Square Enix

Year Released: 1998 Platform: PlayStation

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As tactical roleplaying games go, Final Fantasy Tactics owes a debt to its predecessor, Tactics Ogre, but nothing else (including the latter) can match this 1998 PlayStation game’s complexity.

Manipulating mages, warriors, monks and more across fields, towns and forests divided into chess-like tiles, players squared off in turn-based duels linked by intricate storytelling. Characters could be trained in exotic professions, ranging from chemists and orators to time mages, geomancers, arithmeticians and mimes, and an astrological “Zodiac” system, which conferred bonuses or penalties based on character sign matchups, added chance twists to encounters.

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