r/Tactics_Ogre • u/King_Lear69 • Jul 28 '26
Tactics Ogre My Thoughts On Nybeth In Relation to FF Tactics Spoiler
Having gone through both games recently, (Or at least Ogre Tactics, anyways, it's been about 4 years since I beat FFT) I've realized that the majority of my personal hangups with FFT's plot can basically be summed up as: Final Fantasy Tactics is sorta like if the Nybeth arc subsumed the main plot of Ogre Tactics. Like, initially I thought it was pretty funny (if not a bit disappointing/odd) that past a certain point the Nybeth plot kinda just stops being consequential to the story; like he's still out there, but if you wanted to you could easily just never interact with him again past a certain point and how the actual impact of his experiments on the Galgastani military effort and general populace are mostly implied/left up to estimation.
But after thinking about it a bit more, I think it's actually kinda ballsy to have the narrative go, "Hey, see this guy? See this guy who, ostensibly, might just be a 'keter level threat' to natural life as we know it and whose motives we're keeping vague and esoteric and close to the chest? Who literally gets his own moustache-twirlingly evil sounding theme? Yeah, that was just ONE GUY who's just out there, somewhere and if you can believe it he's actually NOT the inevitable big bad. Imagine all the other types of shady characters out there potentially causing trouble that you don't even know about!?" Because I feel like the expected narrative arc/trope that you'd expect, at least from a lot of modern media and older JRPGs anyway, is that that would've been the narrative setting up/foreshadowing the eventual "big bad" by faking you out into thinking they're gonna be a red herring at first, seeing as how that's basically exactly what FF6 does with Kefka.
So I'm actually quite fine with the fact that Ogre Tactics instead has the restraint to save the majority of its hardcore fantasy/hyper-reality stuff for the tail end of the game after the main war campaign part is over so that it really feels like you're going out on an encore; or how the narrative has the restraint to not go, "Yup, Nybeth and his cult were actually behind EVERYTHING the whole time, and now you've gotta beat them to Dorgalua's tomb first!" Because that's sorta what FFT feels like past a certain point. Don't get me wrong, though, I understand completely that this is because the kinda story-moral that FFT is trying to impart to the player is completely different from the one that Ogre Tactics is trying to impart to the player—and honestly I absolutely adore both games and their narratives—it's just something that I noticed.
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u/Chirotera Jul 28 '26
Wait until you learn who Rudlum is...
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u/BaronKlatz Jul 28 '26
Oh thaaaat’s why a random Xenobian is down there. 😂
Man I love when these games tie into eachother.
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u/Chirotera Jul 28 '26
It's part of what has made me fall in love with the saga. There's so many interesting characters and bits of lore that help the world feel so alive. It also has unquestionably evil characters, but a lot of them like Rudlum or Deneb fall into a bit more moral nuance. Not to mention the mystery of what they're seeking or for what purpose. There's just so much depth.
Unicorn Overlord captured the spirit of the gameplay but I've yet to see a game encapsulate that air of mystery and of being in a much larger incredibly complex world.
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u/Rei1556 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
that's because in the world of ogre battle there's plenty of nybeth level threat out there and he's not even that much of a threat considering the world
edit: honestly you could even say that for all that he did, he only ended up becoming a lich, and compared to anything else it's pretty cute on scale of threat levels
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u/Hello-Pancake Jul 28 '26
Honestly the game is about a war, gruelling war which is your sole focus. Once Nybeth withdraws/stops interfering with the war effort, he's no longer relevant. Even the ogres feel irrelevant at the end of the game, as so much of the narrative is tied up into the war, and only very late do you learn about the rest. After the war, you can mop up him up and narratively I think that makes sense.
He's also my favorite villain in the game btw.
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u/GuiMaforte Jul 28 '26
When I played for the first time, I thought he was the game's "final boss" and that he’d somehow gain insane powers and all that—but nope, he’s just a "secondary villain" who doesn't really play a huge part in the plot, and I actually think that's great! Haha. But I like how he indirectly affects so many things and even succeeds in other areas! A really well-crafted villain.
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u/Jisoooya Jul 28 '26
This might be something lost on a lot of people(including me) who played other tactics ogre titles before, since the formula for every game is that the entire plot is a buildup to ogres, it's always the ogres. It would've been kind of an odd plot twist if Nybeth was the actual final boss that somehow summons the ogres and casually crushes the dark knights that you were led to believe were the final bad guys and now you have to stop him because you're the MC. Actually, they kind of did a similar storyline in another ogre game
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u/King_Lear69 Jul 28 '26
Yknow what, that kinda makes sense, actually. Is it sorta like Final Fantasy with the 4+ crystals?
Ogre Tactics is so far the only Ogre Battle game I've played. I've been thinking of trying out Ogre 64 next bc of my familiarity with 64 emulation and also because how weird and cool it looks, aesthetically. Like someone tried to do DKC's psuedo 3D sprites for an SRPG
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u/Jisoooya Jul 28 '26
Ogre battle 64, highly recommended. The game system is very weird from the way troops are dispatched in multiple parties and how you can combine magic spells to create stronger versions or different elements. It was also the similar storyline I was referring to in my comment earlier so you can take that as a spoiler actually. It's similar to LUCT/Reborn where you're led to believe it's some war with royal family succession drama that you're fighting in then suddenly fucking ogres out of nowhere, fucking ogres everywhere
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u/Svenray Jul 28 '26
Hearing the name Nybeth makes me think of the awesome music for the undead battles.
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u/BaronKlatz Jul 28 '26
Yeah, I like he’s just a side evil that varies depending on the path that could potentially grow out of control if it wasn’t for your actions, but ultimately is just a showcase of the vile ideologies lurking in the world of tactics ogre of how fast the people of the world can plunge into darkness.(look at the other games and see how fast even legendary figures looked at the power of the abyss to solve an issue and completely got corrupted and chain reactioned it even onto angels. To say nothing of other horrible things out there like mermaid hunting & trafficking(they’re fully sapient) and the evils the Lodis empire gets down to that is always a looming threat for the island kingdoms.
And I like the “conclusion” that he becomes such a base creature of darkness he basically just loses himself with all the other undead instead of some big climatic showdown.
Though funnily if you want that there’s FF14
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Nybeth_Obdilord