FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles
Game
Game2017
Ancient Frontier
Developer Fair Weather Studios
Ancient Frontier is a turn-based strategy RPG set in the far future. You command the fleet. Buy new ships, outfit them with crew and equipment, then deploy and destroy the enemy. Take control of massive fleets of capital ships and support craft as you play through two unique campaigns. From the Steam store page
107 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Apr 4, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
64
Fresh
68 positive · 38 negative
95% range 55–73%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 68 | 38 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
1 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
88 of 133 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 107 · most liked firstSaves to the registry. This game is therefore potentially hazardous to the safety and stable functioning of your Operating System. This review is now final on account of the developer actions as intimated at in the developer response. My reviews are just that, reviews. They are not places for Developers to make implied threats regarding community guidelines. Developer responses are designed for the developer to respond to the reviewer and acknowledge, dispute or discuss claims made in the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ancient Frontier is a well polished and pretty straightforward addition to the turn-based strategy genre. There are two different campaigns to play through, each with story missions, bonus missions, and training missions to choose from. The story missions are fully voiced with a lot of flavor in the banter between the different characters. Even the tutorial (which is completely optional and can be skipped entirely) is fully voiced and sets up the characters nicely. The game offers three…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Turn-based tactical goodness... in SPACE! For a game out of nowhere, Ancient Frontier offered me a highly pleasant surprise. Good turn-based tactical games are not overly abundant to start with, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy on a whim. Something I rarely do, but boy am I glad to have done so. The game is all about the tactical missions. There are two main campaigns, which apparnetly can take around 100 hours to play through. No multiplayer or skirmish mode. Missions bring you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →https://youtu.be/ihhCE2q7M-A Ancient Frontier is a turn based strategy game that is a space-based take on what you would see with an XCOM style game, at least as far as it's combat is concerned. However, this game does have multiple ship types, item shops, equipment modifications for your ships, a levelling system, AND 2 voice-acted story campaigns. As a First Impression, this game is absolutely fantastic. You could tell that the Developers put a lot of attention to detail within this game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought this game early on and been playing it for over 150 hours now. I really like it, maybe im biased cause i love most turn based games, but spaceships istead of tanks is really refreshing. Lets go into detail. + Many different ships that can be fitted individually with crew and gear + Two long campaigns with optional smaller assignments + Story is ok (imho) and has smaller tweaks + Factions have different playstyles + Devs are very dedicated, some bugs took long to find but they never…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So it's hard for me to vote no, because it's a pretty solid turn based tactics game. They've got the framework for something great here...but the writing is awful. So. Freaking. Awful. There is no engaging lore or history to draw you in, just random references to temples and The Machine God. No one uses 'baby' that often in every conversation. It's like someone who doesn't know how to interact with people, attempted to simulate interactions between people.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What an unexpected pleasant surprise this turned out to be. Solid hex based tactical combat, polished graphics, and almost the entire game is voiced as well. While the story has only been decent so far, leveling your ships and developing your space fleet have me hooked. I don't think I'm close to being through the first campaign after 20 hours so there's a ton of gameplay here. I do wish you could take your heroes into bounty missions, and I wouldn't mine a bigger map variety. The…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Every time i finish a mission all the menus are shown on screen at the same time, overlapping. Every time i quit the game, it crashes. AI is dumb, missions are simple, and mission completion triggers won't wait for you to loot the map, you are either going to be dodging that last enemy or avoiding scanning last 2 hexes for several turns or you are going to miss out. If its on sale and you really like the genre and REALLY want to turn the brain off for a while, go ahead and buy this,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Made a video review for Ancient Frontier. You can find it here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfz7l_CIZo In short (for those that don't have 8 minutes to waste :P). Pro's Interesting Storyline. Something you would find in a space sim usually. Good music. Nice strategic combat (and punishing at times on veteran). Good variety of ships and nice tech tree to upgrade them. Has 2 almost completely different campaigns. 30 missions or so each. Between that and the side quests there is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For an indie developer this game has high production value with crisp graphics, peaceful music, voice acting and clear instructions with tooltips for everything. Play is fluid and you can fully rotate the map. Each unit only has a set number of abilities to use in each quest - ship repairs, boosts, missiles - so your tactics are important. This title is very enjoyable to play through and makes a great turn-based space combat sim.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Solid turn based strategy game with RPG progression and optional side missions for more XP and loot. Permadeath is a nice feature but the ability to turn iron man off would be a nice patch feature. Solid story driven experience with plenty of content.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic board game style turn based sci-fi game. Good overall plot, Campaign, simulation and quests. Techs to research and crew to fill your fleets. Imo a top class sci-fi experience. 9\10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR: If you’re looking for a decent tactical space combat game with some strategy and RPG elements, this game might be for you, despite some shortcomings that prevent it from being great. + Small but decent selection of space vessels to choose from + Lots of skills and equipment upgrades for vessels available + Selection of crew adds nice bonuses to vessels + Overarching campaign from 2 different factions allows for several hours of gameplay + Turn-based tactical combat is decent, making use…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Initial thoughts after a couple hours: Ancient Frontier is a strategy/tactical turn based sci-fi game with some RPG elements (ability to improve your ships over time). I'm told that the two available campaigns are each past the 30 hour range so that's something to look forward to. I've really enjoyed my time with it so far...I'd compare it favorably to recent releases in the genre (such as XCom). The sound design and music well compliment the game play, and are excellent (espescially for an…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So this is a surprisingly good TBS RPG that does have a couple of issues. Overall I enjoyed my experience. First off, I did play the original game by this company, which was a very different style of game but set in the same world. The store says that it continues the story of the first game but there was really almost no story in the first game. So the game is split into two broad sections. First there are tactical combat missions. These are pretty fun and well done, as you move ships…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →EDITED 15/02/2021 EDITED 26/02/2021 I'm going to give this a "Not Recommended" simply because there is no "Meh" option. The game is not a _bad_ TBS mechanically, but it is very basic and has a lot of minor frustrations and the storyline is entirely forgettable. Only pick it up if it's on steep sale ($10 or less USD). It's highly unlikely I will ever actually finish this game, I got bored and stopped playing around halfway through Sector 3 after something like 12 hours of gameplay. Pros: -…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's.... okay... At it's core you have a hex based turn based space combat game and that isn't too bad. Your different types of ships handle differently. Some fighter class ships for example get given three move actions during their turn, allowing them to race in, shoot with admittedly small guns, and then use the last move actions to run away again. Bigger ships may have only one move action, meaning that once they move during their turn they are committed. Nice enough game mechanic and once…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is yet another tablet/cell phone game The story is average Dialogue is generic and cheesey Voice acting is passible Gameplay elements are fair for a game priced around $12 The gameplay, however, is marred by efforts to make the game artificially longer through compulsory grinding in slow and tedious thirty-minute missions several times over before having enough strength and fleet to progess a story mission. If I'm spending ten plus minutes on one boring screen I would like to see more…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ancient Frontier is a turn-based, semi-RPG tactical fleet space combat game which takes place on hexagonal maps - but you can tell more or less that from the store page. What you can't tell from the store page is how slickly done it all is, especially for a game from a very small company, or that it's fairly addicting and has some nice replay value. Things that stand out to me as positive: -Fleet development. Building up my fleet, losing ships permanently (think X-COM in space), researching…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like Sci-Fi. I like tactical turn-based games. If you like those things give this game a try. I did and I liked it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First Off here is our equipment as always. Our gear/package (Its huge) Running at 61-63 FPS NVidea GTX 960 Intel I-7 Samsung Monitor DDR3 12GB On this equipment we run at 60 fps no lag, or hesitation. Get out your stripper money...... on to the stuff you really want to see; At first glance, this is a well done Turn Based RTS. If you have played the likes of XCOM, Expeditions Consquistador, Galactic Civ, Sins of the Solar Empire, this game is right up your proverbial "Space Porthole" if you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game because I like turn-based sci-fi strategy games. The story and graphics looked good, so I went ahead and tried it out. Boy, what a waste of money ! The mechanics of gradually building , equipping, crewing and upgrading a fleet work reasonably well , though not terribly original. But the battle maps all look the same, with lots of asteroid fields and space stations (without any function), which are used as cover to hide behind, jumping out to attack and jumping back into…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Positives: 1. Many different unit types, 2. Tons of equipment to customize the ships to your style of play, 3. Very long campaigns with lots of optional missions, 4. Both campaigns have different types of ships so it almost feels like 2 games, 5. I love all the research options ... you really need to think about which ships you want to use and focus on researcing cabilities, 6. Love the new crew DLC ... high level crew can really make your ships MUCH stronger. Negatives: 1. The game would…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This turned out to be a nice surprise. The voice acting is not great so at first you'll think it's a cheesy game. But once you get going its a very solid, hexy, turn based space strategy game with two long campaigns. The combat engine is gorgeous and although the rules are streamlined (no weapons arcs or ship facing) it's very satifying and allows for interesting tactics. Your forces are persistent (you keep and grow your army mission to mission) and there's a bit of a meta game with the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →great game. unlike many games that encurage save scumming, i have the feeling that my decissions realy matter, and the deployment costs make me think about how many forces is should bring to a battle instead of just crushing everything with total overkill. the two campains are quite long, so it has plenty of content. the difficulty i think is spot on, tho the save system can be quite unforgiving, you can afford to make a few mistakes. definitively worth the price if you like space ships and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →EDIT: One of my main gripes with the game, the enforced ironman mode on harder difficulty settings, has been resolved with an option to allow manual saves. However, you're limited to one save slot (so better don't forget about saving after each and every mission). WHich is quite nice from the devs! Still, I don't really have any plans of picking this up again. TL;DR: Only one saveslot per game, autosaves even if you ALT+F4. If that's fine by you, give it a shot I guess. From what I've seen so…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game! This is truely a hybrid of Sid Meir's Starships and X Com. Plus the developers were quick to respond to a question I had. They addressed it within an hour of posting it. Great game!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"did you really think that I came here to talk about these incredibly important issues? Silly, I'm a woman, I want you to bed me." I think this game tries to have some strong female characters... but damn does it fail, falling into some almost painfully negative tropes. As for the actual game: it's not bad, but there are a lot of quality of life improvements that it really needs. Few examples: - "survive to turn 5" type missions don't end if all enemies are dead and nothing is left to pick…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't pay more than $5. Writing is terrible, graphics are meh, gameplay is inspired by something rehashed from the 1990's and I was bored with the game before I finished the first mission. Really enjoy this sort of game too, hugely disappointed and sorry to have to write a review like this. I just couldn't play it. Trust me, just play any other strategy game you like, even ones you've beat. You'll have more fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Even if this game is far longer than I would prefer, Ancient Frontier is an enjoyable strategy title if you prefer your games with a touch of risk. If you can forgive some cheesy VA work and a long playtime, this is a perfect addition to any Strategy fan's library.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game. Pleasantly surprised at how many updates the Devs have pushed out in the first couple of weeks.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cool fleet management sim. Pretty tough actually. Really fun tho. There are a lot of decisions to make to build up a good fleet and keep it that way. Was more involved than I thought it would be. It is a really cool game and I'm glad I found it. Yes would recommend this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was a pleasant surprise. The gameplay is great and the story is good too. The voice acting is not the greatest but it is adequate and I have heard worse on a game I paid twice as much for. It has run flawlessly for me and I suspect that most of the people having trouble running the game do not have updated Microsoft Visual C++ Libraries as the devs recommended (you can update your libraries here…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really enjoyed this game. It is well explained and involves strategy with a variety of ships, plus hunting for hidden enemy ships and other items to salvage. I found that it was interesting, and kept me engaged, with great graphics, music, and sound effects, as well as a fun commentary as you play. I have a long way to go, and hope to explore more as my fleet develops.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While it starts a bit slow and easy the missions become slowly more intense and the subtleties of the combat start to click. And the RPG aspect of developing your ships is compelling. Stick with it :-)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a turn based game where you fly your fleet of spaceships around the map looking for enemies and collecting resources. You can choose how many ships you use on missions and buy upgrades with resources gained. The ability to move the camera angle around to get a 3-dimensional feel during the missions is fantastic. The graphics are detailed and the gameplay is enhanced by the music, sound effects and voice acting. I've really enjoyed this game so far and I would definitely recommend it!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like turn based tactical games, so I probably enjoyed this game more than many will, but I can't recommend it due to two major issues. The primary issues I have with the game are: The game / combat is a grind The game becomes a grind fairly early. With 30 missions per campaign (Alliance / Federation) and up to 3 missions in between story missions, you can play 90 missions per campaign if you grind the experience and resource missions in between the story missions. Even if you only do some…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Corny intro story and tutorial. Felt like I was watching a bad remake of battle star galactica, the original series, with starbuck and apollo getting chummy and vying for the attentions of a girl with a vaguely British accent. Only 2 factions? Egads! Not pirates (again)! So-so graphics. Not fun. Couldn't get into it. Got a refund.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. I love the tactical battles and the story is great. he Devs listen to feedback and interact on the forums which is a major plus.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Influenced by the TBS of the likes of Xcom, which I have always enjoyed immensely, their isn't quite the same enamor for your ships that you develop with our Xcom team. Still, that style of turn based play is easy to engage. You start out with decent enough ships to progress but getting the big boys later on make a huge difference. The AI is a pretty good opponent though at times, they seem to have the advantage of making shots you can't make and most certainly seem have better weapons in both…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am enjoying this game a lot! It's a turn-based strategy game in space. Each unit has differing amounts of moves and actions depending on the ship. Also you can decide the order actions you take. For example, a unit with 2 moves and 2 actions remaining, could move away from cover, fire a torpedo at an enemy ship, move back to cover and then charge shields. There are different factions to choose from which have different ships and abilities. As play missions, your ships level up as well.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you like turn-based tactical games, it's definately worth buying. There is decent plot, good development system when it comes to your ships, a sense of pregression as you unlock more and more powerful units. Missions are tactical enough, ther is a little randomness, just enough to make it a little unpredictable but not enough to be frustraiting. Finally, the developers really listen to the player community and release patches to address bugs and issues pointed by players. Worth your time and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Enjoying this a lot, a lot of fun... very similar to Warbanners which I picked up recently also. So there are turn-based space battles with different space ships in your fleet. After the battle you get resources which you can use to purchase new ships and/or new equipment, you can research upgrades to your different ships/equipment and the individual ships level up after battle. Different resources facilitate different things, money allows you to buy stuff, energy allows you to field ships…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →On the fence with this. Unlike many, I liked Sid Meier's Starships and I was hoping for something a little bit more in depth, like chess with space ships. Should have read other reviews -- if you are trying it, you probably don't want to spend 16 minutes listening to a very fluffy tutorial and instead are better off just jumping in. I refunded the first time, then read more reviews and decided to get it again, as I do think there is a depth that isn't apparent immediately. Might update…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While I am not sure the game is worth more that 20$ the sale made this an easy choice, if you are looking for a deep 4x game this is not it. This is about collecting resources and either blowing up or avoiding your enemies. This is a light game, with not a lot of depth but enough to be enjoyable. The Dev's are responsive and do listen on the boards. If I was to critize anything is the cheesy almost sexiest dialogue between story missions. Over all 7/10 if the fix the tutorial and fix the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tolerable Game at best! I found that the the game tutorial is over done with loads of crappy puns and jokes not to mention its terrible voice over that sounds like a SEGA game from the 80s. While the game has some good points I find it over explained and make you want to drop the tuts to just try your luck as ship battle. But over all if you are into space war-fair, this may be your thing. It surely was not MINE.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The overall quality of this game is great. I enjoyed the general look of the game with the graphics quality being top notch. The way the story is woven into the game play draws you in. You can tell the the developer has put a lot of work into the title and it's quality shines through. I enjoyed being able to zoom in and out and pan around the world with fluidity throughout, giving you a different perspective of the map with each pan. I'm looking forward to playing this game more in the coming…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Stupid, sexy, spaceships. This one is janky, but I mean...its made by exactly two dudes. The story and voice acting aren't as awful as the Starpoint Gemini games so let that be your standard. Basically its a tactical RPG with light fleet management and spaceships. I really don't know what more you need. Its alot easier than say Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. I just wanna watch spaceships blow each other up right now, and this game is perfect for that. Just be aware of the tiny development…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not bad as a tactical space game. It's unclear if there are any significant choices to make - it seems like you can focus on capital ships, dabble in fighters, and completely ignore escorts, and have a winning fleet. But, oh, boy, the plotting! The writing makes all the characters unsympathetic, but it's the plot of the campaign that makes me want to flip the table here. The storyteller is not playing fair with the characters, and cancels their work - it's essentially a "negadungeon", where…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Disappointing and frankly rather dull. Graphics are poor for its age, gameplay is slow. AI not that bright. Basically a poor game of chess.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite being a fairly simplistic game it is well done and I especially like the story element. It is maybe a little high priced but if you would like a tactical space battle and exploration game with some resource management and a nice voiced story element added I would highly recommend this game. I think of this as chess in space, highly tactical. Simple and fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Enjoyable game, but it has its difficulty spikes at times.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you have the 8gb ram+ the gam requires it might run ok for a mission or two. If you get past starting the campaign, or your loaded save actually works. The auto save feature tries to save during a mission and makes backups only of that same mission so they all just cause the game to exit instead of loading. So don't use it if your gonna try to play. Manually save at the start of each turn, maybe even going as far to switch between 2 or 3 different save slots. It really is a shame that the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is not a good game. Why? A lack of interesting choices and not much thought required. Awful dialog. A juvenile plot is fully voiced before key missions. Yay?!? Dumb AI on hard difficulty. If it can, the AI always spreads its shots between your ships. Also the AI will always move and fire, then move closer and fire again. The closer you are the better the odds, so this makes no sense. Many repetitive missions. Same ships in greater number. Map different in the placement of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For a indie developer, and if you can get it at a discount, this is very fun game to have. Don't get it for the storyline and dialogue, you would be wanting. Amazingly the soundtrack is very nice to listen to. I do hope they come back to franchise and add more to it. Show your support if you can.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am really loving it. No matter how many missions there are, I will probably be a tad pee'd off there isnt more. Its a great, simple but entertaining strategy game. Decent story. Nice animations. You can micromanage your fleet too with the many upgrades. But be careful you dont use upgrades that make your deployment costs sky rocket. You must be careful you dont waste your 3 valuable resources, it costs 2 of those resources to deploy your fleet, so if you can keep the cost low, you will…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Entertaining TBS game set in space, in which being careful with resources is paramount and investing in research and crew seem to work a treat. Battles are fun, though some maps are so colourful and bright it's hard to see what's where and where's what. Linear story, only some side missions to keep you afloat in resources and a lot of cheesy dialogues, but good game overall.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After 20 hours of play, when trying to load a save, I got a message that my saves got corrupted.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great tactics game along the line of Panzer General. It is 2d in space, but actually I prefer that, makes it a little more simple. The graphics are very nice, and the voice acting is great. The User Interface is very clean and easy to use. The tutorial is one of the best I have ever experienced. If you liked Panzer General but hated Space General as it was too boring, this is a much better version of Space General. It has RPG elements, it allows you to do research to tech and ships, upgrade…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The voice acting and storyline start off really really bad. But like a fungus it grows on you and now I'm quite liking it. I had originally complained of it being awful, but a few missions in, the dialogue between missions starts making sense in the style it's presented and after a while it comes into it's own and you start to appreciate these characters making the journey with you. Botom line it's pretty fun. There's plenty of RPG elements, battle damage and mission consequences carry over…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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