Game Thoughts: Tactics Ogre Reborn [DNF]
I've had a complicated relationship with Tactics Ogre.
My love of the Final Fantasy Tactics subseries drove me to buy the PSP version of this game over 10 years ago, and yet I never managed to get into it. I don't think I even managed to finish chapter 1 before now, pinning the game near the top of my backlog for over a decade.
It took so long that they remastered the remaster onto the Switch (which I promptly purchased a physical copy of).
I absolutely adore the visual style of these games. Something about the isometric sprites and serious character portraits scratches some kind of itch deep in my brain that nothing else comes close to. The character art for Reborn is absurdly good and blows its Final Fantasy cousins out of the water -- so much so that I purchased an artbook just to ogle the illustrations despite never having finished the game.
On Paper, Tactics Ogre is everything I want. Final Fantasy Tactics-style gameplay with a richer and more adult story -- in practice, however, it's something entirely different.
-I've played through chapter 1 and half of chapter 2, now, hitting the first major plot point. I have some of the more interesting classes in my party, and finally, after 10 years, I've got the vibe of the story and the gameplay loop. 10-12 hours is usually my make-or-break point with a game, and I think, unfortunately, this is a break point for me.
As usual I feel it's important for my own sanity and goals in eventual theoretical game-making to figure out why.
Final Fantasy Tactics games (along with A/A2) have enough story to string you along, but the gameplay is what keeps you coming back. While you march through whatever crystal-oriented drama is happening you're also building your own custom team of broken weapons -- the battles are a tool for you to use in exploring classes, empowering characters, and breaking the rules. You're always working on something you've chosen yourself -- picking up a new skill, earning TP, unlocking a new specific class; and so a story battle is both pushing forward the narrative as well as giving you an opportunity to exercise your own personal goals within the game's systems.
Tactics Ogre uses battles only as story pieces. While you're occasionally trying to recruit a dragon onto your team or keep a particular character alive, the battles are just there. They're in the way. I had fun in the first dozen fights while learning the systems, but then I began fighting battles for the sake of getting to the next bit of story. I'd boss-rush targets to end battles as soon as possible and move on. Once battles became a chore I began to dread the length of game ahead of me.
The story itself is definitely good. It's a fantasy piece filled with interesting characters and sharp dialogue. I know I've only scratched the surface but I'm not dying to know where it goes -- if I only wanted a fantasy good war story I could go read a book. I'm certainly not going to dump 100+ hours in to see what happens next if it's going to be a slog.
I have an unreasonable craving for tactics RPGs in this visual style -- even now part of me wants to boot it up and see all the little sprites do their walk-cycles in place -- but I think I need to finally lay this one to rest. From forums and my own experiences I've come to realize this is a game of strategic party composition and slow dramatic storytelling, where what I crave is the joy of experimenting with and customizing the individual characters within my party.