If you’re even the slightest bit curious about playing Final Fantasy Tactics, you probably already know that the PlayStation original is notoriously challenging. That’s still the case for the recent remake, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, though the baseline difficulty has been ratcheted down somewhat from the ’90s version. As you’re making your way through Final Fantasy Tactics’ story, it’s easy to forget that you aren’t totally committed to the challenge level you chose at the start of your playthrough. At any point outside a battle, you can swap between the three difficulty settings (Squire, Knight, and Tactician), which respectively map to traditional easy, medium, and hard settings.
For the most part, I was able to enjoy Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles on Knight difficulty. But there were a couple of instances where I adjusted the difficulty to Squire after several unsuccessful attempts. I never felt forced to marinate in my frustration for hours, which made my overall experience with the game far more enjoyable. (And Squire difficulty isn’t actually all that easy, in case you were worried about that.)
Final Fantasy Tactics will throw a lot of unique challenges your way. This can take the form of baddies who love to inflict status ailments on your allies, or lopsided enemy parties that favor a specific job class, like samurai, summoners, and time mages. Early on, changing your team’s jobs and accessories will likely be enough to overcome the opposition. But as you get further into the game, especially in Chapter Three, the more you’ll need to invest into the job system and optimize every fighter in your five-man squad.
Unlike some other popular strategy RPGs, the enemy scripting in Final Fantasy Tactics can be pretty merciless — if you leave a fragile party member vulnerable, your opponents will hone in on them, potentially leading to a K.O. before you can course correct. And if that fallen ally is your only healer, you’re probably out of luck for this attempt.
There are several instances in the game where you’ll be locked into three or four fights in a row, and those fights usually get tougher as you go. Your party’s HP and MP will be restored between battles, and any party members who have been knocked out for fewer than three turns will be revived. If you lose one battle in the sequence, you’ll be able to restart at that particular fight, but you won’t be able to return to the world map to buy equipment or grind for levels without reloading a save and losing some progress.
These sequences often end with a challenging boss fight, and some of these guys have thousands of HP and an arsenal of deadly spells and techniques. Many bosses can one-shot your party members, leaving you just three turns to either revive them with a Phoenix Down or put an end to your opponent before their countdown timer of blue hearts expires. In the early game, the “three turns to revive” rule seems generous, but opportunity slips through your grasp quickly when there are few enemies on the field and you’ve got more than one ally down for the count.
It’s usually at the end of a gauntlet like this where you’re going to want to take down the difficulty. Unfortunately, that does mean you’ll have to redo the whole series of battles. Reducing the challenge from Knight to Squire won’t make these fights a cakewalk, though. You can — and likely will! — lose that boss fight a couple more times. The main difference is that enemies won’t hit quite as hard, which gives you a bit more breathing room to pull off powerful spells and keep your buddies alive.
At some point, likely after your fourth or fifth attempt at an especially challenging brawl, you’re probably going to want to make things easier for yourself. My advice? Give into that sweet, sweet temptation. You can always change it back later.
