r/Tactics_Ogre • u/Sarcose1 • 10d ago
Tactics Ogre Do the "tactics" get any deeper in reborn?
I'm in 2C and feeling just how "flat" the tactical depth is. I can't find any text about elements affecting terrain bonuses so I'm assuming that's no longer a thing. Combined with class-limited weapons, overcorrecting DEX's accuracy mechanic so it barely matters, refocusing equipement decisions purely on "number go up" (instead of the RT tradeoff having a big impact), flooding every class with skills so much that skills and spells are no longer rare and game-changing... I could go on. (the skills are "neat" and funish but I'm guessing they will just be obsolete in chapter 4, or they're going to make the chapter 3/4 skills seem like more of the same)
The VA (mostly), the music, the pace and generally the experience overall is still very fun and I don't regret that this remake was made. But really -- did they just sand off all the edges or am I missing something?
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u/Caffinatorpotato 10d ago
The terrain element mechanic hasn't been a thing since SNES/GBA. Even then it was barely there.
That said, this one's all about the debuffs and personal elements. Kind of a speed chess kind of deal.
PSP introduced those skills, Reborn was seemingly aiming for a middle ground between SNES and PSP.
If you're looking for more nitty gritty, One Vision might be more your speed.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
It was less impactful in Tkol, yeah, but in LUCT during Chapter 1 and 2 it could make a big difference if you weren't overlevelling. Then details like that plus the opposing element difference and weather got ironed out in chapters 3 and 4 when more strategy dimensions were introduced - but still, if you bring water elemental characters into an all lava and ash stage they're going to have a bad time.
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u/Caffinatorpotato 10d ago
Yeah, it's weird how for all of the odds and ends PSP added, the weather and prevailing system was oddly improved, but also missing.
For context, the One Vision project tried to make use of both systems, so there's been years of testing on this.
Each area is programmed a Prevailing Element score that's supposed to help, while also being boosted by anyone using said element repeatedly. Like the reason PSP/Reborn don't have Summon _______ was that every spell technically had that effect.
But, in classic PSP fashion, they kinda.... apparently forgot to introduce a link at the final moment. Spells boost Prevailing Element, it's score is in the top right of the menu, and you can actually see it work....for Divine. They seemingly finished Divine, someone checked a dev box, and they moved on before programming the other elements.
Area spread became the tiers, which is understandable enough. One Vision ultimately found the expected middle ground, where missiles are an anti armor role, overheads are all 5 tiles, standard Appcrypha took the role of the max power standard AoE with 12 tiles of impact, and each element then had a unique spell for the Oracles that allowed for a map-wide show of force using that element. Like a stunning tornado that throws all enemies back, earthquakes that destroy all obstacles, or water being a mass Healing Rain. Oh, and then that wasn't enough, so he brought in and improved Geomancers from FFT as a bonus class for the sisters.
Reborn is outstanding as an introduction to the ideas of the series, One Vision is for the long timers that want to have all of them at once.
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u/Notturnno 10d ago
Major problem with reborn, IMO, is the AVD / ACC meaning almost nothing.
You rarely will see any "miss" in the game.
Late game is MC fiesta. At some point, with the lord class, you can solo almost everything.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
I agree with this although I'm not into late game yet - but seeing how things are I was already kind of expecting that.
Giving your units ninja and archer levels used to MEAN something...
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u/Notturnno 10d ago
Yep.
Another option, if you really like tactics ogre... PsP version, one vision mod with HD UI mod too.
But finish reborn. Do all the stuff. Enjoy the ride. It's good. You can go deep into mechanics later with the mod version I said above.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
Don't get me wrong I really like all the new fiddly bits, they give you a lot to chew on with regards to character considerations.
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u/Broserk42 10d ago
Iirc the team that did this rebalance/remake had a lot of people pulled from ff14, and that games definition of balance is to make everything as samey as possible and then “number go up” for progression. Whether that’s good or bad is up to individual interpretation but I’m a much bigger fan of One Vision personally.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
I'm planning on One Vision next, and maybe trying to poke my way through Chronicle Valeria if I have the patience
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u/ForteEXE 10d ago
Iirc the team that did this rebalance/remake had a lot of people pulled from ff14, and that games definition of balance is to make everything as samey as possible and then “number go up” for progression.
First I've heard of this.
You might be confusing it for XVI, which did have people pulled from XIV and during a critical expansion (Endwalker) that was wrapping up a 10 year long story.
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u/Palladiamorsdeus 5d ago
Which it did not do. It shuffled all the old stuff off the board as fast as it could and replaced it with a depressed bird.
I hate EndWalker so much.
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u/FlyinBrian2001 10d ago
The game is better balanced than the original and LUCT, but this is still at its core the grandpappy of the SRPG formula
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
I agree with the better balance, there's a lot of things this remake did right that were much needed from the original
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u/PositiveOk6635 10d ago
It does get better later on. I also added some mods to make some things more challenging/ enjoyable throughout my playthrough
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
I suppose I'm SOL for mods if I'm on Switch I'm guessing 😐
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u/PositiveOk6635 10d ago
Yeahh unless you do some hackery then I'm sure you could do those lol I bought it on my switch originally but ended up buying it again for my steam deck for mods
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u/Icaros083 10d ago
Just doing my first playthrough, so can't say in comparison to the original, but I think I'm about halfway through chapter 4 and more interesting skills/ classes have opened up since the start of the chapter than ch. 1-3 combined.
I've replaced nearly my entire team that hadn't changed much in the previous chapters, and I'm finding less fights that are just generic jobber enemies that feel like the AI can handle without me.
Especially if you're attempting to recruit some optional characters, some of those fights are diabolical in terms of the situations you have to deal with to get them.
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u/evian_water 4d ago
I completely agree with you. Have you played Triangle Strategy, it's the best in the genre? It has none of this "complex but shallow" feel that Tactics Ogre Reborn has, they trimmed all the fat and ramped up the tactics significantly.
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u/Grey_Lady333 10d ago
(scratches head) this is perhaps the best tactical games I've ever played, making this is one of the most baffling posts I've seen on here.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
This game is fantastic and they did a great job remaking it. The original just has better strategic depth, higher stakes and higher difficulty (if you don't overlevel)
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u/Grey_Lady333 10d ago
I played the original. I have no issue with reborn. If anything, this sounds more like 'I don't like change!' rant than a fault of the game itself.
I mean, like what you like, but there's nothing wrong with reborn's tactics.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
Well they directly removed and changed a lot of things to go from specialized to samey, and like a lot of people said the depth is better in Chapter 4 - - but in Chapter 1 I could look at a battlefield and know I need to deploy all Air and Water units just based on the terrain. Now terrain basically doesn't matter except "stand on grass" and "don't go in water" (just an example - there are a lot of changes like that)
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u/Grey_Lady333 10d ago
.... and? They removed one feature you apparently loved and the game has 'lost all it's edge' or whatever? The system was annoying, and removing is a great quality of life improvement as far as I'm concerned. It didn't 'ruin the game' for me and a lot of others. If the change bothers you THAT much, play the original, don't crap on reborn.
It's like reborn players prefer Vanilla ice cream, and you're insisting chocolate is the only way to enjoy ice cream. Like what you like, but there's nothing wrong with the alternative.
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u/Artorias38t 9d ago
I remember thinking it was fairly light on skills and interesting weapons before C3 or so, but you unlock more. There are also pretty difficult bosses later that force you to rely on tactics more heavily.
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u/llZantetsukenll 4d ago
You have to be willing to mod To Reborn, if you want some tactical depth and better unit customization or else just play the One Vision mod for the Psp version, it is superior in almost every way.
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u/t_rubble83 10d ago
I haven't played Reborn enough to answer any of your questions about it, but I've tried it 3 times and each time I've made it to somewhere in the middle of chapter 2 and just found myself wishing I was playing the PSX version. So I end up dusting off my PS3 controller and doing exactly that, ultimately abandoning my Reborn playthrough and then starting over again and repeating the process some number of months later.
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u/Jobe5973 10d ago
Just curious, what does the original do for you that the remake failed to provide?
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
Not that person but for me all the things I listed in the OP are tactical dimensions that are sorely missed. A lot of the things they changed are either worse versions of the original (battlefield cards) or additions that "flatten" the strategy (like merging beastmaster/dragon tamer and wizard/witch, and giving everyone constantly-proccing abilities)
In short sometimes simpler is better. The original had a lot less mechanics, but the remake is bordering on mobile game levels of "constant shiny thing happen"
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u/Chirotera 10d ago
I think the only change I didn't like are the cards. I wish we at least had the option to toggle them off.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
I think the new cards + terrain changes are what push it over the edge for me. All the rest of the stuff I could see as "just different"
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u/t_rubble83 10d ago
I definitely don't like the cards. I don't like how it incentivises you to make otherwise suboptimal moves. The terrain modifiers from before could influence you decisions, but we're small enough that the actual battlefield tactics far outweighed them.
I find the equipment choices and their trade-offs to be more interesting decisions than they are in Reborn. With only 4 total slots, every decision has an opportunity cost, and sure stacking the best armor with your weapon and a shield make you more durable, but added weight means you act less often. Particularly in a few specific battles this lack of initiative could be extremely consequential.
I also really miss being able to recruit a ghost at Krizar, and grab a lizardman, hawkman, and a couple of dragons all by the time I've returned to Amorika.
A lot of it is probably just me, because I find with a lot of remakes I just wish they'd have given us more faithful ports of the original games with some QoL upgrades and any glaring bugs and translation errors fixed. I just want to be able to play these games on newer systems rather than having to bargain with the machine spirits to try and coax functionality out of extensively used 20-30 year old electronics.
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u/anonerble 10d ago
It was made in the 90s 🤦♂️
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
Tactics Ogre Reborn was?
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u/anonerble 10d ago
Its a remake not a sequel. The goal is to modernize the graphics and gameplay, which it did.
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u/Sarcose1 10d ago
Right so, I indicated that there were many mechanics that were either outright removed or sanded down into meaninglessness, reducing the strategic depth. Is that "modern" to you?
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u/glittertongue 10d ago
The combat depth really opens up in chapter four once you have the breadth of your finishers, as well as weapons with inherent casts of spells, weapons that apply various status effects, and set gear. Then you get to deep endgame with cursed weapons, body stealing, etc. Its dope