Strategy Role-Playing Games (SRPG) or Tactical Role-Playing Games is a type of video game in which characters are forced to make strategic decisions, usually based on spatial arrangement, in order to win battles in addition to managing story and character development, levels, and equipment in a role-playing game (RPG). In a way, they are games that bridge the gap between traditional RPGs and turn-based strategy games.

Final Fantasy SRPGsEdit

While the vast majority of Final Fantasy titles are traditional role-playing games, there are a few installments of the Final Fantasy series that are SRPGs. After acquiring much of Quest's Ogre Battle series team, including Yasumi Matsuno, it created and released Final Fantasy Tactics for the Sony PlayStation and then Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance a few years later.

Since the original two games, two additional SRPGs bearing the Final Fantasy title have been released; Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, an ambitious port, re-translation, and revision to the original Final Fantasy Tactics game for the PSP and Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, which continue the type of play-style from the original Tactics Advance game on the Nintendo DS.

RPG vs. SRPGEdit

The tactical RPGs in the Final Fantasy series differ from traditional Final Fantasy RPGs in a few ways:

• On average, Strategy RPGs have more players and more enemies participating in the battle. While most Final Fantasy games allow only three or four members to participate in a battle, with more recent games tending to even fewer numbers, Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance both allow up to six players to participate on the battlefield at once. Enemies are also more numerous, in many cases, up to a dozen enemies may be on the field at the same time.
• In traditional Final Fantasy games, players fight on a static battlefield and, at best, can change their positioning in a vague or conception front line vs. back line manner. In Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance, players fight in a square-based grid, like a chess board. When it is a characters turn, he is allowed to move around the field and attack. A character's ability to attack with a weapon or cast a spell is limited by his proximity to an enemy. Often times there are height considerations with obstacles blocking movement and line of sight. The chance that a character will hit is often dependent upon his positioning and facing relative to the enemy he wishes to target. An example of this is pictured at the top of this article.

• The Job System in SRPGs allows for more divergent character development than in standard Final Fantasy games and the differences in Jobs is generally more pronounced. As evident on the picture to the right, there is often a large number of Jobs available to a player. Among these Jobs, players are generally given the ability to choose which he wants each character to be so long as the character is eligible for the Job based on level/race, allowing them to sculpt a team that fits their strategy style.

List of GamesEdit

• Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)
• Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA)
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions (PSP)
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)

Other Square EnixEdit

Developed independently, the following are a list of other Square Co., Ltd. and Square Enix SRPGs.

• Front Mission (SNES, WonderSwan, PS1, DS)
• Front Mission 2 (PS1)
• Front Mission 3 (PS1)
• Front Mission 4 (PS2)
• Front Mission 5: Scars of the War (PS2)
• Front Mission: Gun Hazard (SNES)
• Front Mission: Alternative (PS1)
• Front Mission Online (PS2)

Related GamesEdit

The following games are works by Yasumi Matsuno and the development staff at Quest (as well as derivative work) before being hired on by Square to produce Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy XII. Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics are often viewed as a trilogy due to design similarities and that they were all directed by Yasumi Matsuno.

• Ogre Battle (SNES)
• Ogre Battle Gaiden (Neo Geo Pocket Color)
• Ogre Battle 64 (N64)
• Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (Saturn, PS1)
• Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA)