Friday, November 17, 2000

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together PSP review | 9.5

Overview:

The original Tactics Ogre is one of my favorite games of all time. Great characters, a well written story, challenging (and at times *brutal*) battles, memorable music, and a bunch of rewards and secrets for the dedicated player. This version is everything that I loved about the original and more. The new translation has a great feel to it, and the character portraits are stunning.

Customization and Leveling:

My favorite new part of the game is the skill and special attack customization. It adds a good deal of depth to your characters and was largely lacking in the original (with something like 10 special skills available in the game, and even then only at endgame). Leveling is quite different, eliminating the need for most of the grinding. Entire classes gain levels, so even the guys you don't use can be decent level, but only the characters you actually use gain skill points. Also, everyone gains experience together at the end of battle, so the berserker you have in the front ranks and your healer each get their fair share. This is great, since you don't need to "share" kills and have your cleric try to thwack a wounded soldier just to level up.

Chariot and World systems:

I was worried about the Chariot system making things too easy (you can instantly warp back up to 50 actions while in battle), but it actually works quite well. You can try different strategies without a ton of load time and annoyance, but the battles are still challenging. In the 90s I logged well over 100 hours trying to get all the endings. The World system makes this much more manageable and actually lets you know where the branches happen.

All in all, it is a great tactical RPG!

No comments :