LTTP: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. I CAN'T LET GO!

L

LurkerPrime

Member
Please tag spoilers appropriately.
So GAF, I recently bought a Playstation (Vita) TV for the sole purpose of playing some classic RPGs that I missed, most notably Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Now, I've completed FFT and have just started Act 4 of Tactics Ogre.

tacticsogre.jpg
Click to expand...

I'm floored.

Tactics Ogre's pretty much the best game ever. I mean, it has it all: detailed turn-based combat, deep RPG mechanics, a host of strategies to use, an engaging, branching storyline filled with some interesting characters, all wrapped into a very nice, presentable game, filled with some wonderful ease-of-use features that I've seen nowhere else. And it seems pretty long and replayable too, which is a huge plus. Thus far, TO is like everything Final Fantasy Tactics wanted to be but was afraid to try; I'm honestly surprised people talk about FFT so often when Tactics Ogre beat it at everything.

GAF, why is this game not revered like it should be? It's one of the best games of its kind, a king of the genre. And why aren't there more? There should be more.


Let the posting begin.
 
V

Victrix

*beard*
Hah, funny this thread should come up, I just loaded up my old save file last night.

Tactics Ogre is a masterpiece, an absolute classic, and a just plain fantastically fun game.

As to why it gets less recognition, I can only assume some combination of the PSP release, the relatively unknown franchise, and the popularity (or lack) of srpgs.

With one big exception (crafting), I can't think of many issues I have with the game after playing it for 200+ hours (and that's low for some people!). Yes, there are cracks in the balance (archers), and yes there are some design flaws (glass pumpkins, leveling new classes, some skill advancement rates).

But those are pretty small blemishes on a fantastic product. Crafting isn't necessary for completion (and can be patched to fix it if you have a modded PSP or PPSSPP). Same story with annoying drops or leveling rates.

The rest?

Superb gameplay, fast gameplay which I really prize, incredibly friendly game systems (CHARIOT and WORLD are incredible, you can replay any move in any fight, and after you beat the game, jump to any point in the story at any time).

Amazing music, an A+ fantastic translation, a compelling story, many interesting characters.

Tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of optional content. If you blitz through the main story (one of three branches with sub-choices!), you would still have literally dozens or hundreds of hours of game left to explore.

Yasumi Matsuno is one of the best game designers in the business, and Tactics Ogre is one of my all time favorite games.

If you haven't played it yet, what are you waiting for?
 
R

Ralemont

not me
I can't disagree with anything the OP says. The game is one of the best.

I have a few gripes with the battle system but they are only there because of how complex it can get. It'd be nice if speedy classes and archers were a little more balanced and I preferred FFT's character leveling to TO's class leveling, but I played for 250 hours easy and only barely started that long post-level dungeon. The art is gorgeous, battles are great, gameplay is addictive, story is interesting, music is good.

The Chariot system in particular is something I sorely miss in any other SRPG.
 
V

Victrix

*beard*
To make it easier:

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en...ther/cid=UP0082-ULUS10565_00-TACTICSOGREPSSDL

You can buy this game for $10 digitally, and play it on your PSP, your Vita, your PSTV, or your PPSSPP emulator.

If you play it on your modded PSP or PPSSPP, here's a link with a few handy codes to fix crafting (100% success rate/mix with any materials/materials not consumed when used/max materials - choose your preferred tweaks).

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/999440-tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together/68465558

Here's a TO forum thread filled with interesting cwcheat codes. There's all kinds of stuff there, everything from speeding up skill/spell leveling to messing with enemy NPCs to adjust the difficulty. Most of this stuff you won't care about until after you've already beaten the game, but it's a good resource if you plan to sink a ton of hours into it.

http://w11.zetaboards.com/Tactics_Ogre_Forums/topic/928249/1/

It's cheap, it's on four platforms, it's really fucking good.

Again, play this game :D
 
Alex

Alex

Member
Always been a huge fan, bought the Atlus release for PSone when I was a kid on a total whim. You used to be able to blind buy the most amazing stuff back then.

That remake was the last thing in the world I expected but I'm really glad it happened, bought it again in the sale to own a digital copy, as well. I'd kill to see more done with Ogre Battle in general, I'd even just take some mobile re-releases at this point...

Also, Final Fantasy XIV's introductory end game gear for Heavensward consists of highly detailed remakes of TO:LUCT armor under the Valerian name, it was an amazing easter egg (that I assume exists since Yoshida ran art direction for both games) and at the agony of inventory space I've collected most of it just for the sake of it.
 
R

RedZaraki

Banned
Tactics Ogre is freaking awesome and anyone who hasn't played it and likes SRPGs is doing themselves a disservice to not check it out.

I really hope they continue the Ogre series someday.
 
G

Green Card

Member
The first 3 acts are amazing and well paced. Even though Act 4 kind of stumbles due to needing to grind a little and drags on with filler battles it is my favorite SRPG.
 
Terra_Ex

Terra_Ex

Member
LurkerPrime said:
Please tag spoilers appropriately.

GAF, why is this game not revered like it should be? It's one of the best games of its kind, a king of the genre. And why aren't there more? There should be more.


Let the posting begin.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I remember when I first played this so many years ago, hit the branching storylines and was just floored by how great everything was. The original had a different levelling system which was somewhat time-consuming compared to the PSP version if any units fell behind (I usually set both teams to AI-control and did something else). Knight of Lodis is worth playing if you enjoy this game and the series as a whole does indeed deserve more recognition.
 
S

Seda

Member
I absolutely adore this game. Recruited all the side characters, did all the quests, post game, divine generals, all of that. Then when I lost my save data I eventually did it all again with a widely different main party set-up.

Many things have been touched on already, but the characters and writing are some of the best in the genre, the chariot and world systems are great for convenience and replayability, tons of rewarding optional content, lots of loot, and of course a great class system.

Leveling classes from level 1 is the main thing that could have been handled better, but only a minor knock on a fantastic game.
 
D

Dual Blade

Member
I bought this game long ago on Vita along with FFT:WOL and never started either.

Which one is recommended to play first? I don't want to start one and be disappointed in the next due to battle system and story. I suppose both aspects are subjective but from what I read Tactics is most often preferred over FFT.
 
L

LurkerPrime

Member
The crafting and leveling-from-1 are the only criticisms I can come up with as well. The former really makes me scratch my head due to how annoying it is. (Grr, BEAST LEATHER!) Wouldn't be half as bad if you could at least craft in batches. The failure chance seems completely pointless, too, in that it only promotes savescumming to preserve all the time spent up to that point.
Dual Blade said:
I bought this game long ago on Vita along with FFT:WOL and never started either.

Which one is recommended to play first? I don't want to start one and be disappointed in the next due to battle system and story. I suppose both aspects are subjective but from what I read Tactics is most often preferred over FFT.
Click to expand...

The better game is Tactics Ogre, I'd say.

War of the Lions is really brought down by this really bizarre design choice to halve the framerate during spell animations, which gets annoying during a playthrough, and is something FFT proper never suffered (AFAIK). By comparison, Tactics Ogre has more units on the field and much smoother, more refined battles due to the Chariot (turn rewind) system and lightning-quick spell usage. In many ways, Tactic Ogre: Let Us Cling Together feels like the sequel FFT never got (I've never played the FFT: Advanced games). FFT is still a fine game, but it could be so much better.

So, I'd say play FFT: WOL if you don't mind the battle slowdown first, then TOLUCT afterwards to revel in its greatness.
 
V

Victrix

*beard*
LurkerPrime said:
Weird. I just assumed it was a hardware restriction... somehow.
Click to expand...

It's something insanely dumb like a one byte memory tweak or similar, I can't recall. Let me find the post, it's pretty hilarious...

Patch: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8490.0

The slowdown is caused by three values in the executable that dictate how long the game should wait between frames. The reason this is incorrect in the game is unknown, but they can be fixed by patching these offsets into /PSP_GAME/SYSDIR/BOOT.BIN:
0x20afd4 should be changed to 02
0x20afe4 should be changed to 03
0x20aff0 should be changed to 02
Click to expand...

That's it, that's the entire change.

Someone speculated that maybe they slowed it down for multiplayer reasons?

Whatever the case, it was pretty dumb, and it's easily patched out. But only if you're running modded psp/emu :(

I keep hoping easy Vita cfw will come out, I love playing TO on my Vita because the screen is so beautiful, but that crafting pot man...
 
A

adampa1006

Banned
It is the best game of all time. What is the status of this franchise? Can you comprehend what a new one would be like on PS4? It is by far the deepest most rewarding game I have ever played.
 
S

SMK

Member
Seda said:
I absolutely adore this game. Recruited all the side characters, did all the quests, post game, divine generals, all of that. Then when I lost my save data I eventually did it all again with a widely different main party set-up.
Click to expand...

A similar thing happened to me where I lost my nearly complete save file and I just ended up doing it all over again. It didn't really make me all that mad when I did.

For new people playing the game, make sure you let the title screen hang for a little bit to watch the introductory video.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Dual Blade said:
I bought this game long ago on Vita along with FFT:WOL and never started either.

Which one is recommended to play first? I don't want to start one and be disappointed in the next due to battle system and story. I suppose both aspects are subjective but from what I read Tactics is most often preferred over FFT.
Click to expand...

I'd play FFT first. It's a little easier to get into and the job system is more familiar in its workings than TO's class system. It's also a stellar game in its own right so you can't go wrong.
 
F

FreedomFighter

Member
Disappointed OP didn't mention this when itemizing TO:LUCT attributes:

5686429184_61dc72d6b9.jpg


Every now and again, I go through OST addictions where I'll listen to one OST constantly for a month or so. It happens with this one many times.

Iwata is the man.
 
T

transience

Member
I've loved this game since the terrible PS1 port. can't say enough nice things about it.

but I also have a lot of beef with how they handled the leveling system. it's straight up bad design to level classes instead of characters and dissuades you from changing class to something you don't use. I might prefer the original just for that but I haven't been able to go back after the amazing localization and fantastic presentation.
 
A

AliasGreed

Member
I really wish someone at squenix would be the successor of Matsuno, to bad it will never happen. Matsuno will probably always be my favorite videogame producer / writer.

Amazing game, I also put in about 100-200 hours in the game to go through all 3 routes when it was released on PSP. I remember taking a screen shoot of all dialogue boxes in fights. I loved all 4 tactics ogres games ive played. (Dunno if there more)
 
P

pastrami

Member
I bought Disgaea 4 yesterday during the PSN sale. But I think I might replay this instead. Amazing game with a couple flaws already mentioned (leveling and god awful crafting).
 
S

Socreges

Banned
Any way to play this without owning a PSP?

Probably a silly question with the answer obviously being 'no', but given how inventive Sony has been with cross-platform stuff I thought maybe just maybe there was a solution.

edit - Wait maybe this where PS TV comes in...? Dunno what it actually is
 
V

Victrix

*beard*
Socreges said:
Any way to play this without owning a PSP?

Probably a silly question with the answer obviously being 'no', but given how inventive Sony has been with cross-platform stuff I thought maybe just maybe there was a solution.
Click to expand...

PSTV, Vita, or emulated.
 
B

BumRush

Member
Socreges said:
Any way to play this without owning a PSP?

Probably a silly question with the answer obviously being 'no', but given how inventive Sony has been with cross-platform stuff I thought maybe just maybe there was a solution.
Click to expand...

It's a PSN game...do you have a Vita, PSTV or PS3?

Edit: can you not play on ps3?
 
Z

zeitgeist

Member
I just started this about a week ago as well and I am loving it.

I love that archers are a bit OP. In FFT I felt like magic users and archers got the shaft so this has been a nice change of pace.
 
Silent Chief

Silent Chief

Member
LurkerPrime said:
Tactics Ogre's pretty much the best game ever. I mean, it has it all: detailed turn-based combat, deep RPG mechanics, a host of strategies to use, an engaging, branching storyline filled with some interesting characters, all wrapped into a very nice, presentable game, filled with some wonderful ease-of-use features that I've seen nowhere else. And it seems pretty long and replayable too, which is a huge plus. Thus far, TO is like everything Final Fantasy Tactics wanted to be but was afraid to try; I'm honestly surprised people talk about FFT so often when Tactics Ogre beat it at everything.

GAF, why is this game not revered like it should be? It's one of the best games of its kind, a king of the genre. And why aren't there more? There should be more.
Click to expand...

I have a shrine to it, but it's in the basement.

It's technically a sequel of sort to Ogre Battle which is a completely different game.

FFT is alright, but by the time they got to FFTA the game had mutated into something without charm, strategy or challenge and it bored me to tears.
 
S

Socreges

Banned
BumRush said:
It's a PSN game...do you have a Vita, PSTV or PS3?

Edit: can you not play on ps3?
Click to expand...
No, I think some PSN games are exclusive to specific platforms.

Interesting about the PSTV, though I'm seeing that it's $100. Fair price, but more than I'd spend given what 'unique' experiences it offers to someone that already has a PS3.
 
C

CO_Andy

Member
The difficulty balance in the PSP game is ridiculous. I imagine anyone who went through the entire campaign legitimately must have a few loose screws to not use cheats.

Fantastic story and writing though.
 
B

Bricky

Member
Couldn't have wished for a better introduction to SRPGs. Marathoned like 50 hours of it in a week once and still had a lot of content left to do. I'd love to RTTP but am afraid to get addicted all over again, haha.

Can't recommend it enough though.
 
P

Phionoxx

Member
Picked this up today on PSN due to the sale. Big SRPG fan and this will be my first time playing the game. Really looking forward to it after reading all of the positive impressions here on GAF.
 
V

Victrix

*beard*
Ragus said:
Is it hard for a newbie to the genre?
Click to expand...

No. It's grindable if necessary, and there are party compositions that can break the game wide open even without grinding or crafting.

Just ask here if you get stuck, there are a lot of veteran TO fans who would be happy to help.

It has a clean UI and in-game help for everything.
 
semiconscious

semiconscious

Member
LurkerPrime said:
GAF, why is this game not revered like it should be? It's one of the best games of its kind, a king of the genre. And why aren't there more? There should be more...
Click to expand...

i've always thought it was, at least by those of us who appreciates srpgs (which, unfortunately, has never been enough of us)...
 
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