First Impressions: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War (JP ver) Hands-on

A source of ours managed to get us a Japanese retail copy of Square Enix‘s Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War. The Squeenix heads here at QJ scream all scream “Booyah!” Given that there’s a language barrier, and the sheer hours of play-through required sort of hampers us in coming up with a full-blown review for a game of this nature, for now, here are our initial impressions on the much hyped PSP remake.

As of this witting, I have only managed to make it to the first few skirmishes. Okay, I know, that’s bad, but I’m playing with a Japanese menu, without a guide, so lighten up okay?

First of, the opening sequence. Great stuff. The faux-cell shaded pencil sketched artwork and the nostalgic music is awesome enough to send chills up the spine of anyone who’s played the original. The temptation to wail away and waste a hundred words to explaining how amazing the intro is high, but we’ll not go there. Instead, we’ll say that what’s best about it, from a gameplay-perspective, is that they load fast, almost instantly actually, and more importantly, you can skip it (and all the other animated cutscenes).

Read the rest after the Jump!

 

A source of ours managed to get us a Japanese retail copy of Square Enix‘s Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War. The Squeenix heads here at QJ scream all scream “Booyah!” Given that there’s a language barrier, and the sheer hours of play-through required sort of hampers us in coming up with a full-blown review for a game of this nature, for now, here are our initial impressions on the much hyped PSP remake.

As of this witting, I have only managed to make it to the first few skirmishes. Okay, I know, that’s bad, but I’m playing with a Japanese menu, without a guide, so lighten up okay?

First of, the opening sequence. Great stuff. The faux-cell shaded pencil sketched artwork and the nostalgic music is awesome enough to send chills up the spine of anyone who’s played the original. The temptation to wail away and waste a hundred words to explaining how amazing the intro is high, but we’ll not go there. Instead, we’ll say that what’s best about it, from a gameplay-perspective, is that they load fast, almost instantly actually, and more importantly, you can skip it (and all the other animated cutscenes).

Next, the first dialogue sequence. At first I though that the text boxes load a bit slow, and that has caused the more discerning part of me to cry foul. A few button spams later, I found out that the text boxes during dialogue scenes load up as fast as you “cancel” it with the X button. Now this matters because if this wasn’t so then the game would probably be more suited to consoles and not “portable gaming,” but they made the adjustment, and I am pleased.

 

Then we have the battles. Okay, after a few instances where I managed to attack thin air, skip my character’s move for that turn, and even attack my own party member, I got the hang of the Japanese menu. It’s basically still the same old menu from the original FF Tactics, so no big difference.

Now for the controls. The nub lets you rotate the camera. The shoulder buttons tilt the camera or zoom them in, x is for cancel and circle is for confirm. No big change really. Moving the cursor along a diagonal hex using the d-pad may be at bit confusing at first, but it isn’t really a big deal.

I do have to note that I noticed some slowdowns when the animation sequences for the special attacks load up. There’s also some “lag” when a “cure” is cast. I’m not sure if this was due to our own PSP or if this is the case all the time, but it’s just worth saying, especially since there are a whole lot of animations for a whole library of special attacks in this game. It may annoy some folks.

As for the transition from TV screen to PSP screen, for some reason, I feel that the small screen really works for this game. The sprites look clearer and crisper despite the smaller screen. While you can still make out the pixels, everything looks like pencil sketched stuff moving around on your PSP. (Maybe I just need glasses or something?) The art style just plain works for the small screen, and what’s better is that the text and the battle prompts are still large enough for the game to work. (I won’t say readable, again, I’m playing the Japanese version)

That’s that for now. This blogger will come up with a more in-depth review of the game after he racks up some decent hours, and manages to find a JP version guide on GameFAQs. Stay tuned.