Final Fantasy Tactics: First look
The much anticipated Final Fantasy Tactics has finally hit the App Store. Retailing at a somewhat steep US$15.99, Square Enix brings The War of the Lions to the iPhone. An iPad version is due for release this Fall. I haven't had as much time to spend playing this as I might like, so this write-up represents only first impressions.
Compared to App Store norms, Tactics may seem pricey. But when you look at some of the prices Final Fantasy cartridges go for on Amazon and eBay, $16 isn't entirely out of the ballpark. We've been buying FF on Gameboy Advance, and the demand remains high for these games.
The game is a huge download -- nearly half a gigabyte -- and like other members of the Final Fantasy family, Tactics is primarily a port rather than a re-envisioning. There's no Retina Display support, although visuals have been "adapted for optimal performance on iPhone/iPod touch screens."
For the most part, you're buying into nostalgia. It's a way to return to one of your favorite games, bringing it to a more convenient platform. If you're already familiar with the gameplay, well, you're already familiar with the app. If you're not, expect extensive how-to tutorials and hours and hours of playtime once you've mastered the basics. And, as my daughter points out, it totally beats the graphics on the GBA.
The menu system was a bit disappointing. I found that once you leave the tutorial session, it lost track of which items were complete. That's a pain since you can't tell at a glance which tutorials were finished and which were not.
I also found glitches in menu interaction, where my daughter occasionally could not select items at all. I found some of the menu interaction confusing, as if menus were designed for button-based systems rather than touch. This was despite the supposedly "intuitive" touch screen controls, but I'm probably being overly fussy here.
Early reviews on the App Store complain about a few other flaws, although the overall response to the new app is far more favorable than negative. Expect some updates soon from Square Enix to iron out the rough edges. But all in all, it seems to be a hit.
Unlike the other Final Fantasy titles on App Store, Tactics is a more strategy-based game than a simple RPG. Compared to those, I found the overall GUI easier to use than the FF I and II offerings. The overwhelming number of tutorials (23 by my daughter's count) can be a bit daunting for new players, but they won't be an issue for those familiar with game play.
Although it's just been released and I haven't finished playing through it yet, I feel comfortable giving it a modest thumbs up. If you loved the old game, this will be like coming home. If you haven't played before, it's a very well-loved tactical battle game.
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The much anticipated Final Fantasy Tactics has finally hit the App Store. Retailing at a somewhat steep US$15.99, Square Enix brings...
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Final Fantasy Tactics, initiated back in 1997, has finally made its way to the much anticipated 2011 launch on iOS devices and is now available for user download on App Store.
http://radiomobiletech.com/news/news-news/final-fantasy-tactics-available-on-app-store.html
After extended play, I've gotten used to the terrible interface as far as hitting the tiny buttons goes and no longer trying to use standard iPhone gestures to switch between the little pop-ups showing character-stats and such, but the fuzzy-gray-text-on-light-backgrounds thing is still giving me headaches. I hope they fix that in the next update. There's no reason not to use black text.
August 06 2011 at 2:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis version of FF Tactics is a port of the PSP version which is about 95% a PS1 emulator. This is why it had slowdown and odd sound effects on PSP. The sound effects have been fixed and the slowdown is mostly improved. Fans of the original, especially if it was among their favorites, will be very pleased. $16 is not a premium price. Maybe in smug appstoreville, but if you people want to see quality core games being released, expect to break out of your .99 shell. Many of you aren't even willing to pay that which is sad.
iOS and phone games have been an after thought for many devs. The platform deserves better, the hardware is way better than the 3DS and by the time Vita comes out it won't take long to play catch-up. The ability to play this game on my phone which is always with me more than makes up for the lack of tactile feedback. This is FF Tactics, one of my favorites. People are comparing it to Angry Birds. I have no idea why. Some are comparing it to Infinity Blade which looks great and gets old after a while and forces you to buy gold at one point (more or less) costing more than you think.
I guess I'm saying I don't understand the criticism. Lego Harry Potter was $5 or less and a better version of the PSP/DS games. A full-length quality title. Well there haven't been any other Lego ports since and I guarantee it's the snob app store mentality
Tactics has over 100 hours of gameplay. Again, it's a port of the PSP version which is mostly a PS1 emulator. If they ported it from scratch, they wouldn't have bothered making it at all.
Count me as another unimpressed customer.
Paying such a (relative) premium price for such an app, one would expect a high level of quality, polish, or at least a fully native interface. Well ... one is likely to be very dissapointed.
The time it took Square-Enix to shoehorn a PSP-native engine onto iOS would have better spent building a new engine from scratch. Shame, loved FFT on the GBA.
No complaints here as far as interface goes. Works great with a touch. You can slide your finger anywhere on the screen to scroll up or down. You can hold and then slide your finger to select a square to move to. My only problem is not being able to fast-forward through dialog. Otherwise, this game is absolutely a great port. Would love me some retina support, but I can live without it.
August 05 2011 at 1:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@Classicalcholera I've found that you actually can fast-forward through the dialog by holding down the "OK" button in the lower-right. Otherwise, I'm with you here; the UI is very functional and well executed for all that FFT is capable of. Tapping on specific spaces was hard, but then I found tap-holding and dragging. I momentarily panicked when I couldn't determine how to tell whether my spells would land before the enemies got a turn, but found that too.
The wonderful music is unchanged, and the dialog reworked as romantic Middle-ages European dialect (misidentified below as 'engrish') is really very cool (to me). To have reworked every element of a UI designed around a PlayStation controller onto a device with no buttons and a 3x2" interactive space, from a UI designer's stand-point, is a work of some measurable brilliance.
You guys can say what you want about the price point, but I can pretty honestly say that by the time you guys are bored of the four or five other iOS games you bought with the money you saved, I'll still be playing FFT. :)
@Classicalcholera I've found that you actually can fast-forward through the dialog by holding down the "OK" button in the lower-right. Otherwise, I'm with you here; the UI is very functional and well executed for all that FFT is capable of. Tapping on specific spaces was hard, but then I found tap-holding and dragging. I momentarily panicked when I couldn't determine how to tell whether my spells would land before the enemies got a turn, but found that too.
The wonderful music is unchanged, and the dialog reworked as romantic Middle-ages European dialect (misidentified below as 'engrish') is really very cool (to me). To have reworked every element of a UI designed around a PlayStation controller onto a device with no buttons and a 3x2" interactive space, from a UI designer's stand-point, is a work of some measurable brilliance.
You guys can say what you want about the price point, but I can pretty honestly say that by the time you guys are bored of the four or five other iOS games you bought with the money you saved, I'll still be playing FFT. :)
Sincerest apologies for the double-post. :( Would delete it if I could.
August 05 2011 at 5:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate downDon’t waste your money. The user interface is abysmal, and the controls are not intuitive at all. The graphics are constantly stuttering on my iphone 4 and the game crashes a lot. Wish there was a way to get a refund.
August 05 2011 at 11:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyReport it as a problem via iTunes. I've done this with a range of software and always get a refund. If you're not happy with it let Apple know.
August 05 2011 at 11:53 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI've noticed people saying this but if my third generation iPod touch can play it just fine, I see no reason the iPhone 4 doesn't. I mean, I get an ocassional slow down but nothing bad. What iOS version are you running? I've read that updating to 4.3.5 is causing people a lot of slow downs. I'm on 4.3.3 still. Maybe that's the problem? If so, it's a fix that can come by way of a patch.
August 05 2011 at 12:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI'm going to holdout for the iPad version but I'm planning to get this
August 05 2011 at 8:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGiven the screenshot ("Tell me, ser - are you friend or foe?"), I presume that we can expect typos galore or attacks of Engrish. Perhaps it is part of the charm.
August 05 2011 at 4:55 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyCloud is there as well as Balthier the Sky Pirate from Final Fantasy XII, and some kid from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. http://gray-boots.yolasite.com
August 05 2011 at 2:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI can only imagine how expensive those FFT cartridges are, especially since it was only officially released on CD.
August 05 2011 at 12:08 AM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down ReplyHmm, so the original Final Fantasy Tactics was a PlayStation 1 game and as such was on CD-Rom. Subsequently the original game was re-released as a downloadable game on the PlayStation network for I think $9.99 , playable on both the PS3 and PSP. Recently this reimagined version, "War of the Lions" was also made available on the PSN as a Download (also $9.99), where before it was only available on UMD format for the PlayStation Portable. The only FFT released on "cartridge" were the inferior Gameboy Advance versions (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1 & 2).
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