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

16 hours, still in chapter 2. I just made Denam a ninja and, after some grinding, he's kicking ass! Double attacks woohoo!

But damn, dragons, golems, krakens etc still give me so much trouble. I've got one or two characters with the approprate damage skills, but it's not enough to get me through most of the stages. How are you all dealing with these things?! I tried beast tamer to subdue them, but even if I manage to get them low on HP, my chances of recruiting them are still 0%

Gonna spend a few more hours grinding so everyone has, at least, dracology. Those dragons in Chapter 2 are kicking my ass.

Also, I'm finding it a little hard to discuss the plot here. Because there are so many branching paths, and I'm not sure what one I'm one, I'm not sure if I should click spoilers or not. In terms of choices I've made...

Spoiler:

I killed 'em all! Sacrifice a few for the greater good. Sure. I felt scummy, but it felt like the better of the 2 choices.

Then I decided to kill the king, because he just seems to be...Not right.

I'm really liking the story here. It's all very morally grey, with no real "good" or "bad" choice. Either way, I was going to feel terrible for my actions, and it left me feeling grimy and uncomfortable. Love it!

As for which route you're on

Spoiler:

You're on the Law route. Mr GT Chris and myself finished up that route recently, and posted our thoughts on each chapter when we finished them if you want to go back and read those later.

Later on you can get a Dragoon, which has skills directed towards heavy damage to beasts and dragons

Besides that, I found that they seem to take a bit more reliable damage early on from smashing weapons like hammers. I often used my knights (I eventually had 2 of them) to surround, block off, or otherwise bottle up golems and dragons while everyone else whaled away on them. Also, your black mages do acceptable damage as well, but you may want to have them carry two different types of magic, since some creatures are invulnerable to Dark. If there was just a few big beasties, I usually used the above strategy and just focus fired each one down. Slow, but effective. There may be quicker ways, but I never found them.

At least one encounter had like 8 dragons on it, and I noped right out of there.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll go back and read those spoilers once I finish up in Chapter 2.

And cool! I had a hunch smashing damage did a bit more. I've also been trying to level up a mage with dark + earth, cragfall has been one of my go-tos for damage big monsters.

Chapter 4 Law end battle spoilers

Spoiler:

Right with you on petrifaction. Single target spells were annoying but when they get the group attack (5 square, cross pattern) you can easily have 2-3 petrified units at once. I think it’s called Petrifying Cloud. I had a healthy supply of the awaken stone item and most characters had Field Alchemy.

I loved the doppelgänger twist for the final battle. I spent the last quarter of the game with Canopus single shot killing a target almost every round. Then the shoe’s on the other foot as his doppelgänger opens the fight by single shot killing my magic user. I quickly piled onto him and put him down. After that, it was a slug fest with my excessive use of items making the difference. I realised that if you have anyone incapacitated during King Dorgalua’s turn, he uses a skill that freezes all resurrection abilities. So I made sure that everyone was up just before his turn even if they were put down straight after. Catiua has a skill that nullifies this but I didn’t have it available. The second stage was pretty easy as you said. Using TP reduction skills is a great idea, didn’t occur to me. He got his super attack in once and took 3 characters close to zero but that was about it. They really should have given him twice as many actions to make it somewhat challenging.

Law Route Ch 2-4 Character recruitment

Spoiler:

I got Jeunne and then Ravness this time round. Ravness is quite tricky to get, there are at least 4 steps if I recall. She’s awesome as a Ninja, tears through the frontlines. Jeunne is great just as a Dragoon, he can take out the 2-4 beasts/dragons pretty much by himself. One attack to get to 40/50 TP then one special to kill them. If he’s taking damage then he builds up TP even faster. Lendl, the Gunner, was fairly straightforward, you need to read a Warren Report talk update and protect him from the Dark Knights for one battle.

Two I messed up were Arycelle (a must if you want to run with two Archers) and Ganpp the Beast Tamer. With Arycelle, I killed her by mistake in the battle with Vyse. Previously she always escaped but in that battle she dies permanently if you incapacitate her. Anyway, she was causing me a lot of grief so... whoops. With Ganpp, you have to not kill him twice (instead kill his pets) then finally bring him down to critical when you meet him in Ch 4. I screwed up just the last part.

Two I completely missed were Ozma, connected to the blind swordsman and the sister of Oz, and Sherri, the sister of Olivya. Sherri isn’t too bad but Ozma is a little tricky. There are actually two other sisters, they’re available on the Chaos route. I thought killing Oz would make it impossible to recruit Ozma but his death wasn’t an insurmountable issue apparently!

Anyway, I’ve since been going back and recruiting everyone using the Wheel of Fortune. Also, there’s actually tons more end game content and characters to recruit. I gather that the Palace of the Dead allows you to recruit certain characters who you wouldn’t expect to be able to. Also Canopus has a sister! I’ll have to decide whether to plow into the end game content now or shelve that and do the Chaos Route.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Thanks for the heads up, I'll go back and read those spoilers once I finish up in Chapter 2.

And cool! I had a hunch smashing damage did a bit more. I've also been trying to level up a mage with dark + earth, cragfall has been one of my go-tos for damage big monsters.

I’ll be sure to repost relevant stuff as people progress through it. Sounds like you’re on the right track. I’d also recommend hitting them with Dark magic Paralyze, which should make them fumble at least half the time. Useful because they hit much harder than regular enemies.

Mild spoilers for recruiting the Dragoon/Law route:

Spoiler:

You’ll run into a redhead named Jeunan at some point. There’s a forced save point right before meeting him so, if he doesn’t join you, I recommend reloading and trying again.

Before I got my Dragoon leveled up with Dragon and Beast Skills I've been mainly ether not killing them or using combination of mages and archers to whittle them down. My main character is still rocking the Warrior, I tried switching him to a Berserker, but at the point in the story it really hurt me, so I put him back.

I'm at the start of chapter 3 right now at about 17ish hours. I have a feeling this will be a close to 40 hour game for me.

Progress report: I've hit chapter 3! 16 hours.

And holy hell, crafting in this game is hot smoking garbage. What a terrible timesink.

Pretty much. And then sometimes you get nothing and it's time to reload. I upgraded my weapons, but mostly ignored upgrading armor since I didn't want to waste any more time on it than I had to.

So what did you think of how ch. 2 played out?

I've fallen behind on this a bit, in part because of Baldur's Gate, in part because I've been feeling like some platforming and have been playing Celeste, and in part because I assigned myself a new quest.

New System? Needing a good lightweight, portable laptop for a side job starting this fall, you've invested in a Chromebook. It's great so far! It runs PPSSPP for Android! And Tactics Ogre plays just fine. Figuring out where to copy your old save states sure would be useful, but the Chromebook's file structure is confusing and hard to access.
Rewards: 100 XP, unlock Tactics Ogre during my commute (and maybe during lunch)

On my second lunch session I hit a battle with highwaymen that I thought was the story battle at Krysaro, got utterly crushed and tried to figure out what I could be missing before understanding that it was a random encounter. Kind of took the wind out of my sails. Then spent another foreshortened session just coming to a basic understanding of skills and skill points and classes, how to evaluate equipment purchases, etc. I think I'm understanding it more but at this rate I feel like this could be a multi-year endeavor for me.

So after beating the Law route, and doing a pit stop to recruit a couple of unique characters I missed the first time around to add to the party

Spoiler:

Ravness and Juenan

I'm back in it and using the World Chariot to start on the Chaos route so I can see the other story path. The enemies scale to your level, but I don't know how challenging it is going to be with an endgame team. We'll have to see on that.

And as I do the fights leaving up to the Ch. 1 decision point, I have the option to go and do the Necromancer fight again. I might do it, just to see what it's like at higher levels.

Sundown wrote:

Pretty much. And then sometimes you get nothing and it's time to reload. I upgraded my weapons, but mostly ignored upgrading armor since I didn't want to waste any more time on it than I had to.

So what did you think of how ch. 2 played out?

Obvious spoilers for law route!

Spoiler:

I did not expect to be betrayed! But when I finally beat him, the "reasoning" behind someone needing to die made me second-guess the whole thing. It was really good! I still felt grimy killing the king I worked so hard to save, but I did not like him at all.

I'm starting to feel like the villain, but I think that's the point

So after beating the Law route, and doing a pit stop to recruit a couple of unique characters I missed the first time around to add to the party

Ok so...This is a dumb question, but I haven't recruited a single person. How do I know who I can/should recruit? Do I just equip the appropriate recruitment skill and hope for the best? I've been doing pretty well with my default team, but I'm assuming recruitable characters have better stats?

Sundown wrote:

So after beating the Law route, and doing a pit stop to recruit a couple of unique characters I missed the first time around to add to the party

Spoiler:

Ravness and Juenan

I'm back in it and using the World Chariot to start on the Chaos route so I can see the other story path. The enemies scale to your level, but I don't know how challenging it is going to be with an endgame team. We'll have to see on that.

And as I do the fights leaving up to the Ch. 1 decision point, I have the option to go and do the Necromancer fight again. I might do it, just to see what it's like at higher levels.

Very similar to you. I was thinking of doing some end game content on Law but I decided to leave it for now and go over to Chaos. My experience is that you tend to outstrip the enemy in terms of equipment and stats if not actual levels. You can play with classes and builds to handicap yourself a bit. I rolled through the Ch 1 missions but rescuing

Spoiler:

Arycelle

early in Ch 2 gave me a lot of trouble. Had to break out the Ninja class with Move + 1, Boon of Swiftness and Field Alchemy to finish it.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Ok so...This is a dumb question, but I haven't recruited a single person. How do I know who I can/should recruit? Do I just equip the appropriate recruitment skill and hope for the best? I've been doing pretty well with my default team, but I'm assuming recruitable characters have better stats?

Recruitment skills are only for recruiting no-name NPCs and monsters/dragons. I think only the second is really of note since these can be quite valuable in combat but obviously play no part in the story. The first is pretty pointless because you get more than enough story characters to fill out the roles in your party and story characters tend to have better base stats than randos and some even have unique classes that you can't get any other way. You can still change the classes of story characters with few restrictions. Anyway, some story characters will join you automatically but others will need you to do certain actions to recruit them. They can be as simple as making sure they don't die when you meet them or extremely obscure.

One way to find opportunities to recruit story characters is to make sure to read all the Talk articles in the Warren Report. The most obvious type follows like this:

Suspicious activity in Pirate Cove!

A gang of pirates has been accosting local merchants in Pirate Cove and locals are ... blah blah

Upon reading the article, a location called Pirate Cove shows up on your map. Going there initiates an encounter where, say, you have to protect a local merchant from pirates. If they survive then you get the option to recruit them. Anyway, I made that up but there are real examples in the game that follow exactly that process. Some of the Talk articles are just obscure hints though and it's kind of hard to know what to do.

benign1 wrote:

On my second lunch session I hit a battle with highwaymen that I thought was the story battle at Krysaro, got utterly crushed and tried to figure out what I could be missing before understanding that it was a random encounter. Kind of took the wind out of my sails. Then spent another foreshortened session just coming to a basic understanding of skills and skill points and classes, how to evaluate equipment purchases, etc. I think I'm understanding it more but at this rate I feel like this could be a multi-year endeavor for me.

We're here to help! Don't be afraid to grind a few battles early on. Just being able to unlock one or two more skill slots can really get you over the hump. Field Alchemy I is a cheap skill at 50 points that gives any character access to powerful healing items early on that aren't really that expensive.

What I've been doing is when I get a story character that has the same class as one of my regular troops, I switch the regular troop from that class into something I don't have. Like when I got a story based wizard I switched out my enchantress into a Witch, which worked out well since she had a good number of skill points saved up and almost all of her skills and spells carried over into the new class.

That sounds like a good plan.

I’ve been making progress in Ch 2 Chaos and I’d forgotten about the swarm of story characters that join your party, especially compared to Ch 2 Law. It’s fun to see so many new faces but it’s problematic that they’re starting so high level (22-25). When you recruit someone in Ch 4 they usually have all 10 skill slots open and 10 or so decent skills available (even if they’re not exactly what I’d choose). However, the characters you recruit in Ch 2 just have 3 or so skill slots open and a handful of cheap skills. So, even though they’re on par in terms of level, I have to put in quite a lot of work to get them on par with my other party members.

Another thing about Ch 2, the Law and Chaos routes are completely different aside from a few familiar locations. Interesting to see some familiar faces in totally different contexts.

Getting closer on my recent, personal quest!

I’ve found the saved game folder for PPSSPP within Chrome’s file structure, and Chrome will allow me to create new folders within, but seems resistant to allowing me to copy files into those folders. Still, I feel like I can figure this out today or tomorrow, and then it will be off to the races!

Pretty sad there aren't more of these games out there. The Tactics Ogre games are something special and I'd love to see new ones.

Can I be added to this list of who is playing this game too? I know I have baby, but I got my nephew to bring me the PSTV I bought him that he doesn't use. I redownloaded this game and it appears that I can get started soon.

Of course! Welcome aboard.

I would love to be able to play this game on Switch.

Tactics Ogre has been on my list of stuff to play for literally years if not decades, even prior to the Let Us Cling Together version. I'm a big Matsuno fan from other games. I think it's time to set sanctity aside and actually try it out.

Even if deadline is end of year I'm not sure I'll make it, but the first few fights have been fun just poking around the game systems.

Welcome aboard! So, are you actually able to play the game on Switch? Or, are you using one of the other systems?

I finally got my saved games copied over into the right folder in my Chromebook, and am ready to restart! Probably won't have a ton of time for gaming this weekend, due to some other stuff, but I'll be able to make some real progress soon if I can play this on the bus and subway.

I switched Denam to a Ninja and one of my other characters to a Dragoon, just to take advantage of other classes I hadn't yet tried. They are so weak, so I might have to grind out a couple random encounters to get them to decent levels.

I found a cool forest and did a *lot* of grinding, oops! I didn't realise it was optional until doing a bit of research. I found two rings which boosted strength and defense by 8 points each, with one also boosting avoidance! I gave the latter to my MC Ninja, and he's near-unstoppable at this point; double attacks with 2 upgraded katanas absolutely melts people.

I also managed to pin down some dragons with my knights and a lone wizard which yielded the elusive beast horn I needed to upgrade my 2 handed bow.

Since then, I've plundered another castle and recruited a dragoon. Now I'm breezing through the story! The grinding did me some good. It's only random battles that are giving me trouble now - I believe they are scaled differently to the main missions, because these enemies have some pretty cool armour now! Fortunately, I've been able to pinch a few pieces for myself.

This is quickly becoming my favourite SRPG, ever. It's unbelievably good once you start to understand the systems!

A_Unicycle wrote:

This is quickly becoming my favourite SRPG, ever. It's unbelievably good once you start to understand the systems!

That’s where I got to as well. It’s an amazing game.

You all are making me wish I had time to play it again.

LastSurprise wrote:

Welcome aboard! So, are you actually able to play the game on Switch? Or, are you using one of the other systems?

I own the PSN version. As far as I know there's no way to play the game on Switch, at least short of hacking your Switch to run an emulator or something. I would love to be able to play it there though.

So far I would agree with everyone that's it's been really rewarding to experiment with things and figure out the game systems.

I haven't even started buying skills, magic or new equipment yet, but I think I better start.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I found a cool forest and did a *lot* of grinding, oops! I didn't realise it was optional until doing a bit of research. I found two rings which boosted strength and defense by 8 points each, with one also boosting avoidance! I gave the latter to my MC Ninja, and he's near-unstoppable at this point; double attacks with 2 upgraded katanas absolutely melts people.

How do you get your ninja to double attack? I decided to follow your path and made my MC a ninja too, though right now he's under-leveled. I put a dagger in each hand, but taking the attack action just prompted me to choose one of the daggers, and when I did my MC only attacked once. Is there a skill that I need to buy, or something else I'm missing?

And after a couple of nights with some good free time, I've cleared Chaos ch.2. I'll post some assorted thoughts in spoilers. Also, since I'm comparing the two routes in my head extensively, I'll post two separate spoiler sections; thoughts on just the Chaos route for those starting on that route, and thoughts that compare and contrast the two routes.

First, Chaos ch. 2 only.

Spoiler:

-The Duke’s plan went off without a hitch without us. I still can’t wait for whatever chapter it is we go and punch him in the face. Because that has to happen.
-It started off with a couple of really hard missions, with an uphill battle, then trying to keep Arycelle alive. Got through both though, and things are back under control.
-I like Arycelle, and would probably use her, except my other archers are way ahead of her in terms of skills (which make a huge difference in this game), and I don’t feel like grinding her up. So I won’t be using all of the unique units, I guess.
-Any fears I had about this route being too easy have been allayed, since I’m really having to grind out some fights and had to focus fire down Vyce to keep Arycelle alive. So yeah, not just rolling through all of the fights.
-And in terms of politics, every region seems to have rebels. Well, maybe not the Walister (unless you count us), but there is no shortage of tension and people who hate the leaders. Might be a function of the way the current leaders are leading, or could just be part of the power vacuum left by the Dynast-King (mentioned in the intro cinematic, for those who haven’t seen it yet). Or both.
-Most of Ch. 2 was us on the run, as almost all of the fights were against either bounty hunters or pirates (which was in interesting little side story). But the Liberation Front were introduced in a way that they will be significant players later.
-I also love that this game has the 1v1 between Denam and Vyce, even if it wasn’t conclusive. When I saw I was just allowed one character for a battle, I knew what was coming. And man, Vyce is incredibly bitter.

Quick prediction on Chaos Ch.3, based on the intro scene

Spoiler:

-In the intro of Ch.3, Denam declared that he was no longer side with the Walister, since the current fight was really just a struggle between the leaders, who don’t care about those who they hurt below them. I guess that’s the mission statement for the Chaos route. I thought there was a chance Denam could get tied up with the Liberation Front to try to topple the leaders during Ch.2, but I didn’t think he would want to hurt the common man, which the Liberation Front didn’t concern themselves with. My prediction is they will either be a foil or an ally going forward, depending on how Denam is willing to bend his morals to kill the Duke.

And now for random thoughts and comparisons between the two routes. Spoilers for the entire Law route, and Chaos route up to Ch.2 in here.

Spoiler:

-Yikes. I like Vyce a lot better in the Law route
-The weird thing about this game to me is how…..different the Vyce seem. Beyond the obvious, but it seems like two different universes. Key point: In Law, Vyce had no idea about the massacre and wanted no part of it. In Chaos, he was told about it before the player character knew about it, and was in on it. So what he knows and when he knew it seems dependent on what route you pick (if that makes sense). So thinking about this, we were on the Chaos route already before I decided that we were on the Chaos route, since Vyce already knew about the massacre and was on board, and his decision predates my own. So theoretically there is a universe where he knew about the massacre and was on board, and Denam chose to go along with it, and they were just bro’ing it up under the Duke together. Or both refusing to participate and forming the New Walister Alliance together.

If the game tells you he knew about the massacre in the Law route beforehand and I just forgot about it, disregard the above paragraph.

-Also, the World Chariot lets you get up to all sorts of un-commented on shenanigans. At the end of Ch.1, I had Vyce and Ravness in my party, even though in-story Vyce had just killed Ravness and run off. And later I had Xapan tanking Xapan. I kind of wish there was a non-cannon mode, where the characters could comment on what their alternate universe selves were doing, like Ravness calling out Vyce in the above scenario and Vyce having to defend his counterpart.

-I feel like Chaos ch. 2 isn’t as….impactful as Law ch.2. At least it doesn’t feel like as much happened. In the Chaos route we are on the run the entire time, meet the Liberation front, get offered a chance to rejoin the Walister, and then run off again. Whereas in Law, there was a lot more tension against the Duke that built up until we had to go assassinate him. Now, I can’t blame Denam and co. for not making big moves while on the run, but overall story wise, I would have liked more to happen.

-Seeing Vyce go dark and be very bitter about Denam being the golden boy makes me think back to the other route, and how he seems angrier at Denam here than when Denam helped kill a ton of people. Lots of bitterness in this one. Maybe they reconcile, but I don’t see it this time. There might even be another duel in the future.

-I’ve made it to the end of Ch.2, and still no new weapons have been made available. Maybe some new armor, sure, but the weapons I took to the endgame are still equipped. That has to get refreshed at some point. Unless I’m missing something that triggers new weapons.

LastSurprise wrote:

How do you get your ninja to double attack? I decided to follow your path and made my MC a ninja too, though right now he's under-leveled. I put a dagger in each hand, but taking the attack action just prompted me to choose one of the daggers, and when I did my MC only attacked once. Is there a skill that I need to buy, or something else I'm missing?

Ninjas can learn the Double Attack skill at level 3. It's fairly cheap as well.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I found a cool forest and did a *lot* of grinding, oops! I didn't realise it was optional until doing a bit of research. I found two rings which boosted strength and defense by 8 points each, with one also boosting avoidance! I gave the latter to my MC Ninja, and he's near-unstoppable at this point; double attacks with 2 upgraded katanas absolutely melts people.

Yep, I kind of wish there was some kind of mini-boss or special treasure that you can get. It's a little bit of a let down to get to the end of the route and not have something waiting for you. Still, the maps are super compact and a good way to get a bunch of xp and skill points in a short time. Perfect for getting your new recruits up to speed. The area actually adds new maps in Ch 3 I believe up to 15-20 or so.

I tried really hard to make Denam a great Knight but he just wasn't doing the damage. I knew that Ninjas are awesome but I already had one of the story characters as an awesome Ninja and I've always avoided doubling up on classes where possible. So, I started him off as a Rogue which also dual wields but eventually just gave in and went Ninja. It doesn't really make sense, story-wise, to deploy my other Ninja on the Chaos Route anyway:
Chaos Ch 1 event spoilers, Law Ch 3 recruit spoilers

Spoiler:

Dame Ravness

I haven't necessarily been that impressed with the AI of the opponents but I noticed a nifty move just today:
My Ninja and Knight Commander attack along a 3 square wide corridor, tearing apart their 2 Dark Knights with some archer support, and moving towards their soft healers and magic users. Almost game over. However, on their next move, their magic user casts Petri Fog, turning both my star attackers to stone. Then their surviving Knight casts Rampart Shadow at range to completely block any access by my characters with Field Alchemy to de-stone my fighters. Prolonging the fight by at least 3 more rounds. Pretty cool.

LastSurprise wrote:

How do you get your ninja to double attack? I decided to follow your path and made my MC a ninja too, though right now he's under-leveled. I put a dagger in each hand, but taking the attack action just prompted me to choose one of the daggers, and when I did my MC only attacked once. Is there a skill that I need to buy, or something else I'm missing?

Once you go Ninja, you won't go back. You'll want to give them the Double Attack skill and the 1-H Katana skill. Later you can get the Stoneskin (50TP) skill that gives you 50% protection against physical damage until the next turn but still allows for counterattacks.

I must be doing something wrong with my ninja, I'm around level 12 or 13 with him, have double attack/1h katana skill but he doesn't seem to be doing that much more damage, and when someone fights back he's far to squishy. What equipment do you guys run on them?