Rumors of the game's development began when Square announced its publishing agreement with Nintendo, and it was later confirmed by the producer Matsuno. The development team of "Tactics Advance", Square's Product Development Division 4, was constructed from employees of Quest Corporation, and work began in February 2002. This comes after Quest announced the handover of its software development team to Square, of which the former is famed for its "" series. Initially thought of as a port of "Final Fantasy Tactics", "Tactics Advance" is developed with an entirely new storyline and setting, and received significant changes to make it more user-friendly for the GBA handheld console; e.g. a quick-save function.