Rand wrote: ↑
January 16th, 2024, 22:14
I played Tactics Ogre.
As much as I could stand, anyway.
What is it that makes you say it's good?
Because I didn't see anything particularly good about it.
I found it dull and kinda imbalanced.
You mentioned playing the SNES version which I'm pretty sure has the problems of Archers being fucked beyond belief and you can pretty much destroy the difficulty of the game that way. This persists in the PSX version as well and I think in the PSP version. The recent Reborn game would probably hit better with you overall if you gave it another try but there are some things in it that I find gripes with:
-Buff cards are stupid and litter the battlefield too much. I think it's a very ugly addition and can influence a battle too much. We're talking 30% damage buffs and shit and you're expected to use these because they increased the health of everyone across the board.
-Removal of random battles. This does make sense considering there's a global level-up restriction in place for each part of the story but it's still a sore point since you're restricted to grinding what levels you have in boring training maps with the same enemy groups.
-Removal of the Rogue class. Don't know if they ever fixed this but apparently the developers "didn't have time" to rebalance the Rogue and cut it entirely which is lame because they were one of the best generic classes in the original for their steal ability alone. For the record the enemy still has access to the Rogue class but it's just flavor and they pretty much are a standard melee unit from what I remember. They never did any trap setting or mugging.
-Not too crazy on hit chances always being around 80% minimum unless debuffed or vs. a boss. I never liked the outlook that "missing FEELS bad." No shit, that's why you do things to minimize missing. This also makes stats like Agility and Avoidance pretty much pointless and certain abilities like Truestrike almost useless since you'll almost never need to overcome the low hit.
-Weather used to influence things like accuracy as well which is no longer the case in Reborn. Don't why they fucked with this since it added a layer of strategy to consider.
There are some nice things in Reborn though I don't mind:
-The game itself is more streamlined and easier to understand and you won't be fucked if you decide to switch a spellcaster into a melee class and see them have god awful stats for a melee class. It also extends to how classes learn skills, now it's just an easy to understand progression via level-ups.
-Class balance has been universally adjusted so you don't feel obligated to make a sniper party. You'll generally use a more diverse line up of classes/characters than in previous TO games since they're actually useful now. You can see the lack of cross-class skills from the PSP version as a good or bad thing. On one hand it removes a portion of customization while on the other it also makes classes more focused on what they do well.
-In some ways the game is actually more difficult than before despite the earlier TOs being more unforgiving. The lack of being able to power grind due to the enforced level caps and how every major storyline enemy begins the fight with four buff cards can cause some pretty close fights which is a lot more exciting than 2 shotting everything after investing a few hours spamming randoms.
-I remember crafting used to suck dick but it didn't feel very annoying in Reborn.
Come to think of it, OG Tactics Ogre and Reborn are different enough to warrant separate playthroughs just to see which you prefer. Usually I hate balancefagging but I think it turned out fine in this game, if only they added in Rogue and let you turn off buff cards/adjusted HP scaling for turning off buff cards I'd clear-cut like Reborn more. Right now some days I like the original and some days I like Reborn.
As for why I generally like TO though? Cool storyline, fun gameplay, good music, and great replayability. I'd argue that the game actually opens up its best stuff once you beat the story and get access to things like the Palace of the Dead, hidden character/classes, re-doing pivotal story events to see different outcomes, etc. It's a stellar Tactics game that I always enjoy wasting time with when the mood strikes for an SRPG.
