Final Fantasy Tactics (and other TRPGs)

[NoSleep]

Far more attractive graphics [which might not be important for some]

After reading about the Switch remake of Live A Live this morning, I decided to take a look at the SNES original, for which there is a very good fan translation. A little way into the Wild West episode (which starts with a stranger in a poncho riding into town, set to a Morricone-inspired soundtrack) and it's had me laughing out loud several times and smiling all the way through, despite the fact that I've yet to master the combat system.

It's made me think that I should play the SNES version of Tactics Ogre before I even think of playing the PSX (English port), PSP (remake), or Switch (re-remake) versions, although maybe I should jump straight to the Alexander O. Smith PSP translation and tweaked remake and be done with it.

[seepage]

Fort Triumph, which is very good, is currently free in the Epic Games store until 8th Dec

[Pink Gregory]

Sacked off XCOM normal ironman for classic with saves; might be time to try and learn the game rather than be shocked by the difficulty curve.  Trivial on normal but then I got too careless and got a squad wipe with basically all of the existing equipment.

Could have maybe replaced it but for some reason UFOs were really rare so I never mananged to gather enough alloys to replenish the good armour/guns.  Carelessness again.

I know it's not a SRPG but we don't really have a tactics game thread

[NoSleep]

Fort Triumph, which is very good, is currently free in the Epic Games store until 8th Dec

Downlidden.

[oggyraiding]

Marvel Midnight Suns just came out. Card based tactical RPG from the same studio as XCOM. Plays better than it sounds. Story is typical comic book dreck, but Blade is a major character in it so I can't complain because he's cool, also the Ghost Rider who uses a car instead of bike. Gameplay is 3 heroes vs waves of enemies, each hero feels very distinct. Definitely on the punchier, faster paced end of the TRPG spectrum.

[seepage]

£49.99+ currently (and not on Game Pass), so might have to wait until it's reduced

[NoSleep]

we don't really have a tactics game thread

Which is now officially your fault. Are you talking about RTS (Real Time Strategy)?

[seepage]

Perhaps they mean turn-based, but where the units don't have many stats or skills?

[Pink Gregory]

Which is now officially your fault. Are you talking about RTS (Real Time Strategy)?

I think the difference would be games that are fundamentally similar but that don't do stat tracking or levelling up so much and follow a perfunctory, if any plot. 

They don't really have a genre definition, they're definitely turn based and usually grid-based, share concepts like cover, overwatch, that short move + shoot vs. move further business.  They've pretty much all grown out of the Firaxis XCOM, I can't think of many precedents before it that aren't far closer to RPGs, apart from the original UFO.  That or strange offshoots like Valkyria Chronicles.

[NoSleep]

Looking around it seems nobody's sure what category to put XCOM under.

[Pink Gregory]

Also I don't know if you'd put things like Front Mission or the newer Battletech under SRPG; I guess there's a certain amount of equipment management but I haven't played either so I don't know if it's more about resource management or character development.

[NoSleep]

Front Mission (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2089 & 2089-II, but not Gungrave Hazard; a platformer, and Evolved; 3rd person shooter) is a TRPG. The wanzers (i.e. mechs) are the equivalent of armour and weapons in other RPGs. They're entirely able to be modded: legs, arms, body, weapons in hand and/or on shoulders, backpacks (for mid-battle repairs, extra missiles). It all depends on how much money you have and also the total weight of your rig. You can be darting around the grid but vulnerable to hits, or be a slow-moving tank of a wanzer (albeit high-powered). You can dismantle a wanzer for its parts and make your own custom machines. You can retrieve spare parts from a battleground in some versions of the game (by getting the pilot to abandon their wanzer rather than just blasting them out of existence). You can even abandon your wanzer and chance hopping vulnerably across the board (armed with just a pistol) to an abandoned one.
It's all played on a FFT style map, and you have ranged, melee and long-ranged weapons.
And all set in a bleak not-too-distant-future Earth where war and politics seem to be always on the menu. Very much story-centred, as would be expected from Square, so definitely a TRPG.

[madhair60]

you mean Gun Hazard not Gungrave. god! what an IDIOT!!

[NoSleep]

I can live with that.

[seepage]

Battletech

That's reminded me of the excellent BattleTech rip-off, Titans of Steel.

[seepage]

careful there, mate, gun hazard there, mate

[Pink Gregory]

Maybe that's it, the deeper customisation making as much difference in play as the tactical game.  Sure, in the Firaxis XCOM if you don't keep your weaponry and armour up to date in the management half you're fudged, and you choose which specialist classes you bring on a mission; but individuals can't really be specialised so much, it's a very deliberate streamlining. 

[NoSleep]

In Front Mission you have a team in play and you generally need a good mix; a couple of heavies steaming in with shotguns, automatics and rifles as well as backup batons, fists and spike for the inevitable melee. Meanwhile your long-range missile-equipped wanzers need to stay out of harm's way and soften up the enemy for your heavyweights. Hopefully the enemy will be semi-crippled before they get close enough to take a shot at one of your team.

[oggyraiding]

I just remembered the existence of Project X Zone and its sequel, both on 3DS. It's a Sega/Capcom/Namco mash up, classic TRPG but when you do an attack it's sort of reminiscent of a 2D fighter as you activate attacks at certain timings to get a combo. They're not very challenging and kind of repetitive, but if you like the idea of Kazuma Kiryu hanging about with Heihachi Mishima and Leon S Kennedy, it may be for you.

[The Culture Bunker]

Reading the posts on this page has just made a bit annoyed again about XCOM3 not being out yet. Or even announced, I think.

[NoSleep]

New mod available for the PSX version of Final Fantasy Tactics, that not only reworks the whole game but has added in the Triple Triad card game from FFVIII. Just discovered this video today, so I'm not 100% clear what this all entails, but gives me yet another reason to revisit FFT.

Still a work in progress, it seems, but playable at this stage: https://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?board=81.0

[NoSleep]

Final Fantasy Hacktics have also got a "definitive" version of FFT for the PSX, incorporating stuff from the PSP version and tweaking the gameplay, called "The Lion War" which I don't recall before now (started this thread back in 2019), and it's up to version 2.

https://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?board=78.0

[NoSleep]

Final Fantasy Hacktics have also got a "definitive" version of FFT for the PSX, incorporating stuff from the PSP version and tweaking the gameplay, called "The Lion War" which I don't recall before now (started this thread back in 2019), and it's up to version 2.

https://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?board=78.0

Unfortunately not the superior Alexander O. Smith translation. The translation from Japanese in the original PSX game is so poorly done that I want to tear my eyes out while reading each line would have felt the necessity to port the new translation from the PSP version. Hopefully someone will find the time to do this.

[seepage]

After going "haha, n00bs" at people complaining that WH40K Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters is too difficult, I'm now faced with a mission where you have to protect someone who can't move for EIGHT turns, with a new group of enemies appearing every turn who ignore your armour, they resurrect, you can't heal, while mutant plants are spewing poison all over you. Purely by accident I one-shotted a big combine harvester thing into an exploding bin, but other than that not much luck so far.   

[seepage]

Live by the Sword: Tactics is currently 80% off on Steam (2.55 GBP)

I completed WH40K Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters just before the time limit and after a tense final mission. I'll replay it as I didn't get offered a couple of the character classes and missed some things that would've made life easier e.g. prioritising upgrading the engines to be able to reach more missions before they expire, not realising some squares add an extra turn to timed missions instead of yielding seeds, and that standing over a spawn point sometimes stops units spawning that turn.

Persevering with King Arthur: Knight's Tale although the missions are a bit monotonous so far. I took a step back and saw a I missed the opportunity to take a couple of ranged units into combat. Now I mostly just stay on the edge of the battle maps and put everyone on overwatch (except for the vanguard aka thief/rogue who can lay a row of traps and then hide). Presumably to save on graphics you don't get to collect any shiny new weapons or armour. Instead there are runes which give bonuses for each generic type: 1H/2H/ranged/staffs, heavy/medium/light armour. 

[NoSleep]

Live by the Sword: Tactics is currently 80% off on Steam (2.55 GBP)

Grabbed.

I completed WH40K Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters just before the time limit and after a tense final mission. I'll replay it as I didn't get offered a couple of the character classes and missed some things that would've made life easier e.g. prioritising upgrading the engines to be able to reach more missions before they expire, not realising some squares add an extra turn to timed missions instead of yielding seeds, and that standing over a spawn point sometimes stops units spawning that turn.

Persevering with King Arthur: Knight's Tale although the missions are a bit monotonous so far. I took a step back and saw a I missed the opportunity to take a couple of ranged units into combat. Now I mostly just stay on the edge of the battle maps and put everyone on overwatch (except for the vanguard aka thief/rogue who can lay a row of traps and then hide). Presumably to save on graphics you don't get to collect any shiny new weapons or armour. Instead there are runes which give bonuses for each generic type: 1H/2H/ranged/staffs, heavy/medium/light armour. 

I often restart games before I get too deep into them if I think I've missed something useful during my baby steps. There's never the usual deja vu with replaying TRPG battles, so it doesn't feel like a setback (aside from the tutorial bits).

I got myself Front Mission 1st: Remake (for the Switch), which isn't that much of a remake but an upgrade (improved graphics and music) of the version released on the DS. Given all the text and stats in the game it's a relief to be able to play it on the TV. In the past I've tried to play both the fan translated Japanese Super Famicom version and the DS version but never got far into the game because of the readability of all those stats. So far it's felt more like playing FM3, 4 & 5 and I've progressed further than I've managed before.

There's a bit of a hype around the release of Fire Emblem: Engage at the moment. YouTuber PlayerEssence, whose GOTY last year was Triangle Strategy, seems to rate it above FE: Three Houses, because of the focus on combat. I've not played any of the Fire Emblem games before, so I wonder if Engage would be a good entry point over Three Houses?

Oh, and I've started playing South Park: The Fractured But Whole, which turns out to be a TRPG of sorts.

[oggyraiding]

FE Engage gets to the action quicker than Three Houses, but the core concept of collecting rings that let you summon previous Fire Emblem characters is very fan servicey. Also much less admin between battles than Three Houses, you can do a few bits in the base but it's not like Three Houses where you're micromanaging training and taking people to choir practice.

I preferred the setting of Three Houses, as it felt somewhat grounded and more based around politics than excessive fantasy stuff (there is fantasy stuff but not to the scale of you being a divine dragon asleep for 100 years like in Engage). But Engage has snappier gameplay.

[seepage]

Picked up Triangle Strategy in a sale, so it's on my to-do list.

Blimey, South Park: The Fractured But Whole is currently £49.99 on Steam, even though it was released in 2017.

[Mr_Simnock]

If you have an interest in RPG's of any sort then I suggest you get this book if you can. I got a copy this week and it's fantastic, covering over 600 games and also some genre overviews and history too.

[seepage]

Finished the main story in King Arthur: Knight's Tale and overall it gets a thumbs up from me. Could often exploit that humanoid enemies attack fornications to get at you but others mill around getting slowing burnt alive if the path finding can't work out a way around.