=========
~Information~
=========
Title: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Publisher/Developer: Square-Enix
Platform: PlayStation Portable [PSP]
Genre: Strategy RPG
Rating: CERO B (Japan)/T for Teen (US)/12+ (Europe)
Official Website: http://www.tacticsogregame.com/
Data Install: 665 MB.
PSN Release:February 15, 2011 (US), February 25, 2011 (Europe).
US Version
- Cover
- Release date
- Price
- Pre-order bonus
EUR Version
- Cover
- Release date
- Price
- Premium Edition
- Collector's Box
- A 44-page hardback artbook: 'The World of TACTICS OGRE'
- Mini-CD with a sampler of the OST.
- A voucher that grants 50% off the purchase of Vagrant Story from the PlayStation Network
The pre-order tarot card deck is also being offered here.
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~Features~
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* Strategic, turn-based battles are brought to life with stunning graphics, sound effects and animation.
* New 3D maps enhance the concept of height and the improved battle engine offers more compelling and realistic battles than ever before.
* Uncover the truth in a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal and heroism.
* Near-endless customization and hundreds of abilities to choose from.
* New characters not included in the original game.
* New skills add to the range of play beyond magic and special abilities.
* New graphics, music, gameplay and much more make this the definitive version of TACTICS OGRE.
* New and improved visuals create a TACTICS OGRE experience with more detail than ever before.
* Re-arranged soundtrack from the original composers including 15 new compositions.
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~Story~
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Behold the Valerian Isles, jewels of the Obero Sea. Long a center of naval commerce, the people here have struggled throughout history for dominion over these shores.
Finally there rose a man to put an end to this conflict. His name: Dorgalua Oberyth. But history would know him as the Dynast-King. Dorgalua took the disparate races of men calling the islands home and united them as one. For fully half a century the Dynast King reigned, and Valeria knew prosperity.
Upon the death of the King, the ruling Bakram declared the independence of their Royal City of Heim. And backed by the Holy Lodissian Empire to the North, created the Bakram-Valerian Kingdom.
This left two clans to vie for supremacy in the south: the Galgastani and the Walister. However, they were far outmatched, and in the span of half a year had been brought to their knees. Thus emerged the Kingdom of Galgastan, and with it an official end to The Blood War.
Victory begets peace, and for once, the battlefields of Valeria stand silent. Yet none believe the calm will last.
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~Gameplay~
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Google spreadsheet with items/skills/cards...
The Basics:
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is a Japanese Strategy RPG. The game is divided in Battle segments, where the player army fights the enemy with a grid-based battle system, and the Management segments, where the player visits town to acquire new equipment, recruits new units and prepares the characters for the challenges to come. Intersected between these are cutscenes that advance the plot and occasionally require the player to make decisions that will affect the plot, leading to different outcomes, characters and endings.
The W.O.R.L.D.:
After finishing the game, the player will be allowed to use the W.O.R.L.D. system in order to return to any previous anchor point of the storyline and continue playing from there, changing the decisions made and opening new branching paths. While certain characters that are important to the plot cannot be moved back in time, for the most part the player will be allowed to retain the levels and items obtained, but on the other hand battles will also be scaled to the current level, plus enemy equipment will be stronger.
The C.H.A.R.I.O.T.:
This system named after the tarot card allows the player to press the L button to revert to a certain previous point in a battle to correct a mistake made, as long as it is within 50 character turns (which more or less equals two full party turns). There is no actual gameplay penalty for using this system, although any unchanged action will not be recalculated (meaning that it is impossible to keep rewinding to that deadly last hit and expect it to miss) and the Warren Report will keep a record of how many times you have won a battle without resorting to a Chariot card.
Permadeath:
Whereas the original version of the game simply had each dead unit disappear forever after the battle and a very rare revival method, this PSP remake is more lenient, with a new system based on Final Fantasy Tactics. Now, any unit that is knocked out during battle will have a 3-turn counter. Once it reaches zero, said unit will lose one of his or her three hearts. Lose the three hearts and only then that unit will be permanently gone. If the battle is ended or the character revived before the counter reaches zero, no hearts will be lost.
Leveling
Unlike the original game, levels are now gained by the class instead of the individual units, which means that all new recruits will have similar levels to your own characters of that class. However, it should be taken into account that each time a class levels up, the people currently in the map will gain stats from the level up, thus giving them an advantage over units who join you later and haven't had opportunities to benefit from leveling up the classes. Therefore, grinding early on is not recommended. Another important tidbit is that the party is given experience only at the end of each battle, which is then given to each class according to how many of its units were used. The more units of x class you use in a battle, the more experience it'll get.
Automatic Skill/Loyalty/Augment Elemental Rank-up Exploit by Shuusui:
Shuusui said:What you will need:
- Your hardest hitting character, but NOT equipped with ANY Field Alchemy skills. I used Ninja Denam, for high evasion and Double Attack.
- At least 1 Cleric. Whichever character heals the best.
- The Subject that you want to increase the Skill/Loyalty for equipped with the WORST weapon available but the BEST Armour and Evasion skills you have. Parry and Dodge work wonders. Also, absolutely make certain you have Counter Attack on. We'll be using Ravness, Ozma and Hobyrim today.
- Rhea Boum Aqueduct unlocked.
- 1 unlucky Golem.
- Optional - Another character that hits hard but heals. White Knights are perfect, if you've got them.
Weapon Skill & Loyalty Tactics:
- First things first -- have your Ninja (and possible additional character) kill every enemy on the map, except the Golem. This is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Use high-level AoE arcana if you've got them, as this will weaken multiple enemies at once. Just don't kill the Golem! You're going to need this punching bag later on.
- Next, you're going to be exploiting the terrain to your advantage. The Aquaduct is perfect because it has water separating your units from the Golem. One thing worth noting is NOT to use classes or abilities that let you walk on water. This breaks the method (avoid Valkyries/Rune Fencers and
). Position your units so that The Subject is alone with your Golem. You'll be using your other Cleric as bait, but obviously we're not going to let them get hurt. Instead of trying to explain how, let me just show you a picture to give you an idea:Lord Commander
- Here's where it gets fun. Turn all your characters AI to Melee. But wait, won't they all rush the Golem and destroy him? Not so. They will basically try rushing him, only to be stopped by the Terrain. Your Golem won't move from that spot. Thus, they block him from getting to your Cleric and he blocks your other units from hurting him. This is also why I asked you to turn off Field Alchemy. With the melee AI, your characters WILL try using item to injure the Golem (even things like Shots, which will ultimately damage your units too). What's more, the Melee command will mean that when your parties HP gets low, they will automatically heal that person.
- The Subject will now begin whizzing around your Golem, hitting him with all their might... for 1 HP. Because you've got the naffest weapon equipped, they're doing almost no damage to him, BUT, increasing their weapon skill each time they attack and counter attack. Pro-tip: Making The Subject a Ninja will make this go even faster. Two crappy weapons with Double Attack will make them hit the target for 2 HP, doubling the efficiency.
- Okay, time for some numbers. Each REGISTERED hit, without amplifiers (Sword+1, etc) will increase your Weapon skill by approx. 1.3. I've read that daggers and katana only get 0.6, but upon a single attack with a dagger, I went from 32.8 to 34.1. A difference of 1.3. Where possible, Ninja makes this quicker. You'll be getting roughly 2.6 each time, which is just under 50 attacks per Rank. 2-Handed weapons will obviously take longer. But at least you're doing it without paying attention!
- But what about loyalty? Well, each time you increase your rank, your Loyalty increases by 10 points. That means even if The Subject DESPISES you, by the time you're done, you'll be best friends. This is a great way of keeping units who're threatening to leave you!
- Oh yeah, and Parry will also level up, helping increase Loyalty and overall evasion. It's much slower to increase though -- I estimate around 0.3 each time. Might be lower than that.... but still, you'll probably get it to rise a rank during the process.
- So, go make a cup of tea, eat a sandwich or just hang around reading NeoGAF while you're little dudes make good. Check back to heal the Golem if his health gets low and then watch as your units become GODLIKE without the tedium of doing it yourself.
The only negative aspect is that even with Melee as your AI, The Subject will not always hit the Golem. Sometimes they will just move around him without taking any kind of action. While this makes the tactic a little slower than it could be, it still beats the snot out of doing it manually. I estimate that you can increase your Skill ranking from Rank 1 to Rank 8 in 70 minutes or so. I've had it happen as quickly as 45 minutes with Ozma and double-daggers. Ravness took the longest as I wanted her to be a spear wielder (cummon, tell me she doesn't look the part in the artwork). This is an even bigger factor if you're trying to increase your Augment Element. See below for more info.
Augment Element Tactics:
- Okay, this is ONLY for the most hardcore Ogres out there. This method is much slower and becomes increasingly more challenging as the fight goes on. I've found a couple of work-arounds using the same method as increasing weapon skill, but the positions are different.
- You will need the same team, only this time The Subject is a magic casting unit. Make sure your unit has NOTHING equipped. That's right. NOTHING. You want to be a prime target, whilst making sure you aren't increasing your magic damage output in any way. You can wear an accessory if you want, but be smart about your choices. Also, having Magic Accuracy and Mediate will help you enormously!
- Originally, I made The Subject an Enchantress using the Melee AI (trust me, Caster will not help you) and this worked SO WELL... until I got to about Rank 3. Then the damage output started to climb from 1 HP per hit to 20 HP per hit. If you see this, you're going to have a bad time.
This, obviously made it very tedious as I had to keep healing the Golem every ten turns or so. HOWEVER, this was remedied by making her a Witch instead. My Witch was only at Level 5, as opposed to my Level 18 Enchantress. If your units are over-leveled by this point, you might have a difficult time.- By switching to the lower-damage magic user you will start doing 1 HP damage again. However, they will cast magic far less often. In fact, I saw that the only guaranteed time she would cast was if the Golem wasn't Ice Adversed. When he was, she would only cast 1/3 of the time. This made the process much slower, but it definitely made it more Hands-Off then when she was hitting him constantly for 20.
- Just to give you an idea of the numbers, I estimate that each successful spell will increase your rank 0.48~0.5. Sadly, there isn't a way to double-cast, so, as I warned you, this is a much slower method and only for those who want to take their magic users or Elemental Weapon users to the next level. I'll report the difference when I am leveled up enough to actually equip 2 Predator Daggers, which give an Ice bonus. That should clarify if it's worth doing. Regardless the length of time this takes, you will undoubtedly be grinning like a madman when you see hear this noise while you're busy doing something else:
So, hopefully this will deliver some of the hype I've been generating. I love this method so much. I'm trying to figure out a way to do this with ranged units, but I've encountered more problems than I'd hoped for. It's slow and the AI simple doesn't like the Archer attacking. If I nail it, though, I'll post a similar strategy. I did get the best Archer in the game to Rank 5... and gave up after then.
My plan is to eventually get Lord Denam dual-wielding Rank 8 Dark + 15 swords, with Rank 8 Augment Dark with 100 Base strength. Can't think of anything more badass.... (or game breaking)
What's new?
- The World system.
- The CHARIOT system.
- New crafting system
- A DRASTIC increase in the amount of equippable gear
- New class mechanic
- All classes, including physical classes, have various combat skills or spells
- Even Story characters, demi-humans, and various L monsters have classes. Some are unique to races, some are shared between races.
- Earn Skill Points to buy skills, ala FFT. A set number can be equipped per character.
- EXP and SP are given at the end of battles, rather than on a per-action basis to prevent abusing your own party members to power-level, which was an aspect in all of the post-FFT tactics games.
- Revised turn/weight mechanics, so they aren't as horribly broken (no more super archers, I guess)
- Five equipment slots rather than 4.
- A new bonus dungeon that opens up during the middle of the game
- The sidequest for one of the new characters is akin to the Beowulf quest from FFT
- Various characters that were path-exclusive before can now be recruited on the other paths, with effort.
- Maximum battle size has been increased from 10v10 to 12v20.
- Maps are now 3D, but it is not possible to rotate the battlefield.
- A top down view has been added.
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~Reviews~
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- Famitsu: 9/9/9/9 out of 40
- IGN: 8.5 out of 10
- Gameinformer: 9 out of 10
- Official Playstation Magazine: 9 out of 10.
- DieHard GameFAN (contains spoilers): ABOVE AVERAGE GAME!
- 1UP: A+ (10 out of 10)
- Gamespot: 9 out of 10
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~Downloadable Content~
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A total of three DLC packs were released for the Japanese version of Tactics Ogre. In order to play them, the game must first be finished in a path other than Neutral (which locks you out of the DLC). You can however finish the game following the Neutral path and then use the new WORLD system to return to an anchor point that allows you to go through a different path. The DLC is already included in both English versions of the game.
- The Search for Warren
Price: Free
Release date: December 1, 2010 (JP)
- The True Knight
Price: Free
Release date: December 15, 2010 (JP)
- The Twelve Heroes
Price: Free
Release date: January 5, 2011 (JP)
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~Staff~
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Character Design - Akihiko Yoshida, Tsubasa Masao
Programming Director - Takashi Katano
Tool & System Programming - Akiyoshi Masuda
Lead World Designer - Kazuhiro Kataoka
Lead Graphics Design - Kiyofumi Kato
Lead Background Design & Technical Artist - Shinpei Sakata
Lead Visual Effects Design - Jiro Mifune
Visual Effects Programming - Seiki Iwamura
Visual Effects Design - Noriko Nishida
Main System Programmer - Shinichi Fujisawa
Lead Menu UI Design - Hikaru Suzuki
Additional Programming - Masateru Ishiguro
Lead Menu System Designer - Yuichi Murasawa
Battle & System Programmer - Noritsugu Mochizuki
AI Design - Takeshi Tomioka
Lead Event Designer - Motoharu Tanaka
Dialogue - Kyoko Kitahara
Event Design - Taiji Tsuchiya
Event Script Editor - Yuichi Isobe
Music (Basiscape Co Ltd) - Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata
Sound Effects Designer (Basiscape Co Ltd) - Masaaki Kaneko
Producer - Eisuke Yokoyama
Project Manager - Hiroaki Kato
Game Design & Scenario - Yasumi Matsuno
Director - Hiroshi Minagawa
English Translation - Alexander O. Smith, Joseph Reeder
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~Screenshots~
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~Videos~
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Prologue narrated by Simon Templeman (Kain from Legacy of Kain)
Class and Narrative Walkthrough
Gameplay (Japanese)
Animated Trailer
OST Playlist
