Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
May. 8th, 2012 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroBefore there was Final Fantasy Tactics, the creative minds behind Ogre Battle released a squad-based tactical rpg on an isometric grid with an incredibly involved plotline, including a branching story and highly customizable characters. Nations at war with a small band of unlikely heroes caught in the middle, destined to fight pretty much everyone!
Unfortunately for all involved, this was a case where the first time something was done wasn't nearly the best. (When I visited New Orleans, I had the topic of where to find the best muffaletta explained to me the same way.) The lead designer was poached by Square shortly after making this, and he improved on his first effort with FFT, and thus the modern tactical jrpg was born.
The problem is, I'm spoiled by those later efforts (and by how the genre has evolved since). The characters could be interesting, but they're no Ramza and Delita. The system is okay, but it's slow and involves too many button-presses. The character customization is unintuitive (and mostly unavailable in the early game) and the system for grinding (pitting your characters against each other) doesn't hold up as well as you'd think. For that matter, the game's anti-grinding feature (levelling up all NPCs with your party, up to a certain point) can be maddening. There are also an abundance of computer-controlled characters in many of the early battles, which means you're spending a lot of time watching the CPU play (including them taking time to pick actions) rather than playing.
They do have some clever bits that later games don't (you can equip characters with both melee and ranged weapons, for instance), but these really serve to cover up problematic movement ranges and a lack of other useful tactical options. The magic choices are woefully sparse, and you don't get any monster units.
I'm going to point out, I've played every installment of the Final Fantasy Tactics series, pretty much every game Nippon Ichi has made, and bleeping Hoshigami. I'm a fan of tactical rpgs and have never minded mission-grinding. So when I say that this is slow and frustrating, I mean it.
The "branching storyline" thing is probably the best thing the game has going, in that the choices you make during cutscenes actually affect the battles you fight and the story details in the later chapters. (There are two versions of chapter 2, and three versions of chapter 3, leading back into a single chapter 4.) Very few jrpgs actually use this idea at all, and especially for something from the SNES era (albeit the very end of it), it's impressive.
Aeon Genesis went to a lot of trouble to patch-translate the SNES original, and I think they did a good job...but then in 2011, the game was re-released for the PSP. Upon reflection, I think I'd want to try the re-release if given the opportunity, because I suspect they fixed some of the control scheme, speed and presentation issues, and reviews note changes to the levelling system.
Overall: I wanted to like it, I really did, but it was just too flawed to grab me. I only made it through 7 of the 50+ storyline missions before I decided I'd be better off playing Disgaea. Maybe the sequels and remakes are better?
Unfortunately for all involved, this was a case where the first time something was done wasn't nearly the best. (When I visited New Orleans, I had the topic of where to find the best muffaletta explained to me the same way.) The lead designer was poached by Square shortly after making this, and he improved on his first effort with FFT, and thus the modern tactical jrpg was born.
The problem is, I'm spoiled by those later efforts (and by how the genre has evolved since). The characters could be interesting, but they're no Ramza and Delita. The system is okay, but it's slow and involves too many button-presses. The character customization is unintuitive (and mostly unavailable in the early game) and the system for grinding (pitting your characters against each other) doesn't hold up as well as you'd think. For that matter, the game's anti-grinding feature (levelling up all NPCs with your party, up to a certain point) can be maddening. There are also an abundance of computer-controlled characters in many of the early battles, which means you're spending a lot of time watching the CPU play (including them taking time to pick actions) rather than playing.
They do have some clever bits that later games don't (you can equip characters with both melee and ranged weapons, for instance), but these really serve to cover up problematic movement ranges and a lack of other useful tactical options. The magic choices are woefully sparse, and you don't get any monster units.
I'm going to point out, I've played every installment of the Final Fantasy Tactics series, pretty much every game Nippon Ichi has made, and bleeping Hoshigami. I'm a fan of tactical rpgs and have never minded mission-grinding. So when I say that this is slow and frustrating, I mean it.
The "branching storyline" thing is probably the best thing the game has going, in that the choices you make during cutscenes actually affect the battles you fight and the story details in the later chapters. (There are two versions of chapter 2, and three versions of chapter 3, leading back into a single chapter 4.) Very few jrpgs actually use this idea at all, and especially for something from the SNES era (albeit the very end of it), it's impressive.
Aeon Genesis went to a lot of trouble to patch-translate the SNES original, and I think they did a good job...but then in 2011, the game was re-released for the PSP. Upon reflection, I think I'd want to try the re-release if given the opportunity, because I suspect they fixed some of the control scheme, speed and presentation issues, and reviews note changes to the levelling system.
Overall: I wanted to like it, I really did, but it was just too flawed to grab me. I only made it through 7 of the 50+ storyline missions before I decided I'd be better off playing Disgaea. Maybe the sequels and remakes are better?
