way for players to learn the consequences of their actions without feeling punished for merely playing or experimenting. An in-game achievement system encourages particularly proud players or seasoned veterans to minimize their use of this system or avoid it altogether. In essence, this system is similar to the Super Guide mode in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. While new players are given a crutch to ease them into a game, there are incentives in place that encourage mastery of the game. In addition, the death system in the game has been revamped. In the original, units would simply die be gone forever once they ran out of hit points. Revival magic was not available until half way through the game. A death of a unit meant the loss of a valuable unit and your hours of investment in it. Now, units simply become knocked out after losing all their hit points. They will die in three turns unless they are revived or the battle ends before the limit. A revamped item system allows a variety of units to revive knocked out units with revival items. While purists will bemoan the de-fanged difficulty, these changes all work together over together to dissuade extremely cautious play in the battlefield and tedious micromanagement outside of it. An even more daring use of the Chariot system is the WORLD system. This system essentially allows the player to travel through time and enter different branching paths. At certain pivotal decisions, the player is allowed to return to that point and experience. This is essentially the New Game+ feature in many games that is taken to the next level. The player can easily revisit
battles and alternate paths without starting an entirely new save file. Some restrictions on character usage do apply when hopping across branching paths. Enemies are leveled up and re-equipped in order to make them a challenge. While it looks the same as the original at a glance, there have been many changes the game’s visuals and audio. The game is now in 3D with redone visuals and a rotatable camera. This helps highlight height advantages and prevent terrain from obscuring units. In addition, the player can flatten the map and play the game as if it was on a chessboard. Additional interface changes, such as an outline of an arrow’s trajectory, help streamline the experience. While character portraits are redone, the original’s bright, cheery visuals, especially character sprites, are largely unchanged. These cartoonish visuals create odd scenarios; incidents of genocide are performed by brightly clothed Lego men. It is unfortunate new visuals weren’t made to match the tone of the grim story. Audio, on the other hand, is near perfect in this remake. The re-mastered and remixed soundtrack does an excellent in matching the game’s drama. It provides an excellent emotional anchor for the player through a varied selection of songs and recurring leitmotifs. There isn’t any voice-acting except for short narrations between the game’s acts. These excellent narrations, voiced by Simon Templeman and Kate Higgins, make the absence of full voice-overs even more disappointing. Unlike the PSP port of Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre does not suffer from slowdown or other technical issues.
Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, there are no robust multiplayer options aside from fighting an AI control duplicate of another player’s party. Disappointingly, there aren’t any full on cooperative or competitive modes available. These are just minor blemishes on this remake’s massive improvements on the original. Many SRPGs often let their subsystems and complex mechanics get in the way of core gameplay. This has barred prospective players from getting into the genre. The remake succeeds where imitators of the original Tactics Ogre has failed. It knows that newcomers and veterans alike want great strategy and finely-tuned gameplay. Strategy fans should get this game if they haven’t already. Updated gameplay and a new translation make it a must buy for those few that enjoyed the original. Assuming they have a PSP, newcomers that are interested in a great, non-linear story and deep gameplay are invited to try the game. Tactics Ogre’s adjustable difficulty let’s novices ease into this style of game. It’s really that good.
Picture Sources http://www.gamesonsmash.com/wp-content/ gallery/boo/tactics-ogre-black-background.jpg h t t p : / /c d n 1 . g a m e p r o . c o m / b o x / 1 0 6 3 box_165483-hd.jpg AI is competent with a few
hiccups, friendly AI is downright suicidal. This was a problem in the original and continues to be one in the remake. They
Tactics Ogre
Vol. XXIV, Issue 4
33