A decade old port that has withstood the test of time shines (partly) on a new system
You follow the adventures of Ramza from the house of Beoulve and his struggles between his family that he once trusted more than anything and his friends from his past as well as the ones in his current life. This seems and interesting concept for a story and it plays out fairly well if you can keep up with the encrypted dialogue. You soon find yourself in a vie for control among your family for the right to rule as well the stones of power that influence everyone all around you.
These stones which take a backseat at the start of the game become increasingly apparent of their value and what they stand for in the world of Ivalice. I would go more into the story but it gets a lot more complicated and it will end in many spoilers. If you can understand the story then you will definitely be able to appreciate it because it is definitely a good one and actually feels like it actually happened because of the realism created despite all the magic and what not going on.
The gameplay itself is great, the turn based combat flows well and in boss battles as the action accelerates so does the intensity. While the boss battles are still typically RPG format because of the back story added the fights seem a lot more important than expected, that being said without this splurge of story then the boss battles would fail shamelessly and seem more as an unnecessary distraction as opposed to an in depth addition to the story.
The learning curve is completely dependant on how much the player is into the game. If you are a hardcore fan of SRPG's then you will understand how to play the game right to off the bat but if you are not a veteran of the genre then you will definitely spend some time reading the manual book which still does not give the best description of the wide variety of things the game has to offer. The most unique thing the game has to offer is the wide assortment of classes the game offers you with a little time put into the game. You can be a straight powerhouse as a monk or change to a geomancer who can control the earth. The classes are abundant but many of them seem overwhelming and a lot more of a hindrance as oppose to an actual aid.
Knowing how to use each class is the complicated part but once you figure that out the game's cloudy interface is sure to clear up and give you a better view of the action going on around you. The graphics are definitely 1998 but psp makes even old graphics seem new again but the game still goes further by offering what looks like hand drawn cutscences to enliven the overall experience which it does very well.
The game never gives you a chance to really get an age unless you level grind all the time. When you encounter random battles the enemies are just as strong or stronger than you. When you enact in story battles even at higher levels you can still be easily bested by weaker enemies. Sometimes the game can be extremely frustrating because even with all the time invested into leveling up a character you can still lose your ground even if you make one wrong move, big or small. It does not help that if you cannot revive your character within 3 turns of death then you lose the character forever which will most likely make you restart your game in order to keep your character.
The symphony that accompanies you throughout the game is very nicely done and seems fine tuned towards each aspect of the game, whether it be a story battle or a random encounter. It blends into the background but still remains to add an upbeat to the tempo of certain battles. There is little voice acting but it is good enough to seem remotely authentic.
For such an old game to be remade with only slight adjustments the value is definitely not justified, it should be more like the price of Jeanne D' Arc which is a new game with the same qualities of FFT but there are many ways in which FFT shines over Jeanne D' Arc. Personally I believe the GBA version is widely better than this but that is more a matter of personal choice then of true gameplay value. There is not much replayability to the game but after playing for 40 hours straight you might not want to trek through the insane amount of level grinding and story again (even if it is terribly riveting).