Final Fantasy Tactics Analysis (Ep.1): Dev History | State of the Arc Podcast

In the first episode of our Final Fantasy Tactics deep-dive, we look at the development history of the game, including Yasumi Matsuno's transition from creating the Ogre series at Quest to working with Hironobu Sakaguchi at Square Soft. We also dive into the background of Ivalice--its kings and its wars--and how those things relate to the overall situation at the start of the game.

Time Codes:
1. Intro (0:00)
2. Development History (1:06)
3. Background On Ivalice, Its Kings, And Its Wars (1:05:02)

[ResonantArc]

This game rules. You should play it. Next time, we're playing up to the Lenalia Plains (just after the Thieves' Fort/Brigands' Den battle)

[HighlyKhoalified]

Can we all take a moment to appreciate Mike's masterful recounting of the Fifty Years War? Even having played the game through at least 10 times, I never fully understood all the events of the war until listening to Mike's summary. Mike, in another life, I hope you get to become the history teacher you are clearly meant to be!

[silentobserver]

This is of the highest gaming cultural appreciation. This game deserves such quality retrospective discussions.

[myzelf]

You're not alone on that hill Mike, i played both versions as well and WotL's dialoge just added a heavy feeling of "this is real, lives are at stake here" that helped me be immersed in the fantasy setting, and insults just felt more "cutting" to me

[princedarklyXIII]

I love these dev history episodes. They're such great primers to appreciate the scope, crafting, and what it ultimately took to realize their vision of the game we are about to play. One of many reasons why this podcast is such a highlight!

[akiinmoonlight]

FF Tactics will forever be a deep & glorious piece of art






One of the best games OF ALL TIME
❤🛐

[benjamindonahue]

First Xenogears and now FFT. Freaking love you guys and super stoked for this. Great work with the dev and pre-game histories. Interesting question about being surprised by what I got with this game as I don't recall ever really wondering about it. Growing up my brother and I both got into RPGs on the SNES starting with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest which I think our mom bought as a random christmas gift at the time. I'm fairly certain it was my brother that introduced me to this but I don't know what he knew before hand (I had no idea where he learned about most of the stuff he knew about) . It was likely a rental from Blockbuster back in the day, but regardless we bot loved it immediately. Unfortunately on my first play through I also got locked in a battle I couldn't win and had to start over. I'll avoid namining it but based on your last video I'm guessing most people fell victim to it in the exact same place. Lastly the thing I liked in the dev history was that the guy worked on Tactics Ogre did this. Tactics Ogre had the same problem way more often. This is going to be a hard couple weeks waiting for you guys to get through this XD

[Xaekid]

I was one of those that bought FFT after playing VII, back then (1998) I was fairly new to the genre (Super Mario RPG and the mentioned VII) so I wasn't as surprised it wasn't similar to VII. In fact; I welcomed the game being so different. Like many others, it was the fight at Dorter that made me rethink my approach to Tactics and how I was playing it.

Took some tries but I finally beat Dorter and managed to eventually beat the game. Loved every single aspect of it: the characters, the story, the gameplay, the music and how everything works together to make an amazing game. I still replay the game every now and then and became and instant fan of Matsuno and his core team that would later give us Vagrant Story and FFXII.

Love your podcast and extra insight I get from your conversations, looking forward to the next episodes!

[Ravix]

I'll never forget the Christmas I got FFT. I had asked for FF7 but my mom, not knowing one FF from another, got me Tactics. I was bummed. But not having another new game to play, I threw it in. From the opening cinematic I was hooked. It was very intimidating to me at 12yo (having never played a tactical game) but every time I got past the next battle after repeated failures, it was a such great feeling. One of my all-time favs. The story *chef's kiss* so good. Fingers crossed we see WotL on Switch sometime soon.

[PureBlackDragon]

One of my favorite games of all time. Just so much customizability, a great dual narrative arc with Delita and Ramza, and how they both deal with the dark forces, both realistic and fantastical, of the world. I just recently landed a job writing about this title and this episode dropping at the same time is pretty cool. I agree about the mobile version, and also find fatigue with the touch screen playstyle a bit, but speeding up the casting and actions does help a lot when going through the battles. My favorite version is probably the PSP version though, just because of how easy it was to use perhaps.

[lupercalrising]

Heh!! I just dug my psp out of my gaming vault yesterday and cleaned it up (it had some screen protector goo on the screen, but had been in the sleeve for years and years). I also just ordered Tactics off Amazon for $20 for it, so I'm def excited to check it out. The game should arrive by Friday.

[Artimes.]

Final Fantasy XII probably would end up being one of the greatest games of all time from a story and gameplay perspective, had Matsuno directed that whole game.

[Kasaaz]

It's adorable that Matsuno has been the sherpa to lead Sakaguchi through FFXIV over the last few months.

[TheCmurley]

Alright! One of my Top 5 games of all time - the sprite work and animations in this game are preferable to most modern games for me, and the revised translation was masterfully done.

[Scimarad]

I opened the video with courage...and inside was...A Medical Herb! Sorry, I meant....A History Lesson!! Everytime a frigate comes back from a mission on No Man's Sky I think of Final Fantasy Tactics and those little missions you can send people on.

Also, I've been listening to the soundtrack again and I'd forgotten how much I absolutely love that "Introducing the units" theme the game played when you left it on the title screen long enough. One of my favourite pieces of videogame music ever. The whole soundtrack is amazing and I think it was one of the first videogame sountracks I ever bought.

[Realag]

Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together is one of my favorite games of all time. The political story is one of the best in the entire genre of turn based Tactics, if not the best.

If you want to check it out, one amazing dude dedicates alot of his time over the last several years to the "One-Vision" mod, which drasticly improves and overhauls the game.

[Andrew-Gomez]

I would love to see you guys do this for the Trails In The Sky series!

[juzzam]

23:37 lol that was my mistake, I grinded my unit's job xp by leaving 1 mob alive and using abilities in the early chapters. Then I started noticing I couldn't beat random encounters anymore. However I did manage to get past it with using two calculators units, which were so OP once I figured out how to use them.

[chronocrosser]

I'm so glad you guys are doing this one. I wasn't terribly interested in Mass Effect or Xenogears, but Tactics? Tactics is my jam.

[stevemanart]

The Final Fantasy Adventure was called "Holy Sword Legend: a Final Fantasy Sidestory" (Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden). It spun off into the Seiken Densetsu series but the first game does count as a Final Fantasy. Kenji Ito composed the music for it.
Ryuji Sasai composed the music for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
The Final Fantasy Legend, which was the first SaGa game, had its music composed by Nobuo Uematsu. SaGa II (FFL II) was composed by Uematsu and Ito. SaGa III (FFL III) was composed by Sakai and Chihiro Fujioka.