Square-Enix has finally brought Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions to Android platforms. Why is this important?
Well for the longest time, the only way to play Final Fantasy Tactics games was on a console or a handheld. However, these games are based on grid based combat, which is far more easily controlled with a touch screen.
The game was remade on the PSP several years ago (which is how it got its “ The War of the Lions ” subtitle). However, this version had a number of issues. For one, the game slowed down whenever it played battle animations. This is especially frustrating as a group of hackers found out a way to patch the game’s ROM in order to prevent the slowdown form happening, even on the original PSP. So it wasn’t that the PSP didn’t have enough power, it’s that the port was just especially poorly coded.
This was the version that the iOS port was then based on, which came out in 2011. The iOS port fixed a lot of things, using a better translation and allowing players to control their units by tapping on the screen. The only problem is that the game’s camera angles never quite cooperated with you. The original game is isometric instead of top down, and so it’s a bit hard to tap the exact space you want to tap unless you pull the game’s camera out as far as you can. This gets a little bit easier on tablets as opposed to smartphones, but on a bigger screen the game looks incredibly pixelated, especially the text. This wouldn’t be such a bad problem if it weren’t for the game’s quite hefty fifteen dollar price tag. The icing on the cake? The iOS version still didn’t fix the game’s slowdown issues.
So now it has come out on Android, and what’s the verdict? Unfortunately, it’s not a whole lot different than the iOS version. It’s still very pixelated, and the text still doesn’t look great. Not to mention the slowdown issues still haven’t been fixed. It’s also still retailing for $13.99, making it easily one of the most expensive games on the Play Store.
Whether or not you can deal with the wonky touch controls, pixelated graphics, and annoying slow down will come down to how much you like this classic tactical RPG. Me? I personally think Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the greatest games of all time, and I’d play it even if it continued dropping in quality.
But then again, my PS1 version still works, so I guess Square won’t be getting my mobile money.