Japanese Sound Novels In Final Fantasy Tactics, you can send your party members
off to side missions. This essentially makes them disappear for a few days and they come
back with more experience, job points, Artefacts, and Wonders. In the localized version of the game,
the Artefacts are a bit of an extra thing to find since they do not have any in-game effect
and just serve as references. However, things are different in the Japanese version of the
game as certain Artefacts in that version unlock 'Sound Novels' which are similar to Choose Your
Own Adventure gamebooks. The Sound Novels include adventures that serve as the history of Ivalice,
which is much needed context for the game's unique world.
Unfortunately, not only was this cut out of the localized versions of the game, this was
not even restored in the PSP port of the game, which is supposed to be the enhanced version.
The Introduction of Ivalice Ivalice is a fictional world which is a part of the Final
Fantasy franchise and even if you haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics, chances are that you have
heard of Ivalice nonetheless. Final Fantasy Tactics is the first game to introduce players
to the world of Ivalice and it's a crucial part of its storyline, but this was just the beginning
of something larger. 'Ivalice Alliance' is the name of a project that Square Enix started, and
it included a bunch of different games that are either set in that world or reference it. Tactics,
Tactics Advance, and even the mainline Final Fantasy XII are set in the world of Ivalice,
while an unrelated game called Vagrant Story was a part of this Alliance too.
A fan of Queen The game director of Final Fantasy Tactics is a fan of the classic Queen band
and this can be seen in several of his works. For example, the video games Ogre Battle:
The March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together are both references to
Queen songs. But game titles is not the only place where he placed those references in,
as the fourth chapter of Final Fantasy Tactics is called 'Sombody to Love',
which is yet another reference to a song by the Queen band.
Bibilical Parallels Final Fantasy Tactics has a few Bibilical parallels in its storyline that
are not very subtle once paid attention to. The most notable one is the fact that the story of
Saint Ajora has many similarities to the story of Jesus Christ. Both of the characters were a part
of a prophecy, were betrayed by a close disciple, received antagonism from a religious sect and were
executed by the authority of the time. Ironically, the requirements for resurrecting the character
and his ultimate goal are more similar to the antichrist rather than Jesus himself, who, for
those unaware, is someone who is meant to pretend to be Jesus Christ but is in fact an imposter who
is meant to bring chaos. Lastly, the character called Germonique is similar to Judas, who was
the disciple that betrayed Jesus in the Bible. Culturally Rich The ability that Iaido can
use in Final Fantasy Tactics, which draws the spirit out of a katana, is actually filled with
references to many real-world Samurai culture and the Japanese swordmaking community. It is
believed that a quality blade is made with the complete spirit and focus of its maker,
and that it's almost as if their soul is passed onto the blade once its creation is completed.
Eventually, the one who can wield that blade to its full potential has to match its spirit - which
is something that Final Fantasy Tactics references directly as every soul of a katana in the game has
a historic or legend-related basis in the lore. A big fan of Apocalypse Now Apocalypse Now is
a very iconic movie from Hollywood which is quite lengthy and is filled with more memorable
moments than one could count. Final Fantasy Tactics includes many references to the movie,
as each Deep Dungeon level is named after something related to it. For example, NOGIAS
is Saigon spelled backwards, which is the opening location of the movie. Horror refers to the
iconic line "The horror... the horror" spoken by Colonel Kurtz, MLAPAN is Napalm spelled backwards,
which is a reference to a line from the movie. Just like that, every other Deep Dungeon level
is named after something from the movie too. And one interesting thing to note for gamers
is that the video game Spec Ops: The Line is also based on the same book as Apocalypse Now.
Final Fantasy Throwbacks Final Fantasy Tactics is filled-to-the-brim with references to other Final
Fantasy games. Simpler references include things like the Chocobo Forest which was first introduced
in Final Fantasy 2, Bacchus's Wine which is a recurring item in the series, the Chaos Shrine,
the Crystal Tower, the Tower of Babil, the character of Byblos, the Floating Continent,
and more. But some of the references have relevance to the gameplay itself,
as you can unlock secret characters that both provide sidequests to complete and join your party
as a playable character once their conditions are met. The most notable examples are Cloud Strife,
who is the iconic protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, and Balthier, who is a playable character
from Final Fantasy XII. Something exclusive to the PlayStation portable version of the
game is that you can even play as the main protagonist of Final Fantasy Tactics A2.
Japanese Music Test In the Japanese version of Final Fantasy Tactics,
if you set your character's name as "B-G-M-Ki-Ki-Ta-I", it unlocks
a Music Test section where you can listen to various tracks from the game's audio files.
Unfortunately, this does not work on the localized versions of the game.
Invisibility Farming Exploit When you are Invisible in the game, you can farm Experience
and Job Points by constantly jumping on a dead enemy or ally. The game does not
understand that the target was dead and considers removing the Invisibility status as the first
priority - which allows the player to receive the points even though they're not supposed to.
Japanese Score Challenge Mode Another feature that is exclusive to the Japanese version of
the game is the Score Challenge Mode. What the player needs to do is to obtain the Book
of Life in Chapter 2 and then stop reading the book before the 'Good Ending' is reached.
Read through the book once more and this will take you to the hidden Score Challenge Mode,
which lets you play the Chocobo Race sequence for money. The reason behind these Japanese features
being cut from the localized port is unknown, but fans speculate that it is due to time constraints.
Duplicating Weapons and Items Glitch There are two duplication glitches in Final Fantasy Tactics. The
first one is in relation to powerful weapons that you can obtain in the game, such as the Excalibar
and Save the Queen. The way to do this is to get the Two Swords Skill and change the character who
has that skill to a knight. Then equip the weapon in the left hand and a weak shield in the right
hand, and head to any castle. Then use 'Best Fit' on that character and a menu will pop up
that says you are buying the weapon that you were trying to duplicate - if you choose Yes, you will
have two of that weapon going forward. The second glitch is related to the items of Gafgarion who
joins your party as a Guest in Chapter 2. In the battle at Zirekile Falls, you are betrayed
by the character and once you defeat him, his equipment becomes a part of your inventory.
But you can have duplicates of his items if you just steal it during the Zirekile battle itself.
Dummied' Content Like any other video game, Final Fantasy Tactics has a lot of cut content that was
either left out because the developers thought it won't work, or because of time constraints.
However, an interesting thing about Tactics is that a lot of the cut content is still
in the game's files and some of it can even be reactivated. Using Gameshark, two Artefacts called
the Leo and Virgo Zodiac Stones can be obtained in the game. Then we have six unused battlefields,
some of which are unfinished and glitched out if used but some of them are playable enough if
the player accesses them. The perfectly playable battlefields which have little to no glitches are
the Hospital in Slums, Warjilis Trade City, and Gate of Limberry Castle. The ones that
are unfinished are Inside Castle gate at Lesalia, Outside Castle Gate at Lesalia, and Main Street of
Lesalia, as they are are glitchy when played in. Aside from the Artefacts and battlefields, further
dummied content includes many unused abilities, an area of the map that cannot be accessed,
a flying animation for every monster that is unused yet still available on their sprite-sheet,
job classes that are not used in the game but have descriptions and stats, and three Events that can
only be seen by using a Gameshark. The job classes can be reactivated and some of them work perfectly
fine within battle, but some of them are glitchy. An interesting thing to note is that the game
thinks every character that shows up in the game has a job, which means that NPCs are included too.
The Lost Character A character called Elegant Flier has an unused sprite
in Final Fantasy Tactic, which shows on the job menu if you try to use cheats to activate Teta as
a party member. Instead of seeing Teta, this dark-skinned girl appears instead and no one
has any idea who this is supposed to be. The identity of this character remained a mystery
until Yasumi Matsuno revealed on Twitter that the character was supposed to be called Yasumi Matsuno
and her age was going to be of 23 years. However, not much is known about her otherwise as Matsuno
claims that he does not remember anything else about this character. Fans theorize that this
character might be a younger version of Rapha who might have been used in a flashback sequence.
Secret Argias Oaks Scene Although the cut content that was lost in localization of Final Fantasy
Tactics was still missing from the PlayStation Portable version of the game, there is some new
content that has been added to it to make up for it. Agrias Oaks is one of the most iconic
characters of Tactics and it's no surprise that she was chosen as the character to have a new
scene in the game's enhanced port. However, the scene is kept a secret and can only be seen with
very specific conditions, which means that many players ended up missing it. You have to reach
the final chapter of the game and you need to have half a million pieces of gil and Alicia, Lavian,
and Mustadio in your party. If you reach a city on the first day of Cancer, a scene will play out in
which Mustadio buys Agrias a birthday gift. This scene both implies that Mustadio has feelings for
her and reveals the birth date of the character for those who want to know everything about it.
The True Fate of Ramza The true fate of Ramza and Alma is left unknwon as we last see them
riding Chocobos and they were trapped in another dimension, which then proceeded to explode and
made players think that the characters might have died - and Orran, who wrote the events of the game
from his account, is not sure if the people he saw were Ramza and Alma to begin with. Although there
is no sequel to the game that reveals Ramza's fate nor do we have any confirmation from Square Enix
themselves - fortunately, the creator of the game himself ended up revealing the character's true
fate. On a Twitter post, he answered a question on the topic and told the fans that Ramza is not
dead and is properly alive, and he must have started another adventure in a different land.
The Infamous Time Mage A glitch in Final Fantasy Tactics allowed players to encounter a male Time
Mage on the 1st floor when trying to complete the Midnight's Deep dungeon, and if you kill
this mage, they use the female death scream sound. But what's even weirder is that if you make the
Time Mage join your party, they retain this odd mixtureof genders, as this Time Mage will use
male job sprites but all of the items and classes meant exclusively for the females can be used to.
And if you transform this mage into the Dancer class, they look like the Bard but still have all
of the Dancer abilities. This unit is referred to as 'Dragqueen' by the fans of the game and it was
believed to be intended until it was removed in the PlayStation Portable port of the game,
which confirmed that this mage was just a glitch in the original version of Tactics.
Ramza's Nose A light-hearted debate in the Final Fantasy Tactics fan-base is related to Ramza,
since he has appeared in several mobile games in the Final Fantasy franchise long after the
release of Tactics too. In the Tactics art style, no character has a nose even though the rest of
the features are properly defined. So, when he was added in the new games, namely the Dissidia Final
Fantasy series, he did have a nose and this caused a controversy as the fans started to complain
that the character should not have a nose. Hilariously, the designer of that game revealed
that there was some serious internal discussion regarding whether to give Ramza a nose or not.
Fan theories As with any Final Fantasy game, there are many fan theories on the internet
revolving around Tactics and some of them are very plausible too. First off, we have the fan
theory regarding Ramza and Alma's fate. Until it was confirmed by the creator himself, people had
to theorize whether he survived or not - and the popular theory did lean towards his great escape.
And if Ramza managed to get away, then it goes without saying that Alma certainly did too.
Then we have the 'Resurrecting Lucavi' theory which says that after being mortally wounded
by Ramza, Weigraf is resurrected by making a pact with Velius, and the two merge by using
the power of the Aries stone. A Lucavi would then be born and the merged Weigraf and Velius
would be able to transform between their human shell and their true form once their new body
is created - but they can no longer regenerate from deadly injuries like they could in the past.
One theory reflects upon resurrecting humans, as Malak dies from a gunshot,
Rafa crouches next to his body in grief and the Taurus stone she holds begins to
hum. Ramza thinks a new Lucavi is about to be born through the body of Malak,
but a bright light shines from above and restores Malak to life as human. Fans believe that the Holy
Stones react specifically to the extreme emotional distress of who is holding them and shows that
Rafa and the Lucavi themselves are very different, since with the Lucavi it responds to anger,
resentment, and a survival instict - whereas for Rafa, it responded to loss and sorrow.