Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (Android) Review

It has to be asked: What in the world happened to the dialogue? How did the travesty that is the dialogue of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions come to be? What happened to the dialogue of the original, and why was it deemed to be not good enough? Why is the dialogue here so bad?

There is no excuse for this. The dialogue in The War of the Lions wishes it could be as good as the dialogue in Two Worlds, which, for those unaware, was shredded for its dialogue. At least the dialogue here is not voice-acted, so there is that saving grace, but lines like Argath's (who replaced the much more eloquent Argus) "Our luck is ill, that we should chance upon fiends such as these in the wood" might leave players wishing there was voice acting, just to find humor in hearing serious actors attempt to say things like that with a straight face. "Mayhap your ears fail you."

The most bizarre aspect of this full rewrite of the script is that the original Final Fantasy Tactics did not have this problem. It had a circuitous plot that was extremely confusing at times, but it was confounding because so much was going on, not because the characters had no idea how to convey a simple thought to one another. This is a real problem with The War of the Lions, because the story is what makes it worth playing; without the story, it's just a series of tactical RPG battles. This dialogue makes it impossible to take the story seriously.

At its core, most of the gameplay is unchanged, which means that a number of maps will be visited, on which tactical battles are fought. Anyone familiar with Ogre Battle or Disgaea, the latter of which is superior in every conceivable way, will know what to expect from these battles. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is in the middle between JRPG and tactical RPG, as it tries to appeal to fans of both genres without alienating the other, and the result is a lot of wasted opportunities. Only two stats really matter for each character (Brave and Faith), and the rest are simply a function of character level, Job, and current equipment. A big deal is also made of Zodiac signs, but the effect is negligible, because a character's Zodiac sign can't be modified to adapt to new circumstances, so it can't willingly be capitalised on.

Each character can take a Job, and levelling Jobs will unlock new Jobs for that character, but the number of choices here really serves to harm the experience, when it gets down to it. In a random battle, a party of five is used to overcome the enemies; in a scripted battle, a party of four is used. Although there is some room to play around within the archetypes, it pretty much is necessary to play through each battle with a tank character, a melee damager, a magical damager, and a healer. Whether a Summoner or Black Mage is chosen as the magical damager is really the extent of the choice; one or the other is necessary to overcome most battles without unnecessary struggle. Because of the number disparity between random and scripted battles, this also means that at least one character regularly misses out on JP (which is earned by taking actions and used to purchase new abilities) and EXP (which determines Character Level). All in all, it's not good design.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions also features touchscreen controls as poorly optimised as the mobile port of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and features a camera that is just as uncooperative. Although zooming in and out (something for which there is no use whatsoever) has been added, the camera is still locked into only four horizontal positions. Enemies will sometimes stand on squares that are literally impossible to target with the touchscreen controls. The original didn't have this problem, because choosing a target consisted of moving a cursor with a D-Pad; this port requires touching the enemy or tile, and sometimes that's impossible due to trees that seem to be located where they are precisely to cause this problem. The Siedge Weald is a particularly notable offender.

It is easier than ever to select a character's facing direction at the end of that character's turn, but absolutely nothing was done to improve movement or targeting, things that are both multitudes more important than after-turn facing. Luckily, a confirmation dialogue that was irritating in the original persists into this port, because it is needed here; it's so easy to move to the wrong tile or target the wrong character.

These problems all could have been fixed, and they've been well-known for almost two decades. Instead, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions comes to mobile with all the flaws of the original and new flaws sprinkled in. Even the Menu System is unchanged, though players are now expected to operate menus by tapping; a superimposed directional pad, like that made for the Android port of Final Fantasy, would have significantly improved the experience.