Tactics Ogre: Reborn - Review

Tactics Ogre Reborn is a modern revamp of a slightly less modern remake of a hard as nails tactics-based RPG from the mid 90’s. A landmark game of the tactics genre, this marks the first time it’s truly been available across all platforms and for a wider audience.

In 2010, we received Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. A remake of 1995 tactical RPG Tactics Ogre. A series plagued by poor platform releases, starting on the Super Famicom, then the Sega Saturn and eventually the PS1 in 1998. Final Fantasy Tactics had released a year earlier, and was dominating the tactical RPG landscape, meaning the original and much tougher tactics game was almost forgotten. The 2010 remake gave the series a second chance at life, bringing newer mechanics in to replace some outdated ones and make the game slightly more approachable for the casual fan. Unfortunately, the choice of only releasing it on PSP suffocated the game before it had a chance.

Now we get Tactics Ogre: Reborn; an upscaled and slightly modified revamp of the 2010 remake. Tactics Ogre is your titular, if not played out story. Intersecting political nations at war, class struggle and moral dilemma. Truly the only thing that really differs Tactics Ogre from Final Fantasy; is the lack of true fantasy element. Whilst there is ogres, golem, dragons, gryphons and the like; for the most part Tactics Ogre uses a more D&D fantasy approach, than the self-contained Final Fantasy… fantasy approach. You follow (and guide) the story of two siblings: Denam and Catiua. Youths of Walister who are fighting from independence from the oppressive regime of the Galgastani. After rescuing Duke Ronwey, they are made into their own resistance force and sent on missions to assist in the freeing of Walister from Galgastani rule.

There is a myriad of main characters throughout the story. For the most part, almost all of them are insipid and contrived persons; Vyse is a hard-headed and arrogant youth who is always ready to incite conflict. Denam feels hollow for the most part, constantly being guided by others and without a freedom of his own. Interestingly, it is through Denam that you will make choices that will alter the way you progress through chapters 2 and 3 and can influence the two different endings and their variations as a result.

If it wasn’t for these choices and the way they influence and affect the story Denam may be the most hollow and lacking in personality of any character that has been written into a Square Enix RPG. Duke Ronwey shows a quick descent into lunacy with an utter lack of care for the lives of the people he is claiming to be fighting for. Captain Leonar and Dame Ravness come across as tortured souls, unsure of how they should be proceeding with their places in the war. Catiua is utterly obsessed with her brother and will follow him into hell if needed. She attempts to be a voice of reason at times, but always conforms to what Denam suggests. Which in of itself is almost always an opinion influenced by others.

There is a number of changes made in Tactics Ogre: Reborn from the 2010 remake. A major notable change that will definitely split peoples stance on it, is the decision to remove the random encounters from the mission select map and putting in ‘training’ stages every few areas. The upside to this, is that you can repeat the train stage until you max out your levels with all your characters. This may be appealing even with multiple story stages in the way as the difficulty of the game cannot be underestimated. The difference in one level may not seem like much, but it can make a major difference in a fight that is a little more difficult than a slightly more straightforward affair. The downside to this, is the ability to recruit monsters for Beastmasters or to sell in auctions is much reduced. For some this will be truly bothersome and take away aspects they enjoyed.

Most other changes are beneficial in the modern-day tactics setting. Removing stat requirements for equipment, changing finishing moves to use MP rather than having their own resource, buff cards that can increase stats for your units with dynamic scaling effects for multiple of the same. This allows for you to make units far stronger, or able to build their mana faster, or activate their skills more often. Two of the most important features in ensuring combat doesn’t feel dated is the introduction of the ability to revive incapacitated units and trajectory predictions for spells and ranged attacks. Trajectory predictions are super important for making sure you don’t accidentally hit your own units with spells and ranged attack. It is not uncommon to accidentally heal or damage your own units with AoE attacks, so avoiding even more unintentional damage is super important. To round out this ability to save your units from guaranteed death as often; the party level was introduced.

The party level feels incredibly counter-intuitive to the way the training battles had been implemented. The party level puts a hard cap on the levels of your party, slowly increasing as your progress the game. The idea behind it appears to be a desire to increase tactical play and encourage the effective use of the different units at your disposal. Unfortunately this just means that you end up doing a lot of battles without improvement between them, as it is often better to be max leveled for the story missions than it is too slowly level as your progress through them.

There is a myriad of other changes, such as charms that can influence your stats growth; and changes to both enemy and ally AI systems to make them more responsive and logical with their movements in relation to buff cards and their danger. Adjustments to abilities, classes, buffs and debuffs also to ensure a tighter and slightly less punishing experience.

Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a smart revamp of the 2010 remake, of the 1995 tactics game. Whilst it makes things far more modern in feeling; it unfortunately feels very dated even with the changes to make it more in line with the modern day. Square Enix has developed their tactics style game far beyond the Tactics series. Whilst it stands as a titular example of where the series comes from; it feels dated even with the changes compared to other games like Triangle Strategy and The DioField Chronicle, both of which also released this year. Square’s desire to bring all their older titles to the modern day, whilst appreciated, is showing how poorly a lot of titles truly are aging.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Square Enix

The Pros

+Ability to revive teammates

+Trajectory predictions are a welcome addition

+Training battles make more sense than random battles

The Cons

-Game feels incredibly dated

-Party level system is a contrived addition

-Characters are some of the most unenjoyable I’ve experienced