Works of Yasumi Matsuno always clicked with me in a spesific way that i can't really put it into words, maybe it's the complex political struggles, gray characters and harsh tone of his stories,written in a fantastic Shakespearian English, which is a style of language that i always adore,maybe it's the fantastic art direction by Akihiko Yoshida and epic music by Hitoshi Sakimoto that perfecly suits the tone of the world, or maybe it's the incredibly deep and complex gameplay systems that always make me feel like i completely missed the best parts of gameplay in second playthroughs.It's all of these actually, but a little more than that. And Tactics Ogre is probably his "definitive" game,the one with least drawbacks. From start to finish(except the final boss ) this game is absolute perfection. There are a few minor things that i can nitpick about, but no major flaws. This game captures all of the things i love so much about Matsuno games, and polishes it to the point where it's enjoyable in every single second of 40 hours i spend on it(which is a number that will no doubt increase significantly with the other story routes and postgame content)
Story is a fantastic tale that deals with themes like war, genocide, suicide, and the philosophy of "ends justifying the means" and it's paced pretty much perfecly, in every single cutscene, i was completely drawn in to the harsh and politically fragile world of Valeria, and it's gray and layered characters. Story overall resembels FFT quite a bit, but my main problem with the story of FFT, was the fact that it turned into a generic "save the world from the big bad guy" type of story by the Chapter 4 (don't get me wrong, it's still one of my favorite stories in a JRPG no doubt) but Tactics Ogre avoids that, and keeps the political tone of the story consistent throught the whole game, and the fact that i only saw like, one third of the story makes me so excited to play the other routes
Gameplay is another aspect where Tactics Ogre shines.On the surface, it's a standard SRPG,but system goes so deep and opens up so much customization and experimentaion,while keeping the balance of the battles extremely sharp and satisfying, every single battle was a blast, just like the story, i only utilized a fraction of the options game presents and tried 10 or so different classes, and i feel like even with these classes, i feel like can play this game for well over a hundred hours, and game has like, 40 classes and a bunch of unique recruitable characters. Systems are very accessable, balanced, deep, and most importantly, a ton of fun
While i still think Vagrant Story's OST is Hitoshi Sakimoto's magnum opus, and the emotinal tunes of FFT is makes me prefer it a bit more, music is still incredibly memorable, bombastic and epic, and makes the battles a whole lot more engaging, tracks like Fight It Out will probably play in my head for a good couple of weeks
Like i said, i have very little nitpicks about this game, but nitpicks nonetheless, first of all, i don't like how archers are practically useless after chapter 2,and i don't like that some skills are triggers automatically unlike the PSP version, sure, you can collect cards to increase the chance to trigger them, but i would so much prefer to have 1 or 2 additional skill slots for manual use of those skills. And while i appreciate the level cap for allowing a more consistent and balanced difficulty, there are points where you stuck at level 19 and 26 for hours, making every battle practically useless for your characters. And while i don't usually like to grind and break RPG's like this, i would have prefer to having the option
Except for these issues, i don't really have a problem with this game, i would recommend it hard for anyone that likes SRPG's, deep gameplay systems, or more serious, mature mediaval fantasy settings. If anything i said even remotely interests you, please pick this game up, amount of content easily justifies the price tag in my opinion
Story is a fantastic tale that deals with themes like war, genocide, suicide, and the philosophy of "ends justifying the means" and it's paced pretty much perfecly, in every single cutscene, i was completely drawn in to the harsh and politically fragile world of Valeria, and it's gray and layered characters. Story overall resembels FFT quite a bit, but my main problem with the story of FFT, was the fact that it turned into a generic "save the world from the big bad guy" type of story by the Chapter 4 (don't get me wrong, it's still one of my favorite stories in a JRPG no doubt) but Tactics Ogre avoids that, and keeps the political tone of the story consistent throught the whole game, and the fact that i only saw like, one third of the story makes me so excited to play the other routes
Gameplay is another aspect where Tactics Ogre shines.On the surface, it's a standard SRPG,but system goes so deep and opens up so much customization and experimentaion,while keeping the balance of the battles extremely sharp and satisfying, every single battle was a blast, just like the story, i only utilized a fraction of the options game presents and tried 10 or so different classes, and i feel like even with these classes, i feel like can play this game for well over a hundred hours, and game has like, 40 classes and a bunch of unique recruitable characters. Systems are very accessable, balanced, deep, and most importantly, a ton of fun
While i still think Vagrant Story's OST is Hitoshi Sakimoto's magnum opus, and the emotinal tunes of FFT is makes me prefer it a bit more, music is still incredibly memorable, bombastic and epic, and makes the battles a whole lot more engaging, tracks like Fight It Out will probably play in my head for a good couple of weeks
Like i said, i have very little nitpicks about this game, but nitpicks nonetheless, first of all, i don't like how archers are practically useless after chapter 2,and i don't like that some skills are triggers automatically unlike the PSP version, sure, you can collect cards to increase the chance to trigger them, but i would so much prefer to have 1 or 2 additional skill slots for manual use of those skills. And while i appreciate the level cap for allowing a more consistent and balanced difficulty, there are points where you stuck at level 19 and 26 for hours, making every battle practically useless for your characters. And while i don't usually like to grind and break RPG's like this, i would have prefer to having the option
Except for these issues, i don't really have a problem with this game, i would recommend it hard for anyone that likes SRPG's, deep gameplay systems, or more serious, mature mediaval fantasy settings. If anything i said even remotely interests you, please pick this game up, amount of content easily justifies the price tag in my opinion