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

37 hours, chapter 4. Looking at my save data, I've taken the "lower" route every time I've had to make a choice. Today's was my first "upper" fork in the path! That'd be interesting and all, but I'm pretty lost with the story. I need to spend some time reading the Warren report, but each night I sit down to play, I just want to...Play and not read.

I've unlocked the pirate graveyard area which was a nice distraction, but it was the first time in a while I got my ass kicked. Reading up on it more, I think I've missed my chance to recruit the buccaneer character, and that's pretty annoying. I'm getting a bit grumpy with just how much goes into finding unique characters, with no real way to get them all without strictly following a guide.

But I have 2 kickass ninjas and 3 archers which are winning all my matches so do I really need him anyway? Maybe I'm missing something, but the class balance seems very off. A lot of classes just aren't worth using, and others are good but are outshined by the better ones. I do like the game a lot still, but I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to finish it and move on. I've heard the One Vision mod fixes the balance, but it'll probably be a long time before I'm ready to play it again.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I do like the game a lot still, but I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to finish it and move on.

I think I'm getting to this point myself, I think I will try that one match with the necromancer once more and what ever happens happens. Then move on.

You will get the ability to go back and get stuff once you beat the game, so you're not permanently locked out of any content or classes or characters. If you wanted them for your first playthough it would probably be too late, but they would be underleveled for a long time anyway even if you did want to use it now.

I found myself in a similar situation, where a handful of units (ninjas, archers) were basically carrying me at the end, and I kept the rest around for some pretty situational usage (knights, healers, mages).

Also, I love that the mod is called One Vision. Keeping the Queen theming alive.

Also, I love that the mod is called One Vision. Keeping the Queen theming alive.

Missed opportunity, they could have called it Tactics Ogre: Fat Bottomed Girls

Ninjas and Archers rule all apparently. I've made it a personal challenge to try my best to find the use case for each class no matter how crappy it seems. And, as I've mentioned before, I usually try to field only one each to maximise my class levelling opportunities. I do really like the Priest class (Catiua's class), wish I could find a Class mark for that.

I'm close to recruiting the Pirate. My Necro is only level 14, so a long way from being useful. I met the Wyrmcaller caller but only recruitable on the Lawful route apparently.

A_Unicycle wrote:
Also, I love that the mod is called One Vision. Keeping the Queen theming alive.

Missed opportunity, they could have called it Tactics Ogre: Fat Bottomed Girls :lol:

Or maybe Tactics Ogre: You're My Best Friend

Fastmav347 wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

I do like the game a lot still, but I'm starting to feel like I'm ready to finish it and move on.

I think I'm getting to this point myself, I think I will try that one match with the necromancer once more and what ever happens happens. Then move on.

I was completely stuck on the Pirate battle (second rescue mission) but finally equipped Canopus with a lobber for throwing items and it was a total game changer. Had to lob Mending Seeds for most of the battle but impossible became straightforward.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I've unlocked the pirate graveyard area which was a nice distraction, but it was the first time in a while I got my ass kicked. Reading up on it more, I think I've missed my chance to recruit the buccaneer character, and that's pretty annoying. I'm getting a bit grumpy with just how much goes into finding unique characters, with no real way to get them all without strictly following a guide.

Yes, when I played this back in the day I missed most of the optional recruits. A damn shame how obscure some of the recruitment methods are but it does give some replayability.

I also just noticed, but the forest is MUCH bigger in chapter 4.

After FINALLY finishing the forest, most of my team was around level 19, I tried the Necro battle, still was pretty tough but I managed to save her, only to be rejected after the fight Not sure I want to do that again lol. Off to the main missions!

I think I am one mission away from finishing Chapter 3:

Spoiler:

I had a fight against Oz and some Templars, then he fled to Phidoch, so I had to storm that castle again. When I stopped for the day, I had just breached the outer guard. From the story segments, it looks like I’ll be fighting Oz and Ozma inside, during the next mission.

Fastmav347 wrote:

After FINALLY finishing the forest, most of my team was around level 19, I tried the Necro battle, still was pretty tough but I managed to save her, only to be rejected after the fight Not sure I want to do that again lol. Off to the main missions!

I feel for you! I had the exact same thing, finally beat the mission, got rejected. I think there is some cool story content that you get from doing that mission chain even if the recruitment doesn't work out but it's a big disappointment. As I mentioned previously, I did the death march technique to get my Galgastani chaos frame in order but I'm not sure I'd recommend it, very painful.

I'm really starting to sour on this one. I've typed the below and come back to the top to write an apology here because it's a big mess of grumpy, half-asleep rambling. You have been warned. You have been apologized to.

Anyway.

The first 8-10 hours were pretty rough, but it felt like you were constantly getting little upgrades, so it difficult but satisfying squeezing out wins. There were so many interesting options, and unit positioning really mattered!

~10-30 hours in was amazing. I was calling it "the best SRPG I've ever played". There were so many classes to choose from, I was constantly unlocking new abilities and tinkering with new weapons, it was fantastic. All the hard work in the first 10 hours was starting to pay off and I was taking on big monsters and using them to craft fun weapons.

30-40 hours have been such a drag. The classes and weapons aren't balanced well so I feel punished for using anything other than a few combinations This means I'm not experimenting anymore, and feel pushed into a single direction. Even if I did want to experiment, levelling up a new class takes SO LONG. I got the princess class, which I assume is one of the best in the game, but it's going to take hours to get that one up to the rest of my team so I just haven't bothered. Additionally, the only new abilities I've learned are stat up versions of previous ones, so I have nothing to really look forward to. Any new item I want to craft is an absolute chore, and the battles are just about sniping the leader and moving on, I feel like I've fought the same fight for this whole chapter. I think I've got 3-5 more fights then a final dungeon and I just don't have the will to push on.

I started this latest fight and saw I was at the bottom of a cliff battle and just turned the PSP off. I want to finish because of the game club, but I think I need a break.

I find the game is best played in short spurts, one or two battles here and there. I would definitely suggest a break if your feeling burnt out.

I've taken a bit of a longer break, and it's definitely helped. For what it's worth, I agree with what you've written about leveling up the classes, and about the fact that the later-level skills all just seem to be better versions of stat-ups. I honestly think the system of leveling classes, and starting new classes at low levels, is a huge design flaw that makes the game less interesting to play.

And no need to apologize! Talking about the game -- including what you don't like -- is totally the point of the club. If the game's frustrating you, you should say so. Although I get the sentiment. For a while now I've been wanting to write up my final thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel, but I have been holding back in part because I feel like I'm going to be Mr. Negative (and in a thread that's no longer really active, to boot). It's a shame when you play a game, and feel so positive on it for a while, but it wears out its welcome. Seems like a real issue with games that are as long as these.

So I think one of the issues with late classes being useless (I dragged Ranger and Princess around like bags of sand through the endgame, and even into my NG+ with the chaos route weren't up to snuff for a long time) is that this game seems to have a ton of postgame content (think 99 floor bonus dungeon) where in the long run all this stuff is viable if you have the time to grind, which may have been great at a different point in life. But if you're just playing to see the story like many of us may be, then you're never going to get to that point.

I think I hit a similar point where I was ready to be done since things felt stagnant mechanics-wise near the end of my first playthrough. And I largely pushed through to see the story. I then played through the other routes (just the unique chapters, I didn't roll credits 3 times) with barely any changes to my equipment, and little more than the stronger versions of the skills like you noted.

If it wasn't for wanting to see the other sides of the story, I may have tapped out at the end of my first playthrough. But I'm glad now I stuck around to see the other routes, and it only took maybe 10-15 more hours total to go through three chapters, since battles were generally quick and I wasn't fiddling with my lineup between every battle anymore. I started with Law so that still feels like the "real" route to me, but there were some great moments in the rest of the game as well.

I definitely want to chip in with the above discussion but for now I'll just post an update.

Recruited the pirate and completed his story arc in the Pirates Graveyard. A bunch more maps open up (kind of like that forest) once you have the pirate in your squad. Moderately satisfying but definitely not essential. Also, I rolled credits on the Chaos route. Regarding the time to complete a second path, after your first time through the game, secret side paths open up on the final castle mission and the Hanging Gardens mission which allow you to skip pretty much straight to the final map or maps of each one. So, I played through "all" of Hanging Gardens in about 30 minutes. You're rewarded with a slightly different vignette from Olivya (compared to Law) and the pirate gets one as well. All the other vignettes were the same as Law (except for the ones specific to Law that weren't in Chaos).

There is a ton of endgame content plus more characters to recruit but I think I'll do the Neutral path before I consider doing that.

A_Unicycle wrote:

30-40 hours have been such a drag. The classes and weapons aren't balanced well so I feel punished for using anything other than a few combinations This means I'm not experimenting anymore, and feel pushed into a single direction. Even if I did want to experiment, levelling up a new class takes SO LONG. I got the princess class, which I assume is one of the best in the game, but it's going to take hours to get that one up to the rest of my team so I just haven't bothered. Additionally, the only new abilities I've learned are stat up versions of previous ones, so I have nothing to really look forward to. Any new item I want to craft is an absolute chore, and the battles are just about sniping the leader and moving on, I feel like I've fought the same fight for this whole chapter. I think I've got 3-5 more fights then a final dungeon and I just don't have the will to push on.

I started this latest fight and saw I was at the bottom of a cliff battle and just turned the PSP off. I want to finish because of the game club, but I think I need a break.

I think a lot of my different experience is due to my play style which tends to lean towards grinding and finding optimum ways to maximise my party beyond what the game is balanced for. So, if I ever decided to go all Ninjas/Archers and just charge the leader, yeah, I can't imagine it would be a good or fun experience. Right from when I first played the game back in the day, once I understood the Class levelling mechanic, I allocated 1-3 slots for dummy units every battle (1 in a 6 unit squad, up to 3 for a 12 unit squad) and rotated those slots through whichever classes I was trying to level. It's definitely annoying to get a cool new class and not be able to put it into action right away though so I don't consider this a positive, for sure. Also, of course it's a handicap but I felt that it was beneficial to make the game more challenging. As it is, the only missions I tend to struggle with are the ones where you have to rescue some idiot AI unit.

I don't disagree with you regarding abilities. One thing is that high level units can purchase a skill that grants them immunity to a particular status effect. They are ridiculously expensive (10000 points) but my Denam has immunity to stone for example.

Crafting blows. It's quite rewarding in that the crafted items are much better than the vanilla ones. A crafted item not only often has useful status effects (like shackle on one of the bows), they often still have better stats than the next tier of vanilla items so you can get some decent use out of them. I estimated that a unit equipped with a full set of crafted gear can go toe to toe with an enemy unit 4 levels above them. Going back to the blowing part, man is it painful to craft stuff. Like 3-4 layers of materials just to get to the final crafting that has only a 60% success rate (I always reloaded of course). Anyway, I did most of my crafting while catching up on tv shows. For doing a bunch of ore, I could pretty much just press the buttons without looking at the screen based on the sound prompts.

I actually really appreciated the bottom of the cliff battles because I felt like I was rewarded for polishing my magic users (who's range is calculated horizontally not vertically) and having melee units with jump and move+1 skills instead of just having a bunch of archers.

Overall, I still think it's an outstanding game, especially when you consider the PSP game is a (slightly) improved version of the original SNES game from way back when. The shame is that there hasn't been a sequel last gen or this gen that could have cleaned up and modernised some of rough edges (and picked up from the 'To be continued'!). Also, Final Fantasy Tactics is usually presented as the best of this genre but after the Chariot system in Tactics Ogre and not having to level every single unit, along with the story overall, I think it's not a contest.

I'd be interested in doing a bit of a Class review at some point. I think there are some good ones in there outside of Archer. And there are some complete turds. But might be fun to discuss the pros and cons of each and how we used them effectively (or not).

How difficult/essential the Pirates graveyard and some magic thinny on the north west side of the map on the first playthrough?

Spoiler:

I'm at the point where I'm in the castle doing battle against Catilya(sp) and one dark knight. Chaos route

When I beat Tactics Ogre I took a months long break at one point. Games like this that are long and kind of repetitive need to be shorter, frankly.

Fastmav347 wrote:

How difficult/essential the Pirates graveyard and some magic thinny on the north west side of the map on the first playthrough?

Spoiler:

I'm at the point where I'm in the castle doing battle against Catilya(sp) and one dark knight. Chaos route

Haven't quite gotten to the place where you are. I just tried a mission involving the pirates, and I was a bit too under-leveled. But I was hanging in until the dude I was supposed to save, got killed.

Well, I made it through the first mission of that optional pirate sidequest in Chapter 4 (Chaos). This was one of the most difficult challenges so far, especially given that all the enemies were 4-5 levels above me and I was required to beat the boss before the enemies surrounded and killed an NPC. But I had read that pressing ahead with the story would close this quest, so I wanted to see if I could pull it off.

There were a couple of things that really helped here: (1) pressing ahead to the boss with Denam and my archers, ignoring my characters' deaths, and (2) realizing that Valkyries are capable of casting Boon of Swiftness. Also, Mr GT Chris is right about upgraded gear being worth several levels. I think I could have taken the enemies if this had been a straight "vanquish all foes" map.

I took brief, side dip into Knight for Denam and Arycelle to buy Tactician I for them, which generates more TP per turn. This was a great purchase, especially for Denam. As a Ninja with dual attack, he seems to gain TP with each weapon attack, so the Tactician skill really accelerates his TP growth. I think I will be able to use Steelstance much more frequently.

And a bit more progress! I did the first couple chapters of the necromancer side quest, but the final mission looked super hard and I decided to come back to it later. Then, I went to advance the story by fighting through a volcano. I'm currently at the Hagia something, ready to move the plot along.

Spoiler:

And I really like the story of the 4 sisters, with three on my side (Cistina, Cerya, and Olivia), and one working for the enemy (Sherri). I think this is especially impactful because I've recruited all three, but I think it also helps that -- for the first time -- I'm meeting people beyond Vyce and Catiua who knew Denam as a child. It makes him, and the world, feel a bit more fleshed out. As soon as I saw Sherri in command of the enemy battalion, reloaded to make sure I had all three of her sisters in my roster.

In terms of gameplay, I really like the mechanic that lets you move and do two actions (Act and Skill). It reminds me of DND 5E. But, I think the skills are a bit of a lost opportunity. Too many skills are just "make your next action really powerful." I would love things that let you double up on certain actions. Maybe some characters could use an item without consuming their action, or use a low-level spell without consuming their action, or double-up their movement. I think that if the game featured these "bonus action" type skills, it would go a long way to alleviating some of the feeling, late in the game, that you are just repeating the same strategies over and over.

Btw, recruiting Sherri is super obtuse (but rewarding) so I recommend doing a quick search on how to do it if that interests you. I agree about that story line and it definitely motivated me to keep them together at least for sometime after that.

LastSurprise wrote:

I took brief, side dip into Knight for Denam and Arycelle to buy Tactician I for them, which generates more TP per turn. This was a great purchase, especially for Denam. As a Ninja with dual attack, he seems to gain TP with each weapon attack, so the Tactician skill really accelerates his TP growth. I think I will be able to use Steelstance much more frequently.

I usually find as long as my Ninja can hit with a dual attack they always finish with at least 50TP for Steelstance. They can sometimes be vulnerable when they need to cover a lot of ground to get to a target. Otherwise, I usually have an abundance of TP because I favour dual attack over any of the 1-H Katana specials.

I just hit Ch 4 Law (again) as I clean up a few bits and pieces. I abused the World System so I could get Denam's Lord mark without necessarily following down that route. It looks like it could be interesting to play with, but stuck at level 1 (again). He was Ninja before and I changed his class but he retained all the skills he had as Ninja (except for Steelstance), so including 1-H Katana, Double Attack for example. All skills that should have been unavailable at level 1 at least. But when I went to see what skills I could learn, the list was empty. So, is Lord just a catch-all that allows you to combine a variety of skills from different classes? I suppose I should just check online to get the answer for that. Anyway, being Law, I have Ravness back as my Ninja (I usually prefer to field story characters), so I don't need a second one.

So awhile ago, I said I was going to do a write up my ranking of the routes. I actually wrote it a couple of weeks ago, but sat on it while waiting for…something. But now that nominations for the next game are up, I figure now’s as good a time as any to drop it.

So first, here’s just my route ranking:

Spoiler:

Law > Neutral > Chaos

Now for the why. Serious spoilers for all the routes, so beware.

Spoiler:

So, I assume anyone reading this has played the game multiple times, or just doesn’t care about spoilers, but I’ll do a quick layout of the routes.

Law: Universal Ch.1, Law Ch.2, Law Ch.3, Universal Ch.4
Chaos: Universal Ch.1, Chaos Ch.2, Chaos Ch.3, Universal Ch.4
Neutral: Universal Ch.1, Chaos Ch.2, Neutral Ch.3, Universal Ch.4

The thing that becomes clear in this game is that, no matter what happens in Ch.2 and 3, some events must happen. The Duke and Leonar have to die, Denam will join the Walister and Galgastani, and his sister runs away and joins Lanselot. Plus Vyce will stop being an independent agent, either by joining your party and following Denam’s lead, or getting killed. How the game get there varies per route, but all those must happen.

Some of my favorite (“favorite”) parts of the game are when Denam is working for the Duke while knowing how much of a monster the Duke can be while rationalizing it all the while. He is working for a greater cause in both (uniting the Walister against the blood war waged by the Galgastani in the Law route, and joining a great force to oppose the Bakram invasion in Neutral), but in both cases is forced to do some very morally questionable things for that cause. He is a important cog in a merciless machine, and is constantly faced with how terrible that choice has been. It makes for the most engaging and thought provoking and gut punching writing in the game, and I think it’s where the setting really shines. Through the muck, but you get my meaning.

I also think that Law is more narratively coherent than Neutral (which makes sense, since it was it’s own dedicated story, while Neutral was a one-chapter thing that spun off of the Chaos route. The Law route was also compelling, in that the massacre was a success but Denam had to live with the consequences, like being told to his face repeatedly how terrible he was for being involved, and the tension between him and good Vyce. The game constantly reminds you that you aren’t really a hero in any sort of sense here despite the victories, and that’s probably why that route as a whole resonated a lot with me. However, the sudden implosion of for basically all of the allies that aren’t Denam near the end of the Neutral chapter was SPECTACULAR, and worth seeing. That’s one where if that had somehow been someone’s first playthrough, it would be absolutely wrenching to see everything disintegrate, even if the people involved were less than sympathetic.

Meanwhile, I didn’t like Chaos as much as I thought I would. Most of Denam’s story is just “on the run and fighting bounty hunters,” while other characters are pushing the war, and the story, on without him. I think Denam is probably the best version of himself here and truer to himself, but the other routes were much more interesting story wise.

I really wish there was more budget and Ch.4 was unique for each route, since otherwise it just rolls into the same handful of battles and story beats at the end, and made me less interested in finishing Chaos and Neutral, since they all went to the same place. The biggest difference in Ch.4 seems to be what happens to Catiua, and then who survives to the “where are they now” epilogue. But that wasn’t enough for me to play another 5-10 hours per route to see.

But ultimately, I think everyone’s favorite route may be their first one. The setting is still new and dynamic then, and you don’t know where everything is going. It has that issue that many games with multiple endings and ways to approach it that your first experience is the “real” one, and everything after that is just experimenting. Once you’ve done a couple of routes and you see the events that have to happen during Ch.2 and 3 in order to flow into Ch.4, a lot of the surprise and mystery is just gone, since you’re just waiting for certain boxes to get checked.

That first time is great, though.

Tl;dr: Everyone’s first route will probably be their favorite.

Charging my Vita...

Nice!

After another week or so off, I moved one battle closer to completion, today. I’m at the door to what I think is...

Spoiler:

the confrontation with Lanselot and Catiua.

But it looks like some optional stuff has opened up, first.

Also, there was something that I had meant to correct from one of my initial posts. I found it really fishy that there were two guys names Lanselot, especially where one of them claimed to be a former holy knight of Xenobia who I didn’t remember as a party member in Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. I was totally wrong. There, Lanselot Hamilton was “Lans,” the very first character available to be recruited.

And the game is back on sale for $5 if anyone was still waiting to jump in. I'm currently on hiatus but definitely planning to come back for the Neutral path before I finish.

I think I'm nearing the end of Chaos path finally

Spoiler:

I'm in hanging gardens about 8 battles in.

Oh nice!

I’m in the last battle of Barnicia ...

Spoiler:

Actually facing off against Lanselot and Catiua, this time.

I have finished the Chaos path, took me about 53 hours to get it done. Overall I am happy that I played this game, and to be honest its one of the few games I finished this summer so thats something!

Only couple things I didn't like, in my opinion classes took way too long to level up to be useful without grinding for hours. The second thing is I thought the final dungeon was far too long, but alot of JRGS suffer from that issue. Never was able to figure out how recruiting skills worked, but other than that very happy I was able to join in!