Tactics Ogre

[Humanity has risen!]

I started this again during a long bus trip. I've completed all the routes, many times, and I can still never get tired of it. In my opinion, it has never been even close to rivaled. It isn't perfect (it could have more class variety and earlier, the petrify spell breaks the game), but it has been the closest to a complete JRPG/tactical game package I've ever played.

And I am referring to the original version, either the Super Famicom original (has been translated in English), or the PSOne port.

I also played the PSP remaster, and in my opinion this version is vastly inferior, for many reasons. It is faster, has better graphics, an improved soundtrack, some more dialogue, and a greatly superior translation (by Alexander O. Smith), but it has adopted Final Fantasy Tactics' "job system" in a way that is very annoying and which punishes experimentation, as all skills and abilities you gain are exclusive to that ability. So you can't try a class for a unit, then change a few level later, etc... because you have to start almost from scratch every time.

The other big problem with the PSP remaster is that they have made permadeath much less punishing. Now when a unit goes down, you have three turns to bring it back (like in FFT), but if the unit perishes... it doesn't die, it simply gets a "strike", and dies permanently after three strikes. The other big ruinous change is that inventory is now common, like in FFT. This in my opinion completely ruined the fear of death, and careful planning needed to win the maps, while every unit survived.

Fire Emblem has always had this, but I found it much less annoying in Tactics Ogre, simply because the maps are not that long, and you are free to do whatever you want... whereas in Fire Emblem there are always 5-6 interruptions and scripted scenes that interfere with your careful planning. Plus Fire Emblem never had good stories, it was always generic anime garbage, so you don't care that much about having all the characters survive.

In my opinion, Tactics Ogre has also come the closest to making a mature story in a video game. For instance, everyone who has played it remembers the very shocking moment in the first chapter. It is not a typical JRPG story. Characters betray each other, mock and insult each other, are frequently desperate...

 

[Great Deceiver]

Isn't there a patch that retrofits the PSP translation into the SNES/PSX release?

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I don't think so.

I honestly don't see the point of it. Take for instance the FFT PSP translation. At first glance, it is beautiful prose. But ultimately it changes the nature of the text so much, which was never supposed to be this flowery in the first place.

 

[Hyperion]

but it has adopted Final Fantasy Tactics' "job system" in a way that is very annoying

Would be a huge improvement if it did use FFT's job system. But it ties your character level to job level, and that fucking blows. This however, could be forgiven if the way characters gain stats (+0.1 to every stat for every level they gain within a class), as min/max autists like myself create their walking death machines by...leveling everyone as the same class? Not using a character in their natural, unique, and supposedly overpowered class? Aggravating as this is, I could forgive it STILL, but the single most destructive aspect of the remake was removing all unique item drops from stages, and placing them within crafting manuals.

There was not a single reason to obtain items from dead enemies. You gained no interesting rewards from completing battles, such as the Aqua Hammer from Orgeu, Salamander / Gnome, Fire / Sand bows and Phoenix / Granite Armor from Fiduc Castle South at the end of Chapter 3. Gramrock from Oz - gone. Fenril/ Katamari in Rime - poof! Every single item or spell of worth was gotten through farming crafting manuals that had a low chance of appearing from a specific enemy in a specific level that you had to over and over again until RNG graced you. Then, obtain all of the materials for said item...with a 70% chance to fail at making the top tier recipes? Who in their right mind wouldn't be save scumming out of their ass besides a special autistic sadomasochist here and there? The original game is long, and challenging enough that it doesn't need the padding of grindy bullshit to extend its shelflife. The biggest problem in modern RPGs (Japanese and Western alike) today is the removal of rewarding actual achievement within the game. What motivation do I have to tackle a dragon when I can trot around the countryside for a few hours and craft a sword that's more powerful than what the greediest, most majestic of beasts deemed worthy of stashing within its hoard? What feeling of accomplishment do I get for finally beating that stage that kept wiping me over, and over again if my reward is some cash, and a few healing herbs? This is magnified further, when even the simplest of side quests become bloated, such as the 4 sisters quest to change their class to Shaman. What was 4 forts, and 1 somewhat challenging battle against unobtainable beast classes, became 6 forts (Bye bye elemental shields, too!), followed by a 10 battle series, culminating in a battle against a special beast. I'm all for long games, but holy shit, are you guys for real right now?

While I really appreciated the addition of characters like Ozma to flesh out their story a bit (Holy shit, Oz is a crazed rapist?!), and add more interaction with your characters, like Haborym, some of them felt unnecessary. The Pirate, for example, was superfluous, and introduced way too late in the game to be of much significance. Why was Ravness added to the game? Specifically as a romantic interest for Denim, analogous to Agrias and Ramza? I'm busy leading a revolution, hiding from bounty hunters, and fruitlessly trying to find and save my father from the clutches of death, honey. Kindly come back in a year or two. Not only is she useless, but she's obtained only in the Lawful path, which is already bloated to Hell and back with recruitable characters. Not that it matters anymore, because branching paths are a thing of the past, and we can't allow a player to miss a single piece of dialogue in a single playthrough of a game. Starting over fresh to experience something brand new would be catastrophic.

...Sorry, rant over. for playing the real Tactics Ogre.

 

[Jacob]

Tactics Ogre PSP = Square Enix rape #253 but at least it's still better than FF XD

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Yes YES I totally agree with you. Crafting fucking sucks, and unless it is the whole focus of the game like the Atelier series, something that only fags would enjoy. Fucking gay MMO/mobile F2P garbage. Die!

 

[Damned Registrations]

I still maintain that the combat mechanics of the original TO games were pretty garbage, specifically the effect of level differences. They basically forced you to maintain even levels across your entire team at all times, and allowed for the ridiculous exploit of having a single unit with a slight level advantage just steamroll the entire game with no effort.

 

[boot]

^
And there were way too many random encounters.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I still maintain that the combat mechanics of the original TO games were pretty garbage, specifically the effect of level differences. They basically forced you to maintain even levels across your entire team at all times, and allowed for the ridiculous exploit of having a single unit with a slight level advantage just steamroll the entire game with no effort.

I think all RPGs and strategy RPGs are like this to an extent. What made it suck is that you had to train all your units continuously so they would catch up. It resulted in too much busy work. Maybe they could have made a system where your non-active units get half your average earned XP from battles.

And there definitely were a lot of battles where even if you were overleveled, you still faced a considerable challenge due to the way the battle was designed.

 

[Damned Registrations]

In what way? I did a playthrough of just Denim at one point and don't recall any sticking points. He simply walked around and one shot everyone. Entire crowds at once later on when the spell AoE went up. I suspect you've never actually tried this. Everything literally has 1% chance to hit you for 1 dmg and you counter for an auto kill. Maybe the level boss takes two hits if he's a tank.

Most strategy rpgs aren't like this at all, because their combat is based entirely on stats, so even an underleveled melee guy can kill a high leveled squishy wizard with relative ease, for example. Doubly so in games where you move an entire team at once instead of individual turns. Makes it way easier and more beneficial to distribute experience.

 

[Hyperion]

Most strategy rpgs aren't like this at all, because their combat is based entirely on stats

This is exactly how damage works in Tactics Ogre as well. 1 level just makes a big difference in terms of damage, and hit chance because WT is a factor in the latter. It's part of the reason why Ninja are considered such powerful classes - they have the highest attainable Agility in the game, and can use Tarot Cards to make up for their lack of Strength, and Vitality. Remember, Agility cards aren't available. Just equip an Orb on a slow character for that sexy, -10 WT bonus, it's like getting a free +10 Agility (Or 2 - 3 levels worth of Agility for a lumbering oaf like a Terror Knight). just equip a sword gained from using Snapshot, then observe the difference it makes on a character that is otherwise unremarkable.

Hit % = {[Attacker's AGI + Attacker's A.AGI + (Attacker's DEX + Attacker's
A.DEX)/4 Ð Weight] * Ma/100] Ð [Target's AGI + Target's A.AGI + (Target's DEX +
Target's A.DEX)/4 Ð Weight] * Md/100} + La - Ld + 50 + Si + R

from: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198881-tactics-ogre/faqs/32399

La = Luck of attacker
Ld = Luck of defender
A.[Stat] = Attribute bonus from items
Si = Bonus from side you're facing. +25 for flank, +50 for back.
R is a random modifier that generally doesn't exceed 3 or 4 points when it comes to damage. You can observe this by casting attack magic, which frequently deviates from the expected damage.

You're complaining about Levels being too important because the stats gained from them...make a big difference in the difficulty of the fight, when levels, through the first 3 Chapters are the most significant form of character advancement. Come mid-Chapter 3 and then Chapter 4 is when all of the fun gear comes in, where you can dominate others. Let's also not forget that terrain plays a HUGE role in damage dealt, hit chance, and damage received. Try bringing a Water-elemental character into Wyoburi and see how much worse he is than a Fire-elemental character - every single square gets a +5 bonus to all Fire characters' attacks. To make this even more ridiculous, stand on 'Ash' where the offensive bonus is a base +10, compared to a +30 on Roads and you'll often notice your damage dealt is less than half of what it should be.

Levels become less important the further in the game you go as your gear improves, and you get the powerful, special characters. The most obscene example of this is Haborym as his Dexterity, and Agility levels are unmatched without abusing Tarot Card farming. His Hit Chance with Petrify is, without fail, 90 - 100% against pretty much every susceptible target in the game. After completing Fiduc Castle and beginning Chapter 4, all enemies in random battles are a minimum level 28 while your units are somewhere between 19 and 23. Even at level 21 or 22, Haborym has a 100% chance to hit even a Hawkman, or Fairy that is 7 levels above him, and will hit for >50% of their HP with the Fire Bow equipped. If what you say is the case, every single one of them would be impossible to complete....and yet here I stand, using those battles as a means to quickly level up all of my important characters equally because once you have to make the trip to save Kachua enemies become level 28 - 29. And yet, as powerful as characters like Haborym, Denim, Kachua, and Vice are, they are not nearly as powerful as Warren, Saradin, Ankiseth, Rauny, and Tristan from the Ogre Battle games. These story characters are always significantly more powerful than random soldiers in Ogre games, it's a series staple.

Oh, and did you know that all enemies scale to the level of your highest character in any stage where the objective is not "Kill the Leader?" Having 1 character absorb all of the levels, and a bunch of pussies following him around is also not ideal for your team's success. Of course if we're going to build a single God we can break that system but this goes for pretty much all SRPG's that allow for you to spend time outside of story battles (i.e. not Fire Emblem). This is akin to saying Final Fantasy Tactics' system sucks because if you abuse the Level Down mechanic Ramza is diesel as fuck compared to enemies. In fact, Ramza doesn't even need to abuse the Level Down mechanic to demolish entire maps of enemies.

 

[Damned Registrations]

That is definitely not an accurate mechanic formula. It was very, very obvious when I played that every level of difference made a 10% hit chance and 10 damage difference. A level 30 wizard would utterly crush a level 25 berserker. If things work the way you describe I simply couldn't have beaten the game the way I did, which was just a mindless massacre with a single unit that only gained levels from the mvp bonus after the initial training.

 

[aweigh]

which is the best version of Tactics Ogre?

what are the differences between the SNES, ps1 and psp versions?

Any help is appreciated!!!!!!

EDIT: hmm, from reading the thread seems like PSP version improved the script, added graphics and new content BUT completely butchered the original version's gameplay mechanics to the point of retardation?

 

[Latro]

which is the best version of Tactics Ogre?

what are the differences between the SNES, ps1 and psp versions?

Any help is appreciated!!!!!!

EDIT: hmm, from reading the thread seems like PSP version improved the script, added graphics and new content BUT completely butchered the original version's gameplay mechanics to the point of retardation?

there's a re-balance called One Vision for TO PSP

personally, I think the new content is superfluous

 

[aweigh]

so whatchu saying? psp version with rebalance mod???????

 

[Hyperion]

I played One Vision until the final levels. It's not really much better than the regular PSP version, which is great if you're interested solely in story content. Some things it did better, such as weakening Archers and Ninja a bit (Archers are still incredibly powerful), and removing RNG success rates from crafting, but the gear changes were just...boring. Special equipment with unique stat bonuses were pretty much wiped entirely, and made strictly into vertical scaling + elemental damage of your choice.

The changes made to character classes in the standard PSP version, all but removing the Alignment and Element system, and the horrific balance of said classes and gear changes are terrible. They added some extra stages, some of which are cool, some are a total chore to complete. For example, in the PS1 / SNES version there are 4 Elemental Temples as part of a sidequest. They involve going to 4 different Forts, having a fight, unlocking the Temple, then having a fight against a special boss. That's 8 fights. In the PSP Version, it was turned into 6 Temples, all with a Fight leading to the elemental Temples, each of which are, I shit you not, 6 fights EACH. 8 battles turned to 42 for a sidequest that gets you magic spells you will likely never cast, but gives you access to a special Class. This goes for multiple other areas in the game, and it is just. fucking. boring.

Oh, and class changing? You have to use a CONSUMABLE ITEM to change into one every time you do it, many of which can only be gotten through excruciatingly aggravating means, or from completing a single, specific battle in the game, which means doing it over and over again until you have enough to make due. Gender-specific classes are removed. Only story / special characters have access to certain special classes, which creates an even bigger gap of strength between generics and story characters. Playing on an emulator can alleviate this by just giving yourself 99 of every classmark, and saying fuck you to this stupid system.

Stat increases? When a class gains a level, everyone involved in the fight as that class gets 0.1 added to their base stats permanently. Every 10 levels gets you +1 to all base stats, which are then multiplied by your class and its level. The most efficient (autistic) form of leveling is making your entire battle party a single class, and gaining them all a level at once, and repeating this over and over again until your stats are where you want them.

Unique equipment? In the SNES / PS1 version, unique equipment is gotten from certain characters in certain stages with a 100% drop chance. When killed, they drop a bag which will be granted to you at the end of the stage, unless an enemy unit steps on it and takes it. In the PSP version, all unique equipment is gotten from crafting through crafting manuals you need to find off enemies - enemies that are not guaranteed to spawn in stages, and not guaranteed to drop the bag. This is essentially to force you to use and abuse the game's Chariot system which lets you rewind time back up to a total 50 turns.

Hell Gate / Palace of the Dead was changed from a random 9 fights with a specific floor every 10th level to 100 (more in the Coda) handcrafted fights, which, again, like the Crafting Manuals, have items with specific drop locations, and enemies, neither of which are guaranteed to spawn.

As for SNES / PS1: The music was remixed in the ps1 version, and sounds slightly better, but the load times can be pretty brutal even on an emulator. The translation on the SNES version is pretty much just a 1:1 copy of the PS1 version, which is very good, but dialogue is in 'modern' dialect as opposed to the fake Shakespearean stuff of the PSP version (similar to FFT: WotL if you played that). There are supposedly a few extra scenes of dialogue in the SNES version that were cut from PS1, but I didn't notice any.

One bonus for PSP version: OST is completely redone and orchestrated. Sounds real nice.

In short: Play the fucking SNES / PS1 version for less headache. Do it without training for a nice challenge.

 

[aweigh]

can't retroarch or something speed up emulated disc access in ps1?

 

[Ent]

There is a SNES mod called Chronicle Valeria that adds the PSP only characters in and also adds classes from the previous orge battle saga games. Unfortunately its only in japanese and the mod creator stopped working on the english translation. If you have played the original and the psp versions of the game though you probably won't mind playing it through in Japanese only - just read some of the guides out there to learn about some of the extra stuff added to the game.
Also just play the SNES version with the translation patch to avoid the load times.

 

[mushaden]

What is the ideal number of characters to have? I just got to chapter two and I only have 6 guys plus Catiua (whatever her name is--I'm playing the snes translation). I'm all for a challenge, but I seem a little light. But at the same time it seems like training is the only way to add usable characters, and training is lame.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What is the ideal number of characters to have? I just got to chapter two and I only have 6 guys plus Catiua (whatever her name is--I'm playing the snes translation). I'm all for a challenge, but I seem a little light. But at the same time it seems like training is the only way to add usable characters, and training is lame.

Training is lame, but there's a fairly easy way to make it go a lot faster. Have your highest level unit put himself to sleep or paralyze himself, and use that to petrify him, which won't wear off. Put all your trainees on the other team and let them beat on him for 1 damage with no miss chance. They'll be matched in levels pretty quick, you can set it to auto and make a sandwich.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Play the SNES version without using petrify and using too many archers. Done.

I knew the PSP "fan remix" would be more autistic garbage.

 

[Matador]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1

This is the definitive version of the game IMO.

 

[mushaden]

I just got to chapter 4 and I've been amazed at how easy the game suddenly is. I thought it was revivify but now I see that HHR is right when he says you must not use petrify. Only for yourself in training...