Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics is a game for the Sony PlayStation, which combines thematic elements of the Final Fantasy system with an original game engine style. This game uses a completely different battle system than the other games, comparable to a game of chess in many ways. This game was Squaresoft's answer to Atlus' successful Ogre Battle series, which is similar both in concept as well as plot to FF Tactics. This was due, evidently, to several of the Ogre Battle developers, including director Yasumi Matsuno, coming to Square to work. In stark contrast to the other PSX Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy Tactics used a 3D, isometric, rotatable playing field, with bitmap sprite characters (the exact opposite approach taken with Final Fantasy VII).
The plot revolves around Ramza Beoulve, the youngest son of an aristocratic nobleman, and his best friend Delita, who was taken in at a very young age by Ramza's family. Ramza and Delita are caught in the turmoil of the Lion War, a power struggle between two rival princes for control of the kingdom. Ramza must choose between his conscience and his duty, while Delita must come to grips with his family's lack of nobility, despite his upbringing by the Beoulves.
Part of the popularity of the game stemmed from its usage of most of the original character classes seen in earlier Final Fantasies, including Summoners, Black Mages, Priests (similar to the White Mages of other games), Monks, Lancers (similar to the Dragoons of other games), and Thieves. Beyond this, the game includes references to several specific characters, places and situations from earlier games - you can get FFVII's Cloud Strife as a playable character, for example, and through the "Proposition" system in bars scattered around the world map, you can locate treasures and lost areas such as "Matoya Cave" (a reference to FFI) and various colors of Materia (from FFVII).
The U.S. release of the game was frought with several indications of a rushed import job. The translation seems to be quite rough and is nearly unintelligible in some places, rendering an already intricately plotted storyline even more cryptic. Names of characters and locations are often spelled more than one way ("Omdolia" vs. "Omdoria", "Murond" vs. "Mulondo"). Several historical and mythological references are reduced to gibberish by translators; for instance, the Norse World Tree, Yggdrasil, makes an appearance as Yugodorasil. The idealistic yet deluded antihero Wiegraf is actually the namesake of Wyglaf, a character in "Beowulf."
Final Fantasy Tactics was notorious for being one of the rarest, priciest, and most sought-after PSX games in existence, until it was re-released under Sony's "Greatest Hits" label in 2001.
In 2003, Squaresoft (now Square Enix) released Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, with the same setting and similar engine but different characters and plot, for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.
The upcoming Final Fantasy XII game is also apparently set in the world of Ivalice, continuing the nascent trend begun with FFX-2 of placing games in previous games' settings. The developers have made it clear that FFT characters will not be making an appearance in that game.