The developers behind Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles just opened up a whole new can of worms by stating their upcoming 2025 SRPG based on the 1997 PS1 classic is neither a remake nor a remaster.
Re-releases have always been kind of tough to categorize. If a remaster is the same game with updated visuals and a few extra lines of code (The Last of Us Remastered, Dark Souls Remastered), and a remake is a new game built from the ground up that's largely inspired by the original (Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Resident Evil 2), then where does Spyro Reignited Trilogy or Metal Gear Solid Delta sit?
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles developers say their game isn't either in an interview with 4Gamer, translated by Automaton. Director Kazutoyo Maehiro explains the team avoided calling it 'Final Fantasy Tactics Remastered' because many of the devs were on the original crew – artist and designer Hiroshi Minagawa, writer and director Yasumi Matsuno, and Maehiro himself are all back for the 2025 version, among others.
Maehiro argues that a remake, well, remakes everything from scratch. The Ivalice Chronicles doesn't fit that bill. He also says a remaster doesn't sum it up either, since The Ivalice Chronicles has new difficulty modes, voice acting, updated UI, and script tweaks in the 'Enhanced' mode.
But The Ivalice Chronicles is slightly different to cases like Metal Gear Solid Delta or the Spyro rereleases, too, which both were made by almost entirely new teams. This is an old band coming back to re-record one of their classic albums (Square Enix's Version). We just need new lingo to go with it.
One thing's for sure, Square Enix has a crucial day-one patch for Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles that restores an essential trick from the original 1998 version of the strategy JRPG
