Before Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles brought the strategy RPG classic to modern platforms, there was the War of the Lions remaster for the PlayStation Portable. That version had a ton of bonus features, from extra job classes and characters to additional cutscenes and even a multiplayer mode. Unfortunately, all of that bonus content was cut from the current remaster, but dedicated fans are painstakingly trying to add it back in with mods.
That’s good news for players on PC who can take advantage of all the work that’s already been done and find fresh reasons to keep playing. The 2007 version of Final Fantasy Tactics, which is also the one available on iOS and Android, added a lot. There were guest characters Balthier from Final Fantasy XII and Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, as well as Dark Knight and Onion Knight job classes that let generic recruits rival the power of named companions. There was also a wireless multiplayer mode that let players team up or compete for treasure.
The multiplayer mode might require deeper tinkering to bring it to The Ivalice Chronicles, but there are already mods adding the rest. In fact, fans like NexusMods user DanaCrysalis have already gone and added other tweaks and bonus features as well, including the Red and Blue Mage job classes from the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance spin-off. Qualify-of-life fixes, meanwhile, include a way to stop all of the monsters in your party, including Chocobos, from endlessly filling up your roster with eggs. There’s even a mod adding extra-difficult random encounters to the map.
If you’re playing on console, however, there’s no way to take advantage of any of this. Why didn’t Square Enix simply restore all of this cut bonus content itself? “We did of course consider the addition of new jobs, abilities, and characters—including the jobs featured in War of the Lions,” director Kazutoyo Maehiro explained prior to launch. “However, the original version of Final Fantasy Tactics is a very complete game both from a game design and story perspective. If we were to make major changes, it would only be a loss for not only fans of the original game, but also those new to the title.”
In fact, there were apparently even discussions about adding more new content early on in development. The game’s original writer and director, Yasumi Matsuno, recently wrote on X that he has thought about branching out beyond the confines of the original story, like allowing players of the Ivalice Chronicles version to recruit characters like Miluda and Izlude. That ended up not being the right fit for the game’s budget and scope, which among other things required essentially rebuilding the game’s lost code base from scratch. “I think that if we were to do that, we should just make a new game,” he said.
Obviously, Square Enix should do exactly that, but for now a vibrant modding scene will have to suffice.
