Tactics Ogre: Reborn - remaster based on 2010 release

[Primordial Ruination]

Just look at the unlock requirements for Sherri or Cressida, they are absurd and it'd be almost impossible for a player to recruit them without ever consulting a guide.

What are the requirements for Sherri? I just went to Balmamusa and she joined me. I have no idea what I did.

Olivya has to be in your party (joins automatically on all paths), and her loyalty has to be high. It also to be raining when you land on Balmamusa, which is the cryptic part, as it's random and can change with each move on the over-world. You were lucky like I was, not evening knowing about the weather requirement until I read about it later.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, after playing the game for a couple hours / missions and reading some guides, I've decided to abort my playthrough of Tactics Ogre Reborn (PC).

Good:

• New characters' portraits are nice (?). Or maybe not.
• Graphics / fonts better / clearer than in PSP version.

Bad:

• Worst of two worlds. Devs decided to combine elements from original Snes game and PSP remake. Creating a weird, disfigured mutant. Most glaring problems below.
• Snes game had almost 0 skills and build porn (these came later, with FFT). Your fags could switch to various jobs / classes (as long as they had met stat and affinity requirements), change equipment (job-dependant) and equip 0-4 spells. And that was it. EXP was "individual", each fag was being awarded with EXP points after every action (hence stoning other fags to level up). It wasn't perfect (huge difference in levels between combatants = huge difference not only in damage output, but also accuracy), but it worked. And it was basically the 1st game in the genre (not counting Ogre Battle, Fire Emblem and certain Sega series...)
• PSP remake introduced over 9000 skills and build porn. Also horrible UI, TP, billions of buffs / debuffs / statuses and a new, retarded idea: "shared" job EXP. All fags of job X shared one EXP, so you no longer had to train each fag with each job separately (like in FFT). BUT! Every new job started at LV0, so to get these sweet "ability points", you had to deploy some fag with this job (and 0 "new job" skills) in the field, and try to survive against enemies with full skill sets (and better gear, which for some retarded reason is also level-restricted). Or at least that's how I remembered it - deleted after a couple of hours.
  
  There's also "One Vision" mod, but it doesn't change the mechanics entirely. But "Reborn" does.
  
  
• In Reborn, you have gazillion of skills, buffs / debuffs / statuses from PSP version. But skills are almost totally useless, since they are now tied to you current job (your fag can equip "Knight's skills" only when he's a knight), plus you can equip whooping 4 skills altogether. Realistically 3, since you should have your "weapon" skill equipped all the time to learn new finishers. You get new skills automagically, when leveling up (regular EXP). So, you have all these "interesting" skills:
  
  https://www.neoseeker.com/tactics-ogre-reborn/guides/Skills
  
  But you can only use 3 of them, from the pool of your current job (some skills appear for multiple / all jobs - "Resist X" for example).
  
  
• Jobs were also botched. You no longer need certain affinity (Law / Neutral / Chaos), nor stat requirements, nor gender requirements. All you need is a "job-changing" item bought in shops, and you can switch every fag to every job. What the fuck? Compared to Snes original, or esp. Knight of Lodis for GBA (expanded job requirements), "Reborn" is a total abomination in this regard. Edit: This was introduced by PSP remake, but mitigated by the "shared EXP" shit.
• Bad skill system makes the entire job system pointless. Some jobs / classes simply have much better skills than others. For example, Warrior gets "Mighty Impact" action skill very early (LV3) - "Cause melee weapons such as sword and axes to score automatic criticals with 100% accuracy. These attacks are not subject to counterattacks". And Archer has "Tremendous Shot" - "Cause ranged weapons such as bows and crossbows to score automatic criticals with 100% accuracy". These two skills are VERY useful, since they admittedly cost MP, but also are the best tools to kill enemies quickly using brawlers. And I don't see anything close to them for Knights, Berserkers, Swordmasters or Ninjas (dual attack is nice, but can be blocked / counterattacked). What's the point of using other brawlers than Warriors or Archers then? Edit: Passives make up for lack of "actives" + it was actually p. similar in PSP version. I'm playing it now, and it's similar, but better (wider skill pool).
• But wait, there's more. Regular EXP is now shared, plus there's a level cap (which increases every couple missions). Units don't get individual EXP for their actions, they all get same amount of EXP after surviving the mission. So, after you hit the cap (grinding, story mission), all the gained EXP is lost. And if your fag performed nicely in mission, but got KOed, no EXP for him. What the fuck? I know there were some problems with EXP in vanilla, but it's now 10 times more retarded / broken than before. Edit: at least "new" fags get all the EXP "lost" by capped units. Entire thing is IMO still retarded / forces you to use cards.
• There's a shitload of skills related to enemy recruitment now, so it's clear that devs wanted this mechanic to be an important one. Problems: it doesn't work ingame (very low chance of success) + why would you need 25 fairies and 15 dragons in you party, when all you needed in previous version was a few (8-10) good men / women (recruits leveled up to perfection + 2-3 "special" units). Edit: Other fags claim that it actualy works, with <50% chance of succes in perfect conditions? Personaly I don't give a fuck about recruits, since most non-humans can't change jobs.
• Battlefield is now dotted with various cards: temporary bonuses / penalties to stats, permanent bonuses, etc. Total waste of time in a TB game, which (to my surprise) almost all players agree upon. See reviews where almost everybody rages hard about cards. Devs on the other hand loved them so much, that they've decided to buff bosses to oblivion, so you have to either debuff them, or buff your units before facing them. Fuck this shit.
• To add insult to injury, you have to watch long "unit picks up a card" animation every time you move your unit onto the tile with a card. Even if you cancel your move eventually. Who develops shit like this?

Ugly:

• "Enhanced" character sprites look fucking horrible. Like they were resized using Eagle, xBR or other AIDS. Make filtering tweakable or GTFO, don't permanently "enhance" base sprites, FFS!
• Neverending spoils from combat. Remember getting maybe a herb once in a long while in Snes version? Not this time - every killed fag gets you his/her full set of gear and items. After all, players love management and spoils...
• Mages can't dual-wield now, which automagically makes them weaker than in original. Edit: They can, just not all staffs. Plus it was introduced in the PSP version. Didn't play long enough to learn if summons are as IMBA as in vanilla (but it worked! - you had to move your mage close enough to the enemy, to kill him in one shot).
• HP / MP bloat. Use cards or these two useful skills mentioned above to kill enemies quickly. Yawn.

tl;dr

Worst of two worlds: no build porn from PSP version (jobs & skills now useless less fun to fuck around), but simpler and worse mechanically than over 25 years old Snes original (no job requirements, shared EXP, level cap).

Verdict: avoid. Play either the Snes original (simplicity) or PSP remake (build porn).

Now I can finally go back to what 1eyedking wrote about the game...

 

[flyingjohn]

Well there goes my interest for the game.
Guess i am gonna replay Yu-Gi-Oh monster Colosseum.

 

[AdamReith]

Happy I never got round to playing, refunded my impulse purchase. Thanks for the excellent analysis fags.

 

[spekkio]

Funny how everybody and their edgy dog shits over Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga in its thread ("not challenging enough", "nor remarkable enough" and other nonsense). While this game does at least one, but the most important thing right: it has only a couple of systems, but all of them work on their own and combined together.

At the same time, jizzed-over "blast from the past from grorious nippon oldfag devs!!!" shit, like TO - Reborn or Triangle Strategy, are a mess of 73 inconsistent, broken systems.

Maybe SoW being developed by 2 devs helped...

 

[Tigranes]

spekkio I can't comment on the changes from earlier versions, and even without experience I strongly doubt numerous changes Reborn makes, but there are a few factually weird things in what you're saying.

Berserkers are the most easy source of big smashy damage to crash past high-HP enemies, with strong attack stats, double attack power skill, and berserk skill. They can even delete 2-3 squishes in one hit if things line up. Archers are far less effective (whereas i've heard they were great in earlier versions), and it's upside down to say that they're better killers of anything compared to berserkers, except I guess in maps where you can't reach at all (but in those cases there's often elevation/etc involved, making Canopus and even Rune Fencers far more useful).

Recruitment works with ~30% success chance against low health enemies if you stand next to them. Gryphons with Fly can be a superb tool in early game. So it's factually weird to say it 'doesn't work'.

 

[Grunker]

For example, Warrior gets "Mighty Impact" action skill very early (LV3) - "Cause melee weapons such as sword and axes to score automatic criticals with 100% accuracy. These attacks are not subject to counterattacks". And Archer has "Tremendous Shot" - "Cause ranged weapons such as bows and crossbows to score automatic criticals with 100% accuracy". These two skills are VERY useful, since they admittedly cost MP, but also are the best tools to kill enemies quickly using brawlers. And I don't see anything close to them for Knights, Berserkers, Swordmasters or Ninjas (dual attack is nice, but can be blocked / counterattacked). What's the point of using other brawlers than Warriors or Archers then?

Those cost MP, so you're picking between them and using finishers. Meanwhile other melee classes can throw out critical debuffs that turn enemies to paper and similar stuff. I didn't see much reason in using those MP-costing damage-focused actives after unlocking finishers, especially not considering that the truth is the reverse of your post: most other melee classes can do what Warriors do PLUS a bunch of better and more versatile shit. You got characters like Rune Fencers and Canopus whose versatility and similar or better damage output make Warriors seem completely laughable. Rune Fencer is basically a swiss army knife and one of the utilities in that knife is the Warrior, meanwhile the Warrior is just the Warrior. If you actually DO want such a focused character, Berserker seems close to strictly better.

Perhaps even more bizarre than your attitude towards Warriors vs. other melee characters is your analysis of Archers which, while certainly usable, seem to have dropped from allegedly OP in previous versions to now being... mediocre, at best. I use one mostly because I got a story companion Archer, otherwise I don't think I'd bother.

As a result, reading this segment of your post is completely baffling to anyone who has made any progress in TO:Reborn. And it certainly makes someone like me who hasn't played the other games question the validity of the rest of your post in the places where I have no personal reference - it's the sort of conclusions one might draw after spending very little time with the game (your faulty claims about recruitment also hint to this seeing as I thought the very same thing you did when I used the skill at first, though I phrased my concern as a question rather than a firm statement), yet they are made with the staunch certainty of someone who is sure about what he is saying, which doesn't add to credibility.

As for the remainder of your criticism, whenever I read criticism of Reborn from people who played the older games, I can't help but discern an echo of underlying criticism that honestly encompasses the former games as well, and while I can see how some elements of the PSP version can make it more interesting, the basic reasons for why TA:O didn't go higher than "p. good" for me certainly seems to be implicitly present across versions. That it is exceedingly simple, often too easy (the more I play the more I miss that Necromancer encounter...) and lacks variety. There's a lot of simple value there, but I have a hard time seeing this as one of the greats beyond its value as a design reference. Even with a bigger mixing and matching of skills (which is less of a case than most people imply, since weapons grant some of those skills passively), I don't think I'd suddenly turn around and say "wow OK now this is suddenly an all time great."

The story was nicer than I expected though.

 

[Abu Antar]

The thing is that the SNES version was good enough, and there didn't need to be any changes to the game. Remaster it with acceptable pixel characters, and you would have been fine.

 

[spekkio]

stuff

Sorry bros, as I clearly (?) wrote, I didn't get too far + some things I only read about (skill list, recruitment).

But... As a fag who completed original version twice (PS1 and Snes) I simply didn't feel inclined to continue playing the game.

So I may not be a "credible source", but as always, you have to play the game to see if you like it.

It is but interesting, that both of you (Tigranes & Grunker) concentrated on analyzing only a small part of my post: whether using other classes than Warrior / Archer is a good idea. As I wrote, I have no idea if "later" classes are better, they certainly lack better "action skills":

https://www.neoseeker.com/tactics-ogre-reborn/guides/Skills

I sure hope that they compensate with good passives, etc.

I've decided to stop playing because I didn't like plenty other things in the game, except weird skill system + had much more fun with the original.

But I'm looking forward to you guys "questioning the validity of the rest of my post", considering things like: lack of requirements for job change (people who didn’t play vanilla or Knight of Lodis probably don’t even know what I’m talking about), only four skills per unit (borrowed only from current job's skills - PSP version says hello fuck you), level cap, cards, etc.

As a fellow Codexer, I know that before writing ANY criticism, I should've spent at least 100 more hours playing the game I don't like to please fellow autists, but sadly I don't give a fuck, since I have better games to play.

Plus, if you take anything posted here as sth written with "staunch certainty of someone who is sure about what he is saying", you're too much of an optimist, methinks.

Yours sincerely,

The Dude

 

[spekkio]

The thing is that the SNES version was good enough, and there didn't need to be any changes to the game. Remaster it with acceptable pixel characters, and you would have been fine.

Plus maybe a smal modification to the EXP system, so difference in levels leads only to a decrease in damage of the "weaker" unit, instead of the difference in both damage AND accuracy.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Chapter 3 fixed some of the random battle problems I had at least.

 

[Grunker]

It is but interesting, that both of you (Tigranes & Grunker) concentrated on analyzing only a small part of my post:

Not really. I try to refrain on commenting on specific relations to the older game that I can't know about. So I only comment on the things I can be fairly certain about (e.g. Archer power level or PSP version having unbound skills). As such, I commented on the one thing that made it pretty clear you were commenting from a place of misconceptions - which further made me question the rest of your comparisons (which I would have otherwise taken at face value since you seem to be a true RPG posting bro in these JRPG parts I so rarely visit and thus, an authoritative source).

However, I actually did comment on a few more things, like this:

only four skills per unit (borrowed only from current job's skills)

As I pointed out, this is both completely true and kind of a misnomer: most of the skill combos I've seen PSP-people talk about are still achievable since those "skills" are now rolled into weapons as implicits (or similarly accessible outside of the skill selection).

Though again the skill-thing is one of the few things I can comment specifically on even without having played the older games, and I'm pretty sure that while I would prefer the PSP-method here, it wouldn't change the game very much for me (again, because most of the skill combos people actually seem to have used/experimented with are still possible). I am hoping for more enemy and encounter complexity during later parts though - so I might change my mind on this point. Right now the main content encounter design ranges from decent to entirely forgettable while the so-called "dungeons" seem pretty superflous? But I probably have more to come there, so I'm reserving judgment.

My point isn't whether something specific is decline or incline, more that I question the claims that things such as these change the game so much it goes from good to bad relative to whichever version.

And certainly if the SNES-game is even more simple than the already very simple Reborn, I would probably only find more to criticize.

As a fellow Codexer, I know that before writing ANY criticism, I should've spent at least 100 more hours playing the game I don't like, to please fellow autists, but sadly I don't give a fuck, since I have better games to play.

Obvious strawman. Saying that you are wrong about something specific and therefore your conclusion isn't illustrative of the point you're trying to make (meaning the point is still debatable) is not even remotely related to claiming you should play the game fully to have opinions about it.

 

[AdamReith]

I didn't realise that they brought in class levelling in the PS1 version, that really put me off the game due to being so meta.

Must go back and try the SNES version.

 

[spekkio]

[game] is exceedingly simple, often too easy (the more I play the more I miss that Necromancer encounter...) and lacks variety. There's a lot of simple value there, but I have a hard time seeing this as one of the greats beyond its value as a design reference. Even with a bigger mixing and matching of skills (which is less of a case than most people imply, since weapons grant some of those skills passively), I don't think I'd suddenly turn around and say "wow OK now this is suddenly an all time great."

If you liked this game even a bit, you should IMO try japtacticals more focused on min-maxing skills and so-called "build porn".

Two good examples IMO:

Fell Seal - "spiritual western successor" to Final Fantasy Tactics. As you can see, graphics are very indie. But gameplay is solid / AI is much more clever than in TO / vanilla FFT.

And speaking about FFT...

Final Fantasy Tactics + 1.3 Mod. FFT was kind of a Tactics Ogre 2 (with Final Fantasy tint), which made the genre "big(ish)". Vanilla is much easier than 1.3, which is made by autist for autist. Normalfags may start with FFT: Prime (better (?) translation + QoL fixes).

Some, mostly old (mod is still in development) videos of 1.3 can be found on YT:

 

[Grunker]

[game] is exceedingly simple, often too easy (the more I play the more I miss that Necromancer encounter...) and lacks variety. There's a lot of simple value there, but I have a hard time seeing this as one of the greats beyond its value as a design reference. Even with a bigger mixing and matching of skills (which is less of a case than most people imply, since weapons grant some of those skills passively), I don't think I'd suddenly turn around and say "wow OK now this is suddenly an all time great."

If you liked this game even a bit, you should IMO try japtacticals more focused on min-maxing skills and so-called "build porn".

Two good examples IMO:

Fell Seal - "spiritual western succesor" to Final Fantasy Tactics. As you can see, graphics are very indie. But gameplay is solid / AI is much more clever than in TO / vanilla FFT. And speaking about FFT...

Final Fantasy Tactics + 1.3 Mod. FFT was kind of a Tactics Ogre 2 (with Final Fantasy tint), which made the genre "big(ish)". Vanilla is much easier than 1.3, which is made by autist for autist. Normalfags may start with FFT: Prime (better (?) translation + QoL fixes.

Oh I'm definetely going to. I'm looking at a couple candidates now - Fae Tactics, Fell Seal (recently added that to my wishlist due to one of your posts in fact) and the Symphony of War thingamajic.

FFT was the first J-tac I tried and I remember being put off by it though I can't recall why

Troubleshooter I pretty much adored despite the build porn essentially being the only worthwhile thing in the game (it was sooooooo goooood though).

Fae Tactics looks like it might be too puzzly for me, Symphony of War might be too easy (from what I've read - I like my games frustratingly, autisticly hard), so Fell Seal might be the first one to try?

However the plan is still to finish TO:R! If nothing else then because the story is keeping me interested enough.

EDIT: Also, FFT still has no PC-port, right?

 

[Abu Antar]

No PC port for FFT.

FFT Remaster was in the Nvidia leak, just like Tactics Ogre. Maybe it will happen sooner, rather than later.

If you're going to play more Tactical games from Japan, I will have to recommend the Shining Force series, and the Front Mission series, to start with.

 

[Great Deceiver]

For me, Reborn was a terribly botched effort to "revamp" a 25 year old japtactic whose greatest strengths were its novelty and simplicity. There are much better games (even old japtactics) if you're looking for complexity (FM3, even FFT). The new mechanics are very poorly thought out, especially the cards (as implemented) and the global level cap. The botched sprites were just the shit icing on top.

 

[spekkio]

I like my games frustratingly, autisticly hard

FFT 1.3 it is, then. I got murdered during first random encounter AFAIR.

the story is keeping me interested enough

FFT's story is just as good, except SUDDENLY DEMONS! (Kaga of Fire Emblem fame should sue)

Also, FFT still has no PC-port, right?

No, but all you need is:
- CD Image
- PS1 emulator (Retroarch / Duckstation) - you will need these quicksaves, believe me...
- ppf-o-matic patcher
- a .ppf patch

There's talk about FFT getting an enhanced port for PC, but judging by recent "enhancements" by Square-Enix, I wouldn't expect anything good.

 

[spekkio]

simplicity

 

[spekkio]

Fell Seal

One REALLY nice thing about it is that you often face some really weird enemy builds there (gunner-mage-tamer-chiropractor-jedi warrior), with even weirder sets of skills. And you're like "what the fuck is this? what this fag can even do? ". When suddenly battle begins, and you're being owned by this exact nigga + good AI.

Multiple times I was able to beat the AI to 2-3 enemies left (so I was like "OK, time to mop up"), when suddenly enemy "white mage" started resurrecting fallen enemies, and 2-3 turns later most enemies were back, alive and kicking.

Don't expect Troubleshooter's level of complexity, though. But it is known that TS is one of a kind.

 

[spekkio]

Front Mission 3

If I had to pick one "favorite" japtactical, that would be it. It's crazy how much Square achieved with this game, over 20 years ago.



I would love to mod the shit out of it, but sadly, it's not possible (game files are packed with some weird format)...



But maybe the upcoming remake will bring some incline in this aspect...

 

[Palomides]

There's also 'Vanguard Bandits' and 'Brigandine' on the PSX which are worth checking out, though Brigandine plays a bit differently from these SRPGs. Also 'Suikoden Tactics' which I didn't mind, that's on the PS2.

 

[somerandomdude]

[game] is exceedingly simple, often too easy (the more I play the more I miss that Necromancer encounter...) and lacks variety. There's a lot of simple value there, but I have a hard time seeing this as one of the greats beyond its value as a design reference. Even with a bigger mixing and matching of skills (which is less of a case than most people imply, since weapons grant some of those skills passively), I don't think I'd suddenly turn around and say "wow OK now this is suddenly an all time great."

If you liked this game even a bit, you should IMO try japtacticals more focused on min-maxing skills and so-called "build porn".

Two good examples IMO:

Fell Seal - "spiritual western successor" to Final Fantasy Tactics. As you can see, graphics are very indie. But gameplay is solid / AI is much more clever than in TO / vanilla FFT.

I liked Fellseal. Now, the story/characters were mostly shit, but you had a whole bunch of build options for not just human characters, but monsters as well. I liked messing around with the monster classes. When I played, I had a Harvester monster (they look like demons with 2 arm blades), and I turned one into a teleporting/backstabbing assassin who got 2 turns at the start of the battle, and procced a bonus turn whenever he killed something (only worked once per turn). That's where the game shined the most was build options, and I don't believe any other game like this has given this many options for monster builds. I had some choice paralysis with all the options the game gave me, so I actually had to test the stuff out rather than reasonably deduce what's obviously better out of the few choices given.

 

[somerandomdude]

There's also 'Vanguard Bandits' and 'Brigandine' on the PSX which are worth checking out, though Brigandine plays a bit differently from these SRPGs. Also 'Suikoden Tactics' which I didn't mind, that's on the PS2.

There's a Brigandine "Grand Edition" that never got ported to the West, but it has a translation patch available. It's just a better version of the original, it's a little more challenging, and they added some classes to it like Lizard King (they're OP!).

 

[Tigranes]

spekkio we're not playing a game of "attack or defend the full argument" or "rate your argument". I only played a couple of hours of SNES & PSP TOs, so I'm obviously not going to contest the comparison. The point is that a bunch of what you say about Reborn is very plainly upside down from reality, and I don't know why you wouldn't just take that on board instead of going on in a weird self-defense.

I've been mildly enjoying Reborn and still want to try the PSP version or something one day, it was just so clunky and not amenable to speedup that it played at the speed of mud. Like Grunker, though, I primarily wish the game had more encounter/enemy variety and that doesn't seem different across versions.