The Final Fantasy series has been around a long time, and there's been many totally different games that used the FF name. There was Final Fantasy Adventure, which was actually the first Seiken Densetsu. Final Fantasy Legend, which was part of the Romancing SaGa series. And then this one: Final Fantasy Tactics.

I had heard about this game long before I played it, but I never could because it was retired and taken off the shelves. It was first released back in 1998, before I really got into the Final Fantasy series. When I heard it was going to be re-released as a Greatest Hits title, I was happy to finally have a chance to see what it was all about. And boy, am I glad I did. This game is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The strategic battle system and innovative job feature make it unique and original in all aspects. The battle field is a big rectangle with terrain and height differences, and grid-like squares on which you move your characters. Each attack has it's own range and power, and some have elemental attributes or added status effects. Magical effects require charging, but can hit multiple enemies or allies. Combat is semi-turn based, and combined with everything else, no other game is like it.

The job system is awesome, it gives you more customization options than any other before it. There are tons of jobs to choose from, and after using that job enough you can learn more and more abilities and eventually "master" it. You can change jobs whenever necessary, and new jobs become available after you train to certain levels with other jobs. It's addictiveness constantly brings you back for more, it kept me up late many a night.

The graphics are good, but not very impressive on todays standards. Considering this game came out shortly after Final Fantasy VII, they must have been great back then. The environment is 3-D, but the characters are 2-D sprites. I actually prefer this approach over many others though, because I love sprites. The character portraits are awesome, the art style is different from anything I've ever seen before, and I love the artist's portrayal of the people in the game. I can't find any fault in the animations of the attacks, and some of the spell effects are just sweet. Summoned monsters are 2-D, but they aren't animated as they move around the screen. They do move, but they don't. Get it? For example: When you summon Bahamut, it flies on to the screen, charges up energy in its mouth, and then fires a huge beam of light onto the playing field, devastating anything in its path. Sounds cool? It is. But the whole time, nothing moves except the camera and the huge beam. It's different, but in a good way. Never once where the graphics bad, even during the FMV. Considering how old this game is, it has very good FMV (although not enough of it). I particularly like the way the chocobos look in the FMV. A good example of this is in the game case under the disc. Go buy the game and see for yourself.

The sound is excellent. The music is great and fits the game nicely. It has a good selection of battle songs, from wandering through a lonely swamp, to fighting against a gigantic bloodthirsty demon. It suites the game, but probably isn't the kind of music you would want to own a soundtrack of. The sounds of swords slashing and bow strings "thwanging" are cool, and the sound of screaming that follows is just as good. This game has no problem whatsoever with sound.

Difficulty isn't a problem, because in a way you can choose how hard it is. If you choose to train a lot, you will get stronger and be able to progress easily. If you want to fight the least amount of times as possible, story battles will be tougher and require more thinking and planning of your attacks. I fought a lot, so I didn't really have to worry. No matter what you do though, chocobos are just plain annoying. This is the only game I've ever played that made me hate the chocobos. When you get into random battles you will sometimes stumble across a chocobo or five. The little ol' yellow ones aren't too bad, but just wait until you meet a black or red one. They do moves called Choco Ball and Choco Meteor, which are really cheap. Even when you're in the last part of the game, they can kill your guys in one or two hits! Even when I was getting ready to fight the last battle, and my allies stats and equipment were the best I could get, I still couldn't beat a group of six or seven chocobos. That alone is the worst part of this game, and it isn't even that big of a deal.

The storyline is cool, if you can understand it. They make it a little hard to know what's going on at times, but eventually you should catch on. Read the Zodiac Brave Story for more on the storyline.

Final Fantasy Tactics is about 40+ hours long, which is pretty good for one disc. My game is close to 50 hours, because I'm trying to master a lot of Jobs. To achieve everything, this game could probably come close to 60 hours long. But I assure you, no matter how long you play, this will be one game you will never forget.

Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 7
Music: 8
Originality: 10
Replay Value: 7
Sound: 8
Storyline: 9
Overall: 10