I agonized over this decision for about a week before I finally broke down. I did the one thing my brother constantly reminds me I said I would never do.I bought a PlayStation Portable (PSP). In my defense, my initial motivation was nostalgia, but I found myself engaged in a completely new retelling of my most beloved game, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. It found its way to shelves on Oct. 9, and I was unable to restrain myself for more than two weeks and snagged a copy along with a shiny new PSP.

Originally released for the first Playstation console in 1998, Tactics sought to capitalize on the popular Tactics Ogre genre of strategy role-playing, and developed its own massive fan base over the years. Developer Square-Enix decided to revamp the game and re-release it on the Playstation Portable as part of the Ivalice Alliance, a campaign promoting a series of recently released and upcoming games set in Ivalice, a world similar to medieval Europe.

The player assumes the role of idealist Ramza Beoulve, a half-noble son in a family of master knights. The game follows the young man through a story of political and religious intrigue, as two dukes attempt to maneuver themselves into positions of regency for the newborn king. Ramza soon discovers that a hidden third party may be manipulating the war for their own ends, and that they may be employing demonic powers to achieve their purpose.

Tactics’ game-play is composed of strategy warfare on the ground level, meaning that players enter battlefields with a maximum of five characters (out of a party of up to 24) and control each unit individually as their turn advances in the queue. In each battle, characters have the option to move and act once per turn. The decision to heal a comrade, charge a magic spell, guard against an impending attack, or just beat an opponent over the head is completely up to the player.

The job system allows for endless customization of your soldiers. Players can either concentrate on increasing their soldiers’ innate strengths or develop their characters into diverse, well-rounded fighters like knights with black magic subsets, to priests with close-combat skills, or gun-wielding samurai. Two new jobs, cut-scenes revamped with cel-shaded animation and voiceovers, late-game optional quests and character cameos (like Balthier from Final Fantasy XII or Luso from the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics A2) bring new life to the already engaging narrative.

The most important update, however, is the complete retranslation of the script. The original game’s main weakness was its flawed localization, which marred the otherwise engaging story of feudal intrigue and contention. The replacement of the bland and awkward dialogue with the new florid and medieval syntax brings a completely new perspective to the captivating narrative of the succession struggle.

Aside from the overhaul of the cut-scenes, the simplistic graphics have received little update from nine years ago. Animated sprites hop across the field and bash each other with swords, staves, and pistols. Unfortunately, the PSP’s hardware limitations show as the rich and vivid spells play slower compared to its Playstation predecessor. The audio effects generally outpace the visual effects, lending a discordant feel to some aspects of combat. A minor gripe, compared to the massive improvements in other categories, but ever-present nonetheless.

Fortunately, the outstanding soundtrack remains uninhibited by the PSP’s hardware limitations. Slow melodies accompany battles in dark woods or dungeons, and fanfares sound during fast-paced skirmishes on the front lines. Composers Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, of Final Fantasy XII, Tactics Ogre, and Odin Sphere fame have outdone themselves with the updated soundtrack.

Despite the minor annoyance of out-of-sync audio and visual effects, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is as outstanding in its portable incarnation as it was nearly a decade ago. Fans of the strategy role-playing genre will not be disappointed.