This epitomes those select games that below the surface of gorgeous graphics and an incredible soundtrack is often very shallow, frustrating, or in this case both, gameplay. Such is the fate of Final Fantasy Tactics, what initially looked an impressive corroboration of programmers from the now legendary FF series with former members of the up-and-coming Ogre series. But...

Gorgeous sprites, detailed backrounds and amazing spell effects. This is definitely one of the better looking strategy/RPG games out there. Well the characters faces remain expressionless, true to its FF roots.

A wonderful orchestral score from the masters. Tracks sure to get your blood boiling for what you feel is an epic upcoming conflict, before it all comes crashing down, more on that later. Only the weak aound effects keep the audio from being perfect, especially the death cries, which are particularly weak.

Controller moves hex around screen, selecting characters and directing their movements and actions in those directions. Characters can also be faced one of four directions, giving them the most defendability up front, with the potential to block the attack alltogether, with the sides more exposed, and the back as the weakest defense point. This is for the most part useless, as enemies will often maneuver themselves around you, and attack from the back for maximum damage. Battlefields can also be rotated 360 degrees, no other major problems here, lets move on...

This is where it all goes horribly wrong. Now where to start...ah yes, the severely limiting 'army' size. Five characters, often outnumbered 2 or 3:1, means very little options, despite the FF5 "class" system. I dunno 'bout you, but I have never seen any 'army' of 5 soldiers, not even a regiment. Because of this, battles themselves are exercises in frustration, often involving more luck than actual planning and strategic maneuvers. Not to mention the endless time-consuming leveling up you must do to prepare for the RAPIDLY increasing difficulty in the MEANINGFUL battles. Not only that, enemies actually LEVEL UP WITH YOU, this seems, I dunno, somewhat purpose defeating, no? Isn't the whole PURPOSE of leveling up is so you can crush weaker foes and are strong enough to tackle the tougher enemies? Lets say a black mage you encounter at one point in the game keeps frying you with his Fire spell, right. So you go level up, build up your HP, magic def., and attack power, and return to smack his @$$ around only to find yourself FRIED AGAIN by his now Fire 2 spell! Ridiculous... Your end reward for all this: an incoherent storyline with so much backstabbing involved, it rivals a bill proposal in the House of Reps. The game has its moments, albeit few and far between, but the net enjoyment you get from this game is far outweighed by the endless battles, frustration, and an ill-concieved storyline you recieve for your investment.

Were the game just an all-around poor game, it might've eased the blow somewhat and be written off as just another one of the PSX's poorly programmed pieces of crap. But the fact the game actually has decent graphics and one of the best soundtracks EVER composed WASTED because of such poorly-innovative gameplay is just plain unforgiveable... Save your money for the soundtrack folks, as the game remains FOR HARDCORE FUNSTERS ONLY, or gamers who enjoy torturing themselves...