30 best Final Fantasy games

Best Final Fantasy Games #4 – Final Fantasy Tactics

It took a while for me to get onboard with a Final Fantasy game that branched off from numbered, turn-based RPG conventions. Tactics convinced me that any hesitance was skewed, providing an ambitious isometric 3D tactical game that opened up my mind on how to prepare for battle on a wider scale.

Players would control Ramza and his gang of recruits in a journey of justice amid the brutal Lion War encompassing the story. Each movement to a new location meant pushing the story forward a day, with story cutscenes taking place before preparing for combat. Instead of a turn-based system, your party would face off against another team of enemies (human or otherwise) in a 3D battle map filled with platforms of different altitudes and environmental situations.

Instead of having a dedicated series of commands, units in your party have a bunch of different classes and attacks with limited ranges or splash areas on the grid. You must play very carefully so you can balance positional advantage and range of attack from enemies, with certain party compositions faring better over others.

While certain titles before its time approached complex levels of darker stories, Tactics provided arguably one of the most complex and grown up. Ramza is caught between two sides of a war fought over nobility, presenting themes of class warfare, justice, revenge and honor. The darker side of the hunger for power would emanate throughout the story, and the sense of righteousness would become a vision quite murky.

Final Fantasy Tactics is the best spinoff game in the franchise, and the fact that it’s not available on PC remains a travesty to this day.