Only being vaguely aware of Tactics Ogre for many years until I played Triangle Strategy and learned how much that game was inspired by it, I was incredibly interested in playing the game that served as a muse to what has become my favorite game of all time. When I learned it was getting a new release, available on Switch, I knew I was going to get it at some point and play it. I'm glad I did, because this game was fantastic, though I do have some gripes.
I won't get into specific spoilers in this review, but for reference, I played the Chaos route and got the Princess ending.
The gameplay was generally pretty good, although the learning curve is steep. There are a lot of variables, more than most SRPGs. Not only do you have classes, stats, weapons, equipment, skills, elemental typings, and status conditions, so many aspects of the game influence other variables. Armor doesn't just influence how much defense you get, it also influences your speed in acting between turns, different armors can protect differently against different types of attacks/magic. Weapons all have their own unique properties, even weapons of the same type can vary greatly. What this means, is that often times, upgrading characters isn't as straight forward as other games; (almost) every weapon, armor, and spell have pros, cons, niches and edge cases that can keep them relevant throughout the game's entire runtime, instead of just picking up the new weapon with the bigger damage number, or armor with the best defense value. It's great, and it makes the unit building and team synergizing incredibly deep, and in this way it feels unmatched from any other strategy game I've played, and for people who love that more than anything, I can absolutely see why this would be their favorite game in the genre. It is an intimidating system to learn, with a lot of nuance and complexity, which makes it reward system mastery in an incredibly satisfying way. There are still some things I'm not sure I entirely understand, or agree with design wise, but I can't deny the depth of it all.
There are other gameplay aspects I am less fond of, however. The random stat cards that appear on the battlefield are way too polarizing. Sure, it feels great to stack two crit cards and two damage cards and delete maps with Canopus and Cistina, but they make a lot of the turn to turn strategy devolve into collecting cards so you can nuke down the boss as quickly as possible, as often times, killing the boss automatically wins you the map. There isn't a great variety of objectives in battles, and the maps themselves vary in quality, with some being solid, while I found most to be pretty forgettable and inconsequential to my strategy. While this does mean a lot of the strategy focus comes from your character and team building, which is nice because of how deep those systems are, I think it is to the detriment of other gameplay aspects. The game also has strange difficulty spikes, which I think is a combination of the team level cap system, coupled with a lot of late game bosses coming pre-loaded with stat cards that just make them absurdly powerful right out the gate. The game is very swingy, and most of the time that's fun, but sometimes it's really frustrating.
I won't go too deep into the story because I don't want to discuss spoilers, but while I did overall enjoy it well enough, I think it falls flat in some aspects. The political nature of it was very interesting to me, and I enjoyed the different factions and conflict that arose from them, but the story didn't feel particularly personal, it all felt distant. The emotional core of much of the story, what ties Denam to the greater conflict as the story progresses, just didn't really grasp me. I liked what it was going for, I liked the theming of it, but the way it was all executed just felt cold most of the time, missing a sense of sentimentality where I think even just a little in a few more scenes would have gone a long way for me. I'm not sure if it's because of the writing, or the voice acting, or just the fact that this is a remake of such an old game, but it just didn't grab me much in that respect. I still enjoyed the story, and there were some nice character moments, and I do think the ending did a good job of tying things together, as well as drawing attention to and recontextualizing earlier parts of the game that hit much differently with newfound understanding. Still, it all just felt a bit too stoic for me, with only a few moments resonating emotionally for me. I think it just comes down to personal preference.
At the end of the day, I'm so glad I played this game. The act of playing it was an uneven experience for me, with some moments of the game being some of the most fun SRPG gameplay I've ever had, and other parts leaving me frustrated, but any gripes I have aren't enough to overshadow all of the great the game offers. I can absolutely see why this game has the passionate following it does, and I can see, both in gameplay and narrative, the inspiration Triangle Strategy and other SRPGs have drawn from this game, it's a game worth paying tribute to.
I eventually plan to go back and see some of the other branching paths I didn't go down, as well as the postgame episodes, but for now, I'm going to put this one down, though I think I'll find myself thinking about it for a long while.
I won't get into specific spoilers in this review, but for reference, I played the Chaos route and got the Princess ending.
The gameplay was generally pretty good, although the learning curve is steep. There are a lot of variables, more than most SRPGs. Not only do you have classes, stats, weapons, equipment, skills, elemental typings, and status conditions, so many aspects of the game influence other variables. Armor doesn't just influence how much defense you get, it also influences your speed in acting between turns, different armors can protect differently against different types of attacks/magic. Weapons all have their own unique properties, even weapons of the same type can vary greatly. What this means, is that often times, upgrading characters isn't as straight forward as other games; (almost) every weapon, armor, and spell have pros, cons, niches and edge cases that can keep them relevant throughout the game's entire runtime, instead of just picking up the new weapon with the bigger damage number, or armor with the best defense value. It's great, and it makes the unit building and team synergizing incredibly deep, and in this way it feels unmatched from any other strategy game I've played, and for people who love that more than anything, I can absolutely see why this would be their favorite game in the genre. It is an intimidating system to learn, with a lot of nuance and complexity, which makes it reward system mastery in an incredibly satisfying way. There are still some things I'm not sure I entirely understand, or agree with design wise, but I can't deny the depth of it all.
There are other gameplay aspects I am less fond of, however. The random stat cards that appear on the battlefield are way too polarizing. Sure, it feels great to stack two crit cards and two damage cards and delete maps with Canopus and Cistina, but they make a lot of the turn to turn strategy devolve into collecting cards so you can nuke down the boss as quickly as possible, as often times, killing the boss automatically wins you the map. There isn't a great variety of objectives in battles, and the maps themselves vary in quality, with some being solid, while I found most to be pretty forgettable and inconsequential to my strategy. While this does mean a lot of the strategy focus comes from your character and team building, which is nice because of how deep those systems are, I think it is to the detriment of other gameplay aspects. The game also has strange difficulty spikes, which I think is a combination of the team level cap system, coupled with a lot of late game bosses coming pre-loaded with stat cards that just make them absurdly powerful right out the gate. The game is very swingy, and most of the time that's fun, but sometimes it's really frustrating.
I won't go too deep into the story because I don't want to discuss spoilers, but while I did overall enjoy it well enough, I think it falls flat in some aspects. The political nature of it was very interesting to me, and I enjoyed the different factions and conflict that arose from them, but the story didn't feel particularly personal, it all felt distant. The emotional core of much of the story, what ties Denam to the greater conflict as the story progresses, just didn't really grasp me. I liked what it was going for, I liked the theming of it, but the way it was all executed just felt cold most of the time, missing a sense of sentimentality where I think even just a little in a few more scenes would have gone a long way for me. I'm not sure if it's because of the writing, or the voice acting, or just the fact that this is a remake of such an old game, but it just didn't grab me much in that respect. I still enjoyed the story, and there were some nice character moments, and I do think the ending did a good job of tying things together, as well as drawing attention to and recontextualizing earlier parts of the game that hit much differently with newfound understanding. Still, it all just felt a bit too stoic for me, with only a few moments resonating emotionally for me. I think it just comes down to personal preference.
At the end of the day, I'm so glad I played this game. The act of playing it was an uneven experience for me, with some moments of the game being some of the most fun SRPG gameplay I've ever had, and other parts leaving me frustrated, but any gripes I have aren't enough to overshadow all of the great the game offers. I can absolutely see why this game has the passionate following it does, and I can see, both in gameplay and narrative, the inspiration Triangle Strategy and other SRPGs have drawn from this game, it's a game worth paying tribute to.
I eventually plan to go back and see some of the other branching paths I didn't go down, as well as the postgame episodes, but for now, I'm going to put this one down, though I think I'll find myself thinking about it for a long while.