This is gona be a long one, if you have the attention spam of a Goldfish go somewhere else...
I really love Final Fantasy Tactics, it's honestly a game i can call "My favorite" out of the many i've played over the years. Its, i think, the only gave i have in which i can play over and over again, but if i don't play it "my way" something always feels wrong... that being said, "My way" involved going into Chapter 2 with at least a Bard or Dancer on your team... so... yeah....
As someone who loves Tactical and Strategy RPG's, over the last 20 or so years i've seen many try to get into the genre and the term "Inspired by" or "Influenced by" or "In the vein of" is usually followed by Final Fantasy Tactics whenever someone wants to turn some heads their way when talking about their Tactics RPG... but, really, very few ever do it.
One of the things that FFT got it right that MANY Tactics RPG's fail to grasp... is map design.
Just a very few examples to paint a picture. But largely, Maps in FFT have a few things in common...
1) Vertical gameplay. Terrain changes constantly, being above or below matters a lot, jumping and movement are key to positioning, many maps will have "funnels" that can be overcome with high stats or abilities.
2) Small sizes. Maps in FFT are not tiny, some are quite large (most are tall instead though...) but they are all compact. This keeps the fighting fast paced and intense, but also, makes positioning critical. If you let the opposing force break your formation and surround you, or plan badly your position, this could lead to doom. And it works in synergy with item 1.
3) Naturally feeling. This gives a great sense of immersion to the fights. battles break in abandon houses, city streets, castle rooftops, and they all FEEL like those places and LOOK like those places. While in the era FFT was released most RPG's had that "Warp you to the battle dimension" feeling, the battles in FFT felt like they were happening in the place they were actually happening. So, there would be pillars in front of a temple, and those pillars would be a part of the strategy of that map. Not just by you, but by enemies too!
Those 3 elements combined to make each map in FFT a challenge. Even the very basic first maps in the game still have these elements, with cut off points, high and low terrain and a flow to them.
So... then what?
If you go looking for other Tactical RPG's of our time, you will see that they are not built like Strategy maps. They are built like puzzles. And those that do think in Strategy terms like Tactics did, fail in some aspects.
The maps are either too long, made like huge corridors that force you to think on how you spend your resources to travel through the map, which in their make them feel like a slog ( Gods War on PS4 does this )
Or they are just flat boring plains most of the time, with very little elevation, overly simplifieing the strategy ( Tactics Advance does this. As does Onimusha Tactics. And even Tactics Ogre );
Others abandon terrain almost completely, going for a more chess like approach where you have to consider how you kite enemies and position your troops ( Banner Saga does this )
Now, don't go thinking FFT is the only one to get it right... Front Mission 3 nails almost as hard these same aspects. And although not quite as good, Stella Glow on the 3DS does it too.
And you might be think "Well, Fire Emblem does not really uses these elements in the same way" but Fire Emble is another branch in that tree. It's not about Strategy in positioning as is managing your troops and breaking formation. For Fire Emblem's gameplay, you are more incentivise in thinking on how you gonna distribute your power on "Lanes" to strike almost in direct lines to your foes... it works in a similar lane of Though as the Super Robot Wars series and SD Gundam G Generation series.
A few other games tried to emulate the idea of how important your maps need to be in a good Strategy game, Children of the Zodiarcs did this... while directly emulating FFT
It just wasn't as good or as interesting as the design ideas of FFT.
Maps in Final Fantasy Tactics are memorable, and that's because they guide the gameplay, they matter. Camera is a bit wonky because of it, but that is a problem time fixed with more modern tech.
From long straight maps that were challenging from being open Warfare
To some really compact challenging battles
One of the most amazing aspects that Final Fantasy Tactics brough to the genre, was the necessity and the importance of having cool looking, well thought out and challenging Maps to a Tactics game. A design concept that on modern tactics games go really under utilized and under appreciated to this day.
So i wanted to share some thoughts on it here...
I really love Final Fantasy Tactics, it's honestly a game i can call "My favorite" out of the many i've played over the years. Its, i think, the only gave i have in which i can play over and over again, but if i don't play it "my way" something always feels wrong... that being said, "My way" involved going into Chapter 2 with at least a Bard or Dancer on your team... so... yeah....
As someone who loves Tactical and Strategy RPG's, over the last 20 or so years i've seen many try to get into the genre and the term "Inspired by" or "Influenced by" or "In the vein of" is usually followed by Final Fantasy Tactics whenever someone wants to turn some heads their way when talking about their Tactics RPG... but, really, very few ever do it.
One of the things that FFT got it right that MANY Tactics RPG's fail to grasp... is map design.
Just a very few examples to paint a picture. But largely, Maps in FFT have a few things in common...
1) Vertical gameplay. Terrain changes constantly, being above or below matters a lot, jumping and movement are key to positioning, many maps will have "funnels" that can be overcome with high stats or abilities.
2) Small sizes. Maps in FFT are not tiny, some are quite large (most are tall instead though...) but they are all compact. This keeps the fighting fast paced and intense, but also, makes positioning critical. If you let the opposing force break your formation and surround you, or plan badly your position, this could lead to doom. And it works in synergy with item 1.
3) Naturally feeling. This gives a great sense of immersion to the fights. battles break in abandon houses, city streets, castle rooftops, and they all FEEL like those places and LOOK like those places. While in the era FFT was released most RPG's had that "Warp you to the battle dimension" feeling, the battles in FFT felt like they were happening in the place they were actually happening. So, there would be pillars in front of a temple, and those pillars would be a part of the strategy of that map. Not just by you, but by enemies too!
Those 3 elements combined to make each map in FFT a challenge. Even the very basic first maps in the game still have these elements, with cut off points, high and low terrain and a flow to them.
So... then what?
If you go looking for other Tactical RPG's of our time, you will see that they are not built like Strategy maps. They are built like puzzles. And those that do think in Strategy terms like Tactics did, fail in some aspects.
The maps are either too long, made like huge corridors that force you to think on how you spend your resources to travel through the map, which in their make them feel like a slog ( Gods War on PS4 does this )
Or they are just flat boring plains most of the time, with very little elevation, overly simplifieing the strategy ( Tactics Advance does this. As does Onimusha Tactics. And even Tactics Ogre );
Others abandon terrain almost completely, going for a more chess like approach where you have to consider how you kite enemies and position your troops ( Banner Saga does this )
Now, don't go thinking FFT is the only one to get it right... Front Mission 3 nails almost as hard these same aspects. And although not quite as good, Stella Glow on the 3DS does it too.
And you might be think "Well, Fire Emblem does not really uses these elements in the same way" but Fire Emble is another branch in that tree. It's not about Strategy in positioning as is managing your troops and breaking formation. For Fire Emblem's gameplay, you are more incentivise in thinking on how you gonna distribute your power on "Lanes" to strike almost in direct lines to your foes... it works in a similar lane of Though as the Super Robot Wars series and SD Gundam G Generation series.
A few other games tried to emulate the idea of how important your maps need to be in a good Strategy game, Children of the Zodiarcs did this... while directly emulating FFT
It just wasn't as good or as interesting as the design ideas of FFT.
Maps in Final Fantasy Tactics are memorable, and that's because they guide the gameplay, they matter. Camera is a bit wonky because of it, but that is a problem time fixed with more modern tech.
From long straight maps that were challenging from being open Warfare
To some really compact challenging battles
One of the most amazing aspects that Final Fantasy Tactics brough to the genre, was the necessity and the importance of having cool looking, well thought out and challenging Maps to a Tactics game. A design concept that on modern tactics games go really under utilized and under appreciated to this day.
So i wanted to share some thoughts on it here...
