Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

[Toaster]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Which Ogre Battle's have you played and which are you talking about again, specifically? Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, or Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber?

Because both are opaque as hell and I'd love to hear you try and explain how they work. They're Matsuno at his rawest and I could never wrap my head around them.

[Hrafn]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

In America at least, there wouldn't have even BEEN a genre had it not been for Ogre Battle. Yeah, there was Fire Emblem on the NES first (in Japan), and Shining Force on the Genesis, but I liken those more to games like Civ or Age of Empires, albeit without the economy and empire-building gameplay. To me, yes, they are tactical games with troops and battles, but then again, so is Risk.

Ogre Battle in my mind began the SRPG genre, and Tactics Ogre began the 3/4 isometric grid-based extension of that genre, which, of course has become the de facto standard.

TO's value in helping form the modern notion of the SRPG has been covered and recovered in this thread by others, as well as myself:

Might be true, but I doubt I get another chance to find out. And I'm OK with that.

And yes, it was. That's part of why I can like it despite its wrinkles. It is the rough natural rock from which FFT was chiseled, and while it may not be as pleasing to behold, it still shares some level of unhewn beauty with the masterpiece crafted from its materials.

But Hell Gate still sucks balls.

Meaning that Tactics Ogre provided a valuable stepping stone. Which FFT and several other SRPGs promptly used to step over it and ascend to higher elevations on the peak of awesomeness.

[Perversion]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Which Ogre Battle's have you played and which are you talking about again, specifically? Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, or Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber?

Because both are opaque as hell and I'd love to hear you try and explain how they work. They're Matsuno at his rawest and I could never wrap my head around them.

Was this directed at me or at Hrafn?

The first SRPG I ever played was Ogre Battle on the SNES...bought it brand-new probably within a month of release at Babbage's for $80. I bought the N64 iteration day 2 or 3 after release. Never had a PSX, so never played the SNES port or Tactics Ogre. Played Tactics Ogre on the GBA, and have both the SNES and N64 ones as Virtual Console games.


I never found any of them oblique in the slightest. Then again, I went into Ogre Battle knowing what to expect. Nintendo Power had run features on its gameplay 2 months in a row (and not blurbs...the first was 3-4 pages, and the subsequent was 1-2 pages, if memory serves), and it came with inserts detailing class branches, weapons and armor, and tarot cards. I can see if you had none of this knowledge, it might seem a bit oblique. But I found it very straightforward myself. I poured hours and hours into the game just optimizing my units and characters' advancement paths (part of unit management)...sometimes you needed to lower a certain character's alignment to get him or her to meet the requirements for a particular class, so you could put them in a unit with other low alignment characters, and always have tactics set to "Attack weak," and try to use this unit to polish off weaker enemies whose leader had already been killed. Typically, the other low alignment characters might go up in alignment slightly due to being paired with someone with a higher alignment, but that character went down considerably faster.

Lower alignment units tended to fight better at night, and against higher-aligned enemies. You also needed to make sure your units worked well together, and their skills/attacks complemented the other characters in the unit. But THEN, you needed to worry about shifting characters around too much, because you broke unit cohesion in doing so.


So, yeah...after reading all that, I guess it might seem a bit oblique, but that's what I absolutely adore about the game...that there are SO many factors to take into consideration when doing character-building that when I finally tried to play FFT, it just felt so lacking and simplistic in terms of what I was used to with Ogre Battle. You had a what, 12 or 15 or something character limit? Ogre Battle had 100. There were maybe 15 or 20 jobs? Ogre Battle had at least 40-60 classes/monsters (and monsters had their own upgrade path), if not more. And Ogre Battle was not as simple as "if you have these stats, then you can change jobs," and you only had to worry about building you characters' base stats the "right" way. In Ogre Battle, again, you had to take alignment, actions in battle, equipment, and placement with other units all into account when deciding how to advance your characters.


That's the thing...Hrafn said "Oh, you have no control over your characters." Wrong. You have absolute control over EVERY aspect of you characters (all 100 of them). You are just not able to input actions directly in battle. SO WHAT? There's SO much else going on here that the battle system is COMPLETELY streamlined to allow you to focus on what REALLY matters, which is character-building and unit cohesion, placement, and direction in combat...you know, things that make a tactical RPG actually tactical and an RPG.

[Perversion]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

All of that above does not even take into account terrain considerations, either. Depending on which characters you put into a unit together, they will be more or less effective on certain terrain types. So yeah...there's that, too.

Tell me with a straight face that FFT even came CLOSE to approaching the amount of depth that I only hinted at above and here. Hinted at, because depending again on morale and alignment and choices made, certain characters, scenarios, maps, and classes open up. Deneb's Garden (which occurs early on) and the results of its choices made me realize that even aside from all the micromanagement, a little choice like this early in the game had major ramifications on not only available characters and unit types (the pumpkinheads), but also had a major bearing on choice branches, paths and even endings to the game.

Yeah, Mass Effect does this type of thing as a given, but never before had I played a game where your choices had such a profound impact on what was to follow.


Double post...sorry.

[Mcardy]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Ogre Battle in my mind began the SRPG genre, and Tactics Ogre began the 3/4 isometric grid-based extension of that genre, which, of course has become the de facto standard.

no, no no no no. You had it right when you mentioned Shining Force.

Sure, it didn't have a ton of depth, but it defined SRPGs in a way that companies realized if done correctly, could be extremely successful. Shining Force has terrain considerations, that's what "Land Effect" was, and why flying units were a liability. (They didn't get the defense bonus)

When I had a SNES, I was extremely jealous of my neighbor with a Genesis because of Shining Force 1 and 2. I really wish SEGA would release SF3 EP: 2 and 3.

I will agree with you that TO has much more strategy involved than FF:T due to the strict way the gameplay works, and FFT's overall "forgiveness" factor. I found it more frustrating than fun back when I was 14 or so, I imagine I would probably need to look at the remake to view it with a fresh set of eyes. Ogre Battle on the other hand, I have to agree with Toaster--is extremely opaque and not very fun to get into unless you have a strategy guide sitting around--and then it kind of defeats the purpose of trying things out for yourself.

That's the thing...Hrafn said "Oh, you have no control over your characters." Wrong. You have absolute control over EVERY aspect of you characters (all 100 of them). You are just not able to input actions directly in battle. SO WHAT? There's SO much else going on here that the battle system is COMPLETELY streamlined to allow you to focus on what REALLY matters, which is character-building and unit cohesion...you know, things that make a tactical RPG actually tactical and an RPG.

It still is extremely annoying for your hero, who knows an "Attack-All" spell like Frost to decide he needs to use a normal sword attack. The PSX version fixed a lot of the AI problems, but the SNES version was sometimes so RNG involved that it wasn't very fun to play, especially if you didn't read up on how things worked.

You were older at the time it came out though, but imagine a 10-12 year old trying to grasp that complexity--it didn't really work very well since the (SNES) game pretty much told you nothing as to what you were supposed to be doing, or how to effectively combine alignment, classes, and items.

[Perversion]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

I played Shining Force on the Virtual Console last year or the year before just to see what all the hype (via Obright and BRC) was about, and found it simplistic and lacking.


Again, it's hard for me NOT to compare any other SRPG against Ogre Battle, as that was the first one I'd ever played, and probably is still one of the (if not THE) deepest SRPGs ever made. Disgaea comes close, in terms of all the arcane and obtuse systems in place, but for character-building, I think there will never be another SRPG as deep as the original Ogre Battle.


Oh, and not as if this is DIRECTLY relevant to the current discussion, but I put an order in last night to Play-Asia for the 4 disc Tactics Ogre (PSP version) soundtrack. It was only $41. For four discs. That was a worthwhile investment, I'd think.


(Also importing a 2 disc Etrian Odyssey III soundtrack and a single disc "character theme" soundtrack for Atelier Rorona, as well as a 3 song Blu-Ray EP from Genki Rockets with 3 music videos in 3D....which was the initial impetus for importing all of these)

[Novalis]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

AND it had some great tunes via Iwata and Sakimoto.



Which... have apparently been revamped and included in the TO remake.

[Mcardy]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Probably not, but you also should realize that while your first SRPG was Ogre Battle, a lot of our first SRPGs were Shining Force or FF:T.

Those first forays into unplayed genres tend to stay with people, which is why there is a lot of discrepancy in tastes in the SRPG genre. I went back and played Shining Force 2 last year, and yes, it is simplistic, but I love it like I do my favorite RPG FF4, and Dragon Warrior 3 simply because of the nostalgic factor.

[Toaster]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

You act like Ogre Battle out to be a lot easier than it really is, after spending a wall of text explaining some of it. While a lot of the nuances don't demand complete and total comprehension it's still got a LOT of variables working together. Here's an LP of Ogre Battle 64 that does a good job at touching upon some of the retardely opaque gameplay mechanics and how they work.

Each character has an alignment. Alignment is taken (almost) straight from Dungeons & Dragons: characters can either be Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. An almost improbable number of things affect alignment. Alignment is an incredibly important part of the “Chaos Frame” system, so this makes the game getting the “best” ending a huge pain in the ass.

- First, the characters you have in your unit affect an individual’s alignment. If you take a Chaotic character and place him/her/it in a unit with four Lawful characters, over time the Chaotic character will become more Lawful. The same would be true if a Lawful character was put in a unit with Chaotic characters.

- Second, if a character kills an enemy that is more Chaotic than he/she/it is, he/she/it will be come more Lawful. If they kill a character that is more Lawful, then they become more Chaotic. At any time in the game you can stop and check an enemy unit’s alignment, so you need to carefully and meticulously plan each encounter if you want to manipulate your character’s alignment.

- Third, while battles occur automatically, you do have some control over your units. You can pick from a set of predetermined commands. Telling them to “Attack Weakest” influences them in the Chaotic direction while telling them to “Attack Strongest” influences them in the Lawful direction.

- Fourth, fighting enemies that are a lower level than the character makes them more Chaotic, while fighting stronger enemies makes them more Lawful.



See the little scale in the top left? That's your character's alignment.

There are certain expendable items that can be used to affect alignment as well. As if there wasn’t enough already, right? So what does all of this alignment crap get us?

The best ending, that’s what! Alignment affects your “Chaos Frame”, which in turn determines what ending you get.

Your “Chaos Frame” is a number between 0 and 100 that determines how you’ve been playing through the game. At the end of the game, the number of CF you have determines which of the six endings you get. The “best” ending is when you have a CF between 67-100 while the “worst” is that of a 0-33 CF playthough. I put best and worst in quotes because, while they’re generally considered to be that way, I disagree. They’re not better or worse than one another so much as they are different. Playing through the game with a high or low CF will give you access to different characters and abilities and will change the story in radical ways. The high CF path nets you some returning characters from the original Ogre Battle and is a bit more difficult, while the low CF path nets you some more complex characters (if you play your cards right) but there’s less of them. I personally prefer the high or mid CF path since I like those special characters better, but whatever.



Each area has a morale value between 0 and 100. During gameplay, you can stop and examine each territory and see what each area’s morale is. When a unit enters an enemy-controlled or neutral town, then it is either “liberated” or “captured”. In order to liberate a town, you must enter it with a unit whose average alignment is close to the town’s morale. Liberating a town gives you +0.5 CF, while capturing it will give you -2 CF.

If you don’t care about a high CF score/getting the best ending, then none of this crap matters.

If you do, then towns with high morale (67-100) should be taken by Lawful units, and towns with low morale (0-33) should be taken by Chaotic units. Towns with neutral morale (34-66) can be liberated by Neutral units. This is why I had to explain how alignment works first. Alignment on its own doesn’t do god damn anything, but it does determine whether an area is liberated or captured, and that affects our ending.

Neutral towns are towns that are not controlled by either group. They are not to be confused with enemy controlled towns with neutral morale. Neutral towns cannot be liberated in any way. They can only be captured (by you and the enemy) so they must be kept from being taken by anyone at all costs if you wish to stay on the highest CF path. This is why we didn't take the neutral town in Episode 2.

So, in other words, in order to get the “best” ending, you must take into account each individual character’s level, alignment, unit strategy, grid position, and unit make-up as well as the unit make-up, level, grid position, and alignment of each enemy character within in each enemy unit. …in addition to ensuring that you meet each maps’ objectives, only liberate territories, and keep enemies from capturing neutral areas.

So…yeah, it’s a huge pain in the ass.

What I recommend we do is stay focused on liberating and don’t worry about anything else. Doing that will get us one of the middle endings, if not the best one. This is probably the best idea because it’s not too much of a pain, and we can still get a "good" ending.

Or if you guys want, then the hell with it. We’ll get the worst one. [It’s actually kind of cool, a baby totally kills this one guy. It’s awesome.]

I'm willing to leave it up to you guys. A harder path with more special characters, or an easier one with less special characters and a darker story? Unfortunately, this is something we need to decide early on, so are we going to be “good” guys and go for the high CF path or be “bad” and go for the low CF path?

See, aren't you guys glad you read the extra section? I know it was boring, but now you get to decide what ending we get! See? You get a special prize for reading!

I guess what I'm getting at is... do you really think it's that easy, or do you like all of this stuff?

[Mcardy]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

I enjoy his first name, quite a bit.

[Toaster]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

It helps that his last name is Gallant.

[Mcardy]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Yeah, I read the first part of the LP post. Goofus and Gallant is da bomb diggity.

Alignment seems like a waste of time in Ogre Battle 64. Unfortunate it affects so much, while really not affecting anything important gameplay wise.

[Perversion]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Oh, I was merely referencing alignment as it relates to character-building and unlocking of new characters/classes/monsters. I really don't give two tosses about having one ending over the other.


The fun for me was not in getting one particular ending over another (keep in mind...I played this before all this information was readily available on the internet), but instead pre-planning my units/characters/battle strategy in order to advance to the best classes (like the Lich, the Vampire, and the four different types of dragons). Plus, it was SO freaking awesome when I had two mages in a party, and unit cohesion was such that two different elemental spells combined to make a completely different one, and later three different elements from three other mages/witches/valkyries combined to make one uber-spell.


Again, experimenting with unit makeup just to see the results of combining different elemental attacks, and without breaking unit cohesion, was a blast. Seriously, before I knew any of this stuff from reading it on the internet, it was so mindblowing to see two mages combine spells for the first time to create something completely new, and then realize that you were able to put earth and fire together to create a volcano, or air and earth (or was it fire?) to create a meteor. And once you started combining spells, you also got status effects as a side benefit, IIRC.

And that's the other thing that was so wonderful about the hands-off battle system...if you had been able to directly tell a pair of mages to combine spells for some awesome effect, it would have had nowhere near the impact that seeing them doing it on their own for the first time did, and knowing that the reason they are doing so is because you are making good choices with unit layout and makeup. It's like a nice reward for working diligently at making units that function together well as a team.

[Novalis]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

Here's an LP of Ogre Battle 64 that does a good job at touching upon some of the retardely opaque gameplay mechanics and how they work.

Ogre Battle: opaque, oblique, obtuse and just plain obstreperous. But obligatory.

[Toaster]

Re: Tactics Ogre Remake for PSP

It is also obfuscating, ostentatious, and odd.

(This is kind of fun, actually.)