The GWJ JRPG Club - Q3 2019 - Tactics Ogre! ["Gaiden" Game]

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I played some more this afternoon. I cleared the necromancer fight on the first try with a Canopus end run on the boss. I was set up pretty well for the fight, with three healers on my team and a knight who can also heal. But I only had one healer trained with Exorcism and no Exorcism scrolls, so those dead skeletons were starting to overwhelm us. Fortunately, Canopus was able to take out the boss and end the fight before we got wiped out.

Then I did a couple of random battles and moved the story along to Balmamusa. Everyone is about Level 6-7 at this point.

I'm totally lost with the various factions in the story, so I think I might want to spend a bit of time with the Warren report before I lose containment on what's going on.

Nice! If you haven’t already, let the game idle for a bit at the title screen so you can watch the intro movie. It helps a LOT with understanding the factions.

LastSurprise wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I played some more this afternoon. I cleared the necromancer fight on the first try with a Canopus end run on the boss. I was set up pretty well for the fight, with three healers on my team and a knight who can also heal. But I only had one healer trained with Exorcism and no Exorcism scrolls, so those dead skeletons were starting to overwhelm us. Fortunately, Canopus was able to take out the boss and end the fight before we got wiped out.

Then I did a couple of random battles and moved the story along to Balmamusa. Everyone is about Level 6-7 at this point.

I'm totally lost with the various factions in the story, so I think I might want to spend a bit of time with the Warren report before I lose containment on what's going on.

Nice! If you haven’t already, let the game idle for a bit at the title screen so you can watch the intro movie. It helps a LOT with understanding the factions.

Oh, that's a good idea, thanks!

I ended up reading through the background section of the Wiki page and that got my head straightened out pretty well. I'll watch the intro again too, though.

I squeezed in the first battle on the Balmamusa series last night. Things went surprisingly well. New weapons and armor were available in the shop, and I spent some time upgrading gear on key characters before the fight. It made a noticeable difference in damage I could deal.

At this point, I'm pretty much locked on to the game. Enjoying things quite a bit.

I'm impressed with the variety of battles so far. They've all had some unique terrain elements or enemy unit composition. Each battle has been distinct.

Into Chapter 2! I cleared the final battle in Chapter 1, and then the first battle on the Chaos route. I just couldn't bring myself to go Law.

I did really like the first mission,

Spoiler:

hunted by Arycelle, with a price on my head.

And, I really like how the story depicts Denam's hopelessness after the events at the end of Chapter 1.

LastSurprise wrote:

Into Chapter 2! I cleared the final battle in Chapter 1, and then the first battle on the Chaos route. I just couldn't bring myself to go Law.

And, I really like how the story depicts Denam's hopelessness after the events at the end of Chapter 1.

I’m leaning toward Law, mainly so I can be a Lord. It’ll be interesting to see how differently the story plays out.

I think I must be close to the end of Chapter 1. Maybe one battle to go.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

Into Chapter 2! I cleared the final battle in Chapter 1, and then the first battle on the Chaos route. I just couldn't bring myself to go Law.

And, I really like how the story depicts Denam's hopelessness after the events at the end of Chapter 1.

I’m leaning toward Law, mainly so I can be a Lord. It’ll be interesting to see how differently the story plays out.

I think I must be close to the end of Chapter 1. Maybe one battle to go.

I'll be curious to see what you think of the "law" choice and the "chaos" choice when you get there! It was not what I expected.

LastSurprise wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

Into Chapter 2! I cleared the final battle in Chapter 1, and then the first battle on the Chaos route. I just couldn't bring myself to go Law.

And, I really like how the story depicts Denam's hopelessness after the events at the end of Chapter 1.

I’m leaning toward Law, mainly so I can be a Lord. It’ll be interesting to see how differently the story plays out.

I think I must be close to the end of Chapter 1. Maybe one battle to go.

I'll be curious to see what you think of the "law" choice and the "chaos" choice when you get there! It was not what I expected.

Oh, interesting. I wonder if I'll change my mind then. Does it involve bunnies? That would make it harder, for sure.

So I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong...

My characters are all like level 5 and none are capable of switching class yet (they do not meet the stat requirements). Is this normal?

I played this a long while back and don’t remember the somewhat slow progression. I feel like J shouldn’t be running around with soldiers and amazons still using short bows and short swords.. (spears just became available in shops )

Is this normal or is my impatience a sign that I am missing something?

Hardek wrote:

I played this a long while back and don’t remember the somewhat slow progression. I feel like J shouldn’t be running around with soldiers and amazons still using short bows and short swords..

I don't know enough to help you, but ... you got amazons? Where do you get amazons? I don't have any amazons and I'm Level 8-ish.

I'm not sure if you're missing something, but -- I wasn't aware of any stat requirements to switch classes. I thought if you had the class mark item for a specific class, you could change into it.

Slow leveling doesn't seem to be unusual. From my experience so far, character classes might gain a level every other map or so. And, I think around level 5, you'll start to have access to better weapons and armor for each of your classes.

In addition to warriors and archers, I got a wizard and a healer when I got that first wave of units given to me by the duke. There have definitely been more available for recruitment in each town. So, if you don't have enough diversity of unit types, maybe recruit some other ones?

Hardek wrote:

So I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong...

My characters are all like level 5 and none are capable of switching class yet (they do not meet the stat requirements). Is this normal?

I played this a long while back and don’t remember the somewhat slow progression. I feel like J shouldn’t be running around with soldiers and amazons still using short bows and short swords.. (spears just became available in shops )

Is this normal or is my impatience a sign that I am missing something?

Just to be sure, you are playing the PSP game, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together? As LastSurprise said, as long as you have the class mark item you can change to any class. You can buy these at the shop or find them as loot in battles.

As I recall, Amazon was the starting female class in the original (SNES) Ogre Battle. And that one definitely did have stat requirements (and alignment requirements) to change class. Are you playing that one?

I’m playing the PS1 version, which I believe is the same as the snes one...

What's the title of your game?

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is part of the Ogre Battle series, but the first game -- Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen -- was on SNES and also PS1.

Tactics Ogre was on the Super Famicom in Japan, and eventually was ported to the virtual console, but the Super Famicom version and VC versions were only ever released in Japanese. At least, according to Wikipedia.

I just read up on the PS1 version.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards...

PSP, hands down.

This isn't a mere 'port' of the original game, they've completely reworked the mechanics (mostly for the better) and added vast amounts of additional side-content. The translation work's also much cleaner. This is coming from someone who adores the SNES version, mind (PSX has horrendous loadtimes and really is just a port, and a bad one at that; stay away from that one).

So sounds like you’re definitely on the other game as the PS1 and PSP games are not that fundamentally different.

Done with Law Ch. 3!

I really haven't mixed up the classes much in this game, unlike in something like FFT where it almost encourages you to try out the new and crazy things it throws at you. Instead, my main tactic of having a couple of knights plus a fighter clog up an intersection while my now 3 archers (and 2 mages) lay waste to everything has gotten me pretty far.

Now for story stuff

Spoiler:

I kept expecting a huge twist at some point by GT Chris' comments outside of the spoiler, but the chapter just kept going and going in a seemingly straightforward way. We took some rearguard castle, then marched and took the real castle while we and the enemy swapped bases, then we took ours back and won. I was surprised at that as well when it kept going and going after logical endpoints. But, it seems like this victory wasn't the main point of this chapter, so in a sense it makes sense that the chapter didn't end with our victory, because our victory didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. What really mattered was Catiua's reveal to Denam.

I was actually lost a bit at that story beat and didn't get the importance at the time, so I went back and watched the intro cutscene for the first time. Now I had a better sense of the factions, and more importantly why Catiua becoming princess is so important to the story; the clans battling it out for supremacy could never hope to have a claim to the crown as soon as she stepped forward. Hence why the Ch.4 cutscene said that the battles between the Walister and Galgastani would be left out of the history books. It renders any battles for the throne before irrelevant, and in its own way emphasizes the view that the lives and deaths of individuals can matter little in the grand schemes of power and politics.

As for predictions for the upcoming chapter, I have to imagine we do fight Catiua at some point, but I don't see that she is some final enemy. That's more likely Lancelot the Dark Knight. There might also be more rebellions against Denam as more of his fighters split off since there is a new official ruler. The start of the chapter has us going to one such uprising, and I expect more. And we may have to put some down and risk being branded a villain.
We got two separate warnings in Ch.3 about bewaring the chase for power and how toppling tyrants only makes us the next target to be toppled, and in a game like this, I don't think that is going to be an offhand comment.

Ugh. I just finished with the Aqueduct battle near the beginning of Chapter 2, which was a pretty tough fight and kept me on the defensive. Then, I accidentally pressed something on my emulator that took me back to the main menu, before I had saved. Time to do it again!

Sundown wrote:

Done with Law Ch. 3!

I really haven't mixed up the classes much in this game, unlike in something like FFT where it almost encourages you to try out the new and crazy things it throws at you. Instead, my main tactic of having a couple of knights plus a fighter clog up an intersection while my now 3 archers (and 2 mages) lay waste to everything has gotten me pretty far.

That does sound like a good strategy. One problem I have, with the way that class levelling works, I feel uncomfortable taking more than one of any class into a battle because I feel like I'm leaving xp on the table and I want to have as many viable classes as possible. So, at most I have 2 archers and 2 clerics but I leave them behind if the party size goes less than 10 for a battle. Also, I always have at least 1-2 spectators every battle, basically the latest new classes I've picked up, levelling them up until I can actually use them. I'm at the point now where I literally have 2 spectators and 2 classes that are barely viable (4-5 levels below the enemy). So many cool classes that I have to try them all! One class I just picked up is the Fusal (firearms) class, so hopefully that can replace one of my archers. Still level 3 though, bleh.

End of Ch 3 Law:

Sundown wrote:
Spoiler:

I kept expecting a huge twist at some point by GT Chris' comments outside of the spoiler, but the chapter just kept going and going in a seemingly straightforward way. We took some rearguard castle, then marched and took the real castle while we and the enemy swapped bases, then we took ours back and won. I was surprised at that as well when it kept going and going after logical endpoints. But, it seems like this victory wasn't the main point of this chapter, so in a sense it makes sense that the chapter didn't end with our victory, because our victory didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. What really mattered was Catiua's reveal to Denam.

I was actually lost a bit at that story beat and didn't get the importance at the time, so I went back and watched the intro cutscene for the first time. Now I had a better sense of the factions, and more importantly why Catiua becoming princess is so important to the story; the clans battling it out for supremacy could never hope to have a claim to the crown as soon as she stepped forward. Hence why the Ch.4 cutscene said that the battles between the Walister and Galgastani would be left out of the history books. It renders any battles for the throne before irrelevant, and in its own way emphasizes the view that the lives and deaths of individuals can matter little in the grand schemes of power and politics.

As for predictions for the upcoming chapter, I have to imagine we do fight Catiua at some point, but I don't see that she is some final enemy. That's more likely Lancelot the Dark Knight. There might also be more rebellions against Denam as more of his fighters split off since there is a new official ruler. The start of the chapter has us going to one such uprising, and I expect more. And we may have to put some down and risk being branded a villain.
We got two separate warnings in Ch.3 about bewaring the chase for power and how toppling tyrants only makes us the next target to be toppled, and in a game like this, I don't think that is going to be an offhand comment.

I have to be careful here because I'm pretty deep in Ch 4 and the line between events in 3 and 4 is starting to get blurry.

Spoiler:

Catiua leaving was something I did remember from playing the game before. I knew leaving her behind was a bad idea Denam! She's the only Priest!

I was actually surprised that the Dark Knights didn't just dump Brantyn immediately but actually seemed to fulfil their duty to him. But I need to remember that they are literally an outside force in a foreign land and not necessarily a huge army at that so it doesn't make sense to cut their only remaining ally. Also, poor Oz, I didn't even intend to kill him. I just assumed he'd teleport out but nope... I wonder if the other Dark Knight leader (forgot his name) was also killable in that battle. But after I killed Oz he retreated.

Previously I recruited the blind swordsman who seemed to be an associate of Ozma and we get cut scenes to that effect suggesting a relationship between the two of them. I was thinking that Ozma might even be recruitable but now Oz is dead so...

Two other characters you can recruit in Ch 3 Law, Ravness, and Jenounes. Ravness, especially is quite convoluted and I missed her the first time I played Law. Jenounes is more straight forward but a seemingly innocuous conversation choice can miss the chance. Jenounes is a Dragoon which is super useful because it has a Monster Strike and a Dragon Strike special ability (40/50TP). Instead of the usual 20-30HP against these heavily armoured foes, he will do 200-250HP. Invaluable once every second battle has some dragons or octopuses. I think you'll get the Class Mark later anyway but, either way, you'll need to put in the time to level it up. The other cool thing about Ravness and Jenounes is they have quite a lot of battle dialog with the other Galvastanians through the rest of the chapter.

One weird thing that happened in Ch 4 is that Denam defeated a character in Ch 3 and they retreated. Their Warren Report entry reflects this. However Denam meets their associates in Ch 4 and they say that the character is dead and Denam is responsible. Seems like a bug that I might need to research later.

LastSurprise wrote:

Ugh. I just finished with the Aqueduct battle near the beginning of Chapter 2, which was a pretty tough fight and kept me on the defensive. Then, I accidentally pressed something on my emulator that took me back to the main menu, before I had saved. Time to do it again!

I know the one you mean. It's worth keeping Paralytic Wave on those giant octopuses, they cause all kinds of trouble if given the chance. Also, letting your archers get enough TP to cast Dead Weight is probably the most effective way of doing large amounts of damage to monsters at this point in the game.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

One problem I have, with the way that class leveling works, I feel uncomfortable taking more than one of any class into a battle because I feel like I'm leaving xp on the table and I want to have as many viable classes as possible. So, at most I have 2 archers and 2 clerics but I leave them behind if the party size goes less than 10 for a battle. Also, I always have at least 1-2 spectators every battle, basically the latest new classes I've picked up, levelling them up until I can actually use them. I'm at the point now where I literally have 2 spectators and 2 classes that are barely viable (4-5 levels below the enemy). So many cool classes that I have to try them all! One class I just picked up is the Fusal (firearms) class, so hopefully that can replace one of my archers. Still level 3 though, bleh.

I generally have a similar problem. The game seems like it encourages you to stick with your classes, since getting new ones caught up takes forever. The end of Ch.3 tossed a couple of new classes at me and I would be interested in using some of those characters, but since they started at level 3 and my team is 17-18, I had to think hard about if I wanted to grind a bunch to get them caught up (I didn't). It seems to make changing the composition of a team easy (if I want a second knight or third archer its easy to get them caught up to speed), but anything entirely new is a hassle. So far it really hasn't been that hard to deal with, since the beginner classes are capable enough.

I don't know if this is one of those games where there is a postgame where you have to grind a lot to complete, so the regular game is made accessible enough for anyone who wants to do that, and the people who want to grind forever don't have to worry about those new class limitations.

At the risk of getting aspects of this game confused with Knight of Lodis, can’t you autobattle? I feel like when I wanted to try new classes and get them up to speed I’d play practice battles where I would put the lower classes against the higher classes and just grind them.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I just read up on the PS1 version.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards...

PSP, hands down.

This isn't a mere 'port' of the original game, they've completely reworked the mechanics (mostly for the better) and added vast amounts of additional side-content. The translation work's also much cleaner. This is coming from someone who adores the SNES version, mind (PSX has horrendous loadtimes and really is just a port, and a bad one at that; stay away from that one).

So sounds like you’re definitely on the other game as the PS1 and PSP games are not that fundamentally different.

My copy is PS1, which I believe is a poor port of the version, as I get load screens for basically everything.

Thanks for digging that up GT.

I’ll consider if I will continue or not. I have played it before and frankly now I’d like to check out the PSP version, which sounds like a remake to some degree, for the better. (Although I do not currently own a PSP... )

Over the weekend I got about 3 battles into chapter 2, so far I haven't seen the need to switch classes yet on any of my guys. Now that I think about it, I might switch my second warrior into a beastmaster just because I don't have one and my Main character is a warrior at the moment.

I went with

Spoiler:

refusing to kill choice

at the end of chapter 1, don't know which route that is but curious how it plays out. During 3rd battle of chapter 2 I actually managed to

Spoiler:

save/recruit the archer girl who was headhunting me as a guest

so pretty happy about that.

Nice! I have a saved state in the middle of that mission right now. We are on the "chaos" route, by the way.

I am definitely thinking of trying to pick up a Berserker or Beastmaster to round out my classes a bit.

LastSurprise wrote:

Nice! I have a saved state in the middle of that mission right now. We are on the "chaos" route, by the way.

I am definitely thinking of trying to pick up a Berserker or Beastmaster to round out my classes a bit.

I got ambushed by Star Trader: Frontiers and Field of Glory Empires, but I'm going to refocus on this today.

I have an idea what's coming up with my "big choice", and tend to agree that I'm more inclined to go the way you've both gone. I might just bite the bullet and go the other way so at least one of us is different.

Actually, 2 of us are already on Law :). I wonder if anyone will do the Neutral route. I looked it up to familiarise myself with it and I'd say you're unlikely to stumble upon it by mistake.

I looked up a little bit too.

Spoiler:

It looks like it's another end-of-chapter choice, but only available from the Chaos route. Is that what you saw?

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Actually, 2 of us are already on Law :). I wonder if anyone will do the Neutral route. I looked it up to familiarise myself with it and I'd say you're unlikely to stumble upon it by mistake.

Oh, good good. I'll trust my gut then.

I don't think I'll go neutral, though.

LastSurprise wrote:

I looked up a little bit too.

Spoiler:

It looks like it's another end-of-chapter choice, but only available from the Chaos route. Is that what you saw?

I'm playing mostly blind on the story, so if that thing makes sense to me I might take it, but have to see what that is when I get there. I ended up picking thief instead of beastmaster for the time being, going to see how staby staby I can get. I also noticed I had choices for Dark Knight and Berserker, so I might switch out my second cleric into one of them.

As of now my party of 10 is:
Warrior (main character)
Canapus (axe/crossbow combo)
Two Archers
Cleric
Knight
Thief
Valkyrie (been mostly using her for rescue missings due to her high mobility)
Enchantress (Really digging her magic damage, running mostly dark spells)
Rune Fencer (still trying to come with grips on this class, might expand his spell selection next town I hit)

One thing I noticed was that as soon as I switched Canopus to Archer, he straight away did 50% more damage than Sara, the Wallister archer that you recruit. You lose 2 squares of mobility but his damage is pretty incredible.

Btw, I believe a Valkyrie is just the name for a female Rune Fencer. So both level up as the one class. Same for Ninja/Kunoichi.