While the easiest solution might be to buy the newest equipment available, it’s not that simple if you actually care about stat changes and bonuses. There is simply no way to try out any of the new gear without actually purchasing it first. The equipment shop is another aspect that is consistently annoying. This type of difficulty spike doesn’t really make any sense. You might find yourself spending hours on a single mission just trying to make things right. Sometimes it seems nearly impossible to save a character in time. The AI seems to have this weird fascination with getting itself killed. The objective is simple enough but the execution is frustrating to say the least. Occasionally, there will be times when a recruitable character needs to be saved in the middle of a battle. You might find yourself sticking to characters used since the beginning of the game for this very reason.
It just doesn’t seem worth the effort most of the time. The time investment required just to bring a class up to speed is enough to detract from the experience. One of the more tedious tasks is leveling up a new class, however. This means that you can recruit a new warrior that is the same level as your current one right from the start. Unlike most games in the genre, levels are tied to character classes and not the characters themselves. Leveling up, for the most part, comes naturally and doesn’t require much grinding. There’s really no reason to not have at least three in a party at a time, maybe even more.
They do great damage, hit from long range and have amazing weapon skills. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself using archers since they seem to be the most imbalanced class in the game. It really depends on how well you can strategically place your units in relation to your objective. There’s little variety and this could lead to battles ending quicker than you’d think. Most missions consist of defeating the enemy leader and that’s pretty much it. This is definitely not a game for the impatient. You might find yourself spending a good hour just micromanaging your team for a single encounter. There’s also a ridiculous amount of customization tools given to the player that will allow you to compensate for any situation thrown your way. Warriors, archers, clerics, and wizards are available very early on with tons of advanced classes unlockable as you progress through the story. The traditional class types you’d expect from a SRPG are all represented. Strategy is absolutely necessary if you want to succeed and the difficulty can be brutal at times. Basically, each battle is like a game of chess. If you never played a tactics game before it might take you some time to get adjusted.
The turn-based gameplay in Tactics Ogre is pretty standard for the genre and uses a traditional isometric perspective to show all the action. For something worded with such importance at the very beginning of the game, you’re led to believe that your choices are far more significant than they really are. It’s a bit deceptive since your answers only seem to affect your character’s base stats and in no way influences the outcome of the story. Shortly after, however, some rather abstract questions are asked in the form of tarot cards. Some of the choices you make are simple, such as the name of your hero and his date of birth. Tactics Ogre begins with a short character creation process. It may have been a long time coming, but it was certainly worth the wait. Square Enix has made significant changes and improvements to make this the best version of the game yet. And now, over 15 years later, Tactics Ogre is finally available in all three regions for the first time. It eventually made its way to North America in 1998 when it was re-released for the PSone. The game was originally released in Japan for the Super Famicom in 1995 and was welcomed with much praise. If you live in Europe, chances are you never played Tactics Ogre.