Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions Early Impressions

I picked up FFT for PSP two days ago. I haven't played much of it so far, so these are very early impressions, but they are significant. First of all, the cutscenes really are impressive. I like the "sketchbook" look to it. The voice acting is not bad, either. The translation has been changed for the better, although you may or may not like the "Olde English" that's used. FFXII used it, and FFT uses it too, since they're both related. I haven't done any of the tavern quests yet, but I imagine the "I got a good feeling!" message was kicked to the curb. The character names have been changed significantly. Algus is now Argrath, for example. Many of the skill names have changed, too; some examples include the Squire's and Knights skills, which are now called "Fundaments" and "Arts of War" respectively. One thing that was added to FFT that wasn't in the PS1 version is slowdown. Every time an action is made, for some reason the frame rate drops until the animation is finished. This happens even for simple effects like using a potion or casting a low-level spell. This causes the sound to go out of sync with what's happening on screen. I can only chalk up this problem to lazy programming, as the PSP is way more capable than the PS1 and the in-game graphics have not been improved at all. The other issue is the sound. Both the SFX and music suffer because there's no reverb. Because that effect is missing, things don't sound as nice, even with headphones. In other words, the PS1 version actually sounds better even though the PSP is superior in every way. So yeah, lazy programming strikes again. If you can overlook those two problems, you'll otherwise find the same great game that you fell in love with nine years ago. Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to try out the multiplayer because I don't know anyone with a copy of FFT. I don't want to write a review without trying out all the features, you know?