History VideoGame / FinalFantasyTactics

** Gameplay-wise, Ramza and Cloud have good stats for males ''and'' females. Cloud can also equip the otherwise female-exclusive Ribbon accessory, possibly as a ShoutOut to the cross-dressing subquest in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII' (or that ribbons can be worn by all party members in that game).

* WakeupCallBoss: Not so much a boss, but the Slums of Dorter has a notable DifficultySpike compared to the previous storyline battles in that it throws Black Mages, Knights, and Archers at you. You're going to need more than the Squires and Chemists you've likely been using up to this point.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Being the first product involving Ivalice, you won't be seeing any of the setting's exotic beast people here, such as bangaa, viera or nu mou. Especially jarring because ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' takes place before it in the official timeline. To a lesser extent, Ivalice itself is referred to as just a "kingdom", rather than the entire world setting with its own continents. All of this was eventually explained as being a result of ''Tactics'' being significantly farther in the timeline than ''XII''.

* NiceHat:
** The Black Mages get the classical RobeAndWizardHat, the Time Mages a pointy pope-esque hat, the Oracles' hat make them look like learned men of the far east (fitting since their job class involves eastern mysticism), and the Summoners' headbands are positively Freudian.
** On the non-caster side, Dragoons get pretty nice helmets, Male Ninjas have a funky tortoise-shell hat/face-cover thing, Male Squires look like they're wearing a yarmulke, Mediator hats look like a pillow (complete with tassels), and Male Samurai have helmets evocative of Sherlock Holmes' deerstalker.

While not the traditional ''Final Fantasy'' fare, it was embraced by TurnBasedStrategy fans for its challenging, satisfactory gameplay and the sheer depth of its JobSystem -- which took the similar mechanics from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', cranked it UpToEleven, resulting in a level of army customization reminiscent of tabletop wargames. It was also infamous for its BlindIdiotTranslation and resulting {{Engrish}}, often called "Daravonese" after the tutorial character who spouted most of it. The PSP remake was re-localized by long-time Square Enix collaborator Joseph Reeder, and featured many bugfixes as well as motion video cutscenes and additional dialogue.

* AnyoneCanDie: Certainly notable for this game with LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: In the original, just collecting the playable characters alone will max out your overworld roster, and there's also a buttload of supporting characters and nameless {{Mook}}s.

** To be fair, all the other Zodiac Stone wielders succumbed to Lucavi due to their lust for power. Marach was oblivious to their backstory and how Barrington raped Rapha, but didn't think twice before turning on him once the truth came up. Rapha only meant well to her brother, thus summoning the good power of the Zodiac Stone.

** Gameplay-wise, Ramza and Cloud are this, with good stats for males ''and'' females. Cloud can also equip the otherwise female-exclusive Ribbon accessory, possibly as a ShoutOut to the cross-dressing subquest in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII' (or that ribbons can be worn by all party members in that game).

** The Finger Guard reaction skill, which only protects you from Talk Skill. Besides the very narrow niche use, you really don't even fight Mediators/Orators, with them only rarely showing up in random encounters, and you don't see enemies using Talk Skill as a secondary skillset either. So 99% of the time this skill will be completely useless.

* CombatantCooldownSystem: The Charge Time Battle system leans toward turn-based combat instead of real time (as ATB of the main series does). Each unit has a Charge Time meter, which is reset to zero after it acts (unless it uses the Wait command, in which case it is reset to 20), and it may only act again after their it goes back to 100. CT points are gained at different rates, so a unit with a high Speed stat will act more often than one with low Speed, which effectively acts as the cooldown duration modifier.

* AntiHero / AntiVillain: Which is Delita? Well, it depends on your point of view... Also, the Corpse Brigade pretty much fall under AntiVillain in Chapter One, although [[FromBadToWorse Wiegraf gets worse.]]

** This applies equally to the story and to named characters who ''don't'' join your party. [[spoiler:Excluding everyone who joins Ramza's party, by the end of the stinger, you can count the remaining still living major characters on one hand.]]

* AntiHero / AntiVillain: Which is Delita? Well, it depends on your point of view... Also, the Corpse Brigade/Death Corps pretty much fall under AntiVillain in Chapter One, although [[FromBadToWorse Wiegraf gets worse.]]

* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: [[spoiler:Wiegraf]] started out as a [[spoiler:HeroAntagonist, who fought against the nobility to get recognition for the Death Corps/Corpse Brigade's services in the war (and their back pay), and later to avenge his dead little sister]]. By his third encounter, [[spoiler:he's undergone DemonicPossession, and when Ramza calls him out, he states that he doesn't give a damn about Miluda anymore, he just wants to hear the screams of humans.]]

** When Argath is about to get killed by the Death Corps, they tell him, "[[NothingPersonal Don't blame us, blame fate.]]" Delita, who was present when this happened, says something similar to Ovelia when he kidnaps her, but the ([=PlayStation=]) English version turns it into, "Blame yourself or God," making it sound like he's taunting her bodyguard Agrias instead.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: Wiegraf Folles, the leader of the Death Corps (Corpse Brigade), is fighting against the aristocracy and nobility for corruption and abuses against the commoners such as denying pay to many peasant soldiers after the Fifty Years War. When word gets out that Marquis Elmdore of Limberry has been kidnapped by his Lieutenant Gustav Margriff, Wiegraf finds and executes him and releases the Marquis to the arriving rescue party, explicitly stating that the Corpse Brigade are not bandits but revolutionaries who are fighting for the common people of Ivalice against the oppression of the monarchies.

* TranshumanTreachery: The Lucavi appear to merge with their hosts into an unholy [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarCraft Lich King-like]] amalgamation of man and demon. While the original personality of the host remains intact, they immediately cast off their humanity.

** The Zodiac Stones, as ancient artifacts that allow humans to sell their souls to godlike demons for power in times of desperation, are effectively the Behelits from ''Anime/{{Berserk}}'' in all but name.

* BigDamnVillains: Delita kicks off the plot by abducting Ovelia from the protagonists [[spoiler:who were unwittingly going to take her to her death.]]

** Despite an InUniverseGameClock that advances one day for each location you pass through, and has an effect on your characters depending on what Zodiac sign they are (in the remake only), your characters can literally spend ''years'' before finishing the game. (Additionally, regardless of how long it takes to finish a battle, the game always considers you to have spent a full day in that location.)

** One particularly noteworthy mod is ''The Lion War'', which adds most of the PSP port's new content to the Playstation version for those that prefer the original localization and/or the original job and skill JP requirements but want to experience the new content. It even includes the video cutscenes if one is willing to go through a more complicated patching process to add them to the Playstation ISO. The only things missing are the multiplayer, the expanded party limit (though the developers are trying to figure out a way to add party slots without causing glitches), and the Onion Knight job.

** When Argath is about to get killed by the Death Corps, they tell him, "[[NothingPersonal Don't blame us, blame fate.]]" Delita, who was present when this happened, says something similar to Ovelia when he kidnaps her, but the (Playstation) English version turns it into, "Blame yourself or God," making it sound like he's taunting her bodyguard Agrias instead.

** Fly has an amusing animation, and on its own is a neat movement skill that lets you completely bypass height and any obstacles in the way, the latter of which the aformentioned Ignore Height can't do. However it is obsoleted by Teleport, which functionally does the same thing, but gives you the chance to try moving outside your movement range whenever you want or need more movement, and in the international PlayStation version, Teleport only costs half the JP to learn while being in the Time Mage job, which is much easier to access than the Bard/Dancer jobs, which have Fly (and it's so much worse in the Japanese and PSP versions, where Fly inexplicably costs '''''5000 JP''''', compared to Teleport's comparatively meager 650 JP in those versions).

It has been re-released four times. The first was on the UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation}}'s "Greatest Hits" line, though it still remains hard to find for that console. The next two were for the UsefulNotes/PlaystationPortable: a straight port came second, but first was the VideoGameRemake ''Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions'', which added FMV cutscenes, a few new secret characters, and (in the new translation) more elevated language to capitalize on the game's tonal resemblance to the book series by George R.R. Martin ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' (the two share not only an emphasis on politics and motivation, but an inspiration in the real-life UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses). Finally, ''[=WotL=]'' was (re-)re-released for [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iOS]] and {{UsefulNotes/Android|Games}}.

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: The infamous Wiegraf 1-on-1 duel at Riovanes Castle can be impossible to win if your Ramza is at a low enough level and/or lacks proper equipment and abilities, because it occurs immediately after a prior battle where you're given the opportunity to save in-between. If you only kept one save and go into the battle unable to win, you won't be able to back out to go grind up and get better equipment/skills, leaving your file stuck in a state where you're completely unable to progress any further. This can even lead to a meta HopeSpot, because it's entirely possible to be capable of winning the duel with Wiegraf and then be incapable of winning the fight against Velius/Belias, a [[ThatOneBoss boss that could be even more difficult than Wiegraf]], that happens immediately after. Getting stuck like this could theoretically happen at any other point where you fight consecutive battles if you've neglected to keep any backup saves, but none of these other fights feature such a huge spike in difficulty over the prior battles, so it would be incredibly unlikely, if not outright infeasible, that you could get to them and be completely unable to win.

* UnwinnableByMistake: The infamous Wiegraf 1-on-1 duel at Riovanes Castle can be impossible to win if your Ramza is at a low enough level and/or lacks proper equipment and abilities, because it occurs immediately after a prior battle where you're given the opportunity to save in-between. If you only kept one save and go into the battle unable to win, you won't be able to back out to go grind up and get better equipment/skills, leaving your file stuck in a state where you're completely unable to progress any further. This can even lead to a meta HopeSpot, because it's entirely possible to be capable of winning the duel with Wiegraf and then be incapable of winning the fight against Velius/Belias, a [[ThatOneBoss boss that could be even more difficult than Wiegraf]], that happens immediately after. Getting stuck like this could theoretically happen at any other point where you fight consecutive battles if you've neglected to keep any backup saves, but none of these other fights feature such a huge spike in difficulty over the prior battles, so it would be incredibly unlikely, if not outright infeasible, that you could get to them and be completely unable to win.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Delita ushers in a new golden age, but everybody he cared about is either dead or has abandoned him. Ramza, meanwhile, gets to get out of the mess that is Ivalice alive, but goes down in history as a heretic. Ovelia, having never had any freedom or happiness in life, dies after stabbing Delita. And finally, Oran is burned at the stake for being stupid enough to present records of the true events to the CorruptChurch. 400 years later, his recordings are recovered by a descendant, and the truth is finally revealed to the public, albeit somewhat late.]]