses, Matsuno’s games capture humanity during some of its darkest times and show that heroes exist behind the scenes of conflict, often times never remembered for their deeds.

In Final Fantasy Tactics’ world, the people remember a high king by the name of Delita Hyral, a true folk hero come to life. Born as a commoner and a stable boy of a noble family, he rose through the ranks of the military, abandoned the soldier’s life to become a high ranking member of the church, pushed his way into politics and royalty, and then smote them all down by appealing to the masses, promising to end the corruption that tore Ivalice apart, and securing his power as the sole ruler throughout the land.

At least, that’s how history remembers him. In truth, Delita was a shadowy figure and political gambler, no hero by any means and certainly no better than the people he replaced.

Final Fantasy Tactics’ meta-story takes place in a banned history book that recounts the true story of Delita’s rise to power and recalls how a long-forgotten noble house produced a true hero by the name of Ramza Beoulve, a young man who stood up for justice and the mandate of his family’s knightly name. Branded as a heretic, cast from nobility, shunned by his family, Ramza endured the greatest suffering of all by challenging the powers that be, not because he sought glory, not because he wanted power, but because it was the right thing to do.

And history has no record of his selfless acts.

The game raises the question of whether Ramza’s path to fighting corruption is the proper way to bring it to an end, where the means are justified, or Delita’s path of using corruption against itself, where the ends are justified, is the right way to go. Delita’s path succeeds in the game, but does humanity as a whole get anywhere or learn anything from this chapter of its history?

Of course, Final Fantasy Tactics goes a little off-rails from this brilliant setup by introducing holy monsters and inciting a vengeful saint returning as an all-powerful messiah looking to wreak havoc on the corrupted world, but Matsuno had to tell his tale within the context of Final Fantasy. To those means, these typical Final Fantasy tropes tie into the politics and heroism of the core tale.

Playing through this story over and over is enough reason for Final Fantasy Tactics to remain a viable game on the modern market. I can’t count how many times I’ve played through it and how many new elements I discover each time. Matsuno’s story is as addictive as its gameplay, and while thematically weaker than its counterpart Tactics Ogre, which doesn’t resort to dark lords or monsters, controlling Ramza and watching him tear through the history books delivers a thrill that destroys every other plot in the Final Fantasy universe.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2018/09/19/final-fantasy-tactics-nintendo-switch/