The Stepfather To Final Fantasy Tactics...

The strategy RPG is a genre that has not gotten a lot of hype over the years, and by many, is only really identified by the somewhat popular Final Fantasy Tactics. But even Final Fantasy Tactics itself only has somewhat of a “cult” following; not coming close to the mammoth popularity of other titles that carry the Final Fantasy moniker. And honestly, the genre is fairly small in the console market; I can only a name a few true strategy RPGs off of the top of my head. Perhaps the genre has not taken off with the majority of gamers because they can’t figure out exactly what they are. They are not exactly an RPG, since the main focus of the game is usually on battling, and not as much on the storyline, as is typical with a roleplaying game. That being said, it’s not exactly the type of the game where the battle is the only object, like perhaps a sports or chess title. There usually isa connective narrative that binds all of the fights together, so that there is actually meaning behind what you are doing. I remember being somewhat skeptical about Final Fantasy Tactics before I was actually aware of just what the genre was. An RPG with a focus just on the fighting? What is that? It didn’t exactly sound like what I was used to, so I must admit, I stayed away for a while. Whatever the reason for this type of game getting widespread popularity, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together proves itself as a landmark for the genre, a game bold in scope and execution that other strategy RPGs should be measured against.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (just Tactics Ogre from here on out) was originally designed as a Japanese-only game on the Super Famicom system, or their version of the Super Nintendo. It was one installment of a grand saga titled the Ogre Battle Saga, a series which has so far spanned several systems and a few different sequels. It was later translated over to the Playstation, and like other strategy RPGs to come later on, didn’t make much of a splash, sales-wise. It is now out of print, and pretty hard to find, unless you want to pay a 13-year-old on Ebay way too much money for his older brother’s used copy. I was fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law who had a copy, so I got off easy.

For those not familiar with exactly what a strategy RPG is, you main focus of the game is going to be the battles. During battles, the battlefield is laid out in a grid of squares. Terrain will vary with different elevations and landmarks. For instance, a marsh will have areas of water and mud that will slow you down, as well as having some higher grasslands that will give an advantage to whomever is standing there. Each side will take their turns moving their troops, and each character, depending on their class and weapons, will have distinct strengths and weaknesses. As an example, while your knights and berserkers are slow of foot and don’t have a great range, they are heavily armored and do a lot of damage to the enemy. Archers will be able to hit an enemy from a great distance, but they are relatively easy to kill once a bad guy gets near them. In Tactics Ogre, your army is made up of ten characters. You will be able to recruit more as you go along in the game, but you must choose just 10 when preparing for battle. Each character is infinitely customize-able as you can change their class and weapons as you progress.

Your main character, Denim, is a young man thrust into the center of a power struggle between different territories, as well as the powerful church of Lodis. He and his sister Kachua struggle to come to grips with Denim's increasing reputation as a military leader. While Denim just wants the struggle to be over so that he can enjoy a land that is peaceful, his sister somewhat resents the way others see him as a leader and warrior. Of course, they both get sucked in as the struggle becomes greater, even bringing in questions about god and man’s place on the earth. As with real long-running wars, there are deceptions and back-stabbings galore, as everyone reveals their true intentions. Denim does his best to stay above the fray, but many of the plot twists hit very close to home, and he is reluctantly dragged into the center of the drama. This is honestly one of the finest plots I have seen in any RPG, that this is in a genre where the focus is supposed to be the gameplay, not the plot. It is so engrossing and involved that I even found myself skimming through the record of the events that had already taken place (which are all saved for your review), as if it were a fast-paced novel, which it is very similar to in many ways.

Once actually in a battle, each character’s turn will be determined by a few factors, including their individual speed, the terrain they are on at the time, and how much stuff they are carrying with them to weight them down. As an example, an archer has a great move rate, but if you start him off knee-deep in water, and weighed down with heavy armor and supplies, you’ll find that he is going to be lagging behind. Both sides are also going to be going at the same time, meaning that once you move one of your guys, if the next man in order happens to be a guy on the other side, you must keep this in mind. In other words, don’t move one of your guys into hostile territory unless you’re sure that the bad guys near him won’t be moving soon. Likewise, don’t start moving your troops assuming that the other side will take a certain route, because you may find the computer to be a little smarter than you thought.

When it comes to actually attacking, there is also a subtle art. The most vulnerable an enemy unit will ever be is when you are behind him, and you will even score a few more points if you are also above him. Ideally, the best hit you can strike on an enemy is from above and behind. The enemy will counterattack any strike that comes from their immediate surroundings, meaning one square away from him. However, an attack from the side or behind the enemy will be harder for him to counterattack, so you also get a slight bonus because his counter has a smaller chance of landing on you that way. If you must face an enemy straight on, your chance of hitting him will be less, your damage will suffer a little, and his chance of counterattack greatly increases, so all in all, it’s just not a great way to go unless you have no other option. And the computer is no dummy about this, either; the computer will never fail to take a good back shot at you at every opportunity. The game will also help you out a little in this area: when choosing to attack, you will shown the percentage chance of landing the shot, as well as approximately how much damage you will do. This will help you determine if taking the shot from that angle will be worth the possible counterattack damage you will take in return (the damage you could possibly take is also displayed).

Once an enemy soldier has fallen, you get the spoils of war, which come in the form of treasure and power-ups for your troops. You can get money, rare weapons, and items, or cards that raise certain attributes for the soldier who picks it up. Of course, once all enemies are defeated, you will also be given special items and money for completing the map. There are also certain special battles that have certain objectives, like killing the leader of the enemy troops (in these, it is not necessary to kill all of the troops), or protecting a certain character from getting killed in the battle.

Outside of battle, you have the options of training your troops, recruiting new ones, customizing the ones you have, and buying items at various towns. Training is basically just like it sounds; you will fight on a battle grid just like the ones in a normal battle, only you will pit your soldiers against each other to gain valuable experience. When they die in a training battle, they do not die “for real,” but their killer does get the usual bonus experience points. This is the ideal way to get your soldiers ready for the next big fight. While traveling around on the world map, there are random encounters, but training takes less wandering around, and is even more effective because you have the option of controlling both sides of the battle (or setting both to auto, which is a big time-saver). Once in a town, you can buy useful items like spells for your wizards, as well as curative items and better weapons. You can also recruit new types of soldiers into your armies, such as beasts and mutant-types. They come at a price, and some are useful while others are a waste of money, so be careful.

Changing your character’s classes is a big part of the extremely deep gameplay of this game. You will at first be given basic classes that any character can switch to, but as your soldiers reach certain milestones, new classes will open up to them that you will want to explore. For instance, some characters can switch to cooler classes like Dragoon and Swordmaster after they have reached a certain level of kills on the battlefield. Other characters might never have a single kill, meaning that they are eligible to be other classes, like priests. Beasts and mutant characters cannot change classes, so this is also another consideration before recruiting them. Honestly, a big part of the fun in this game is experimenting with the different classes a character can have, as well as discovering which has an advantage over another class for any given character. It’s all really just trial and error, but that is part of the appeal to this game.

Graphics-wise, Tactics Ogre is nothing pretty to look at, so I won’t even try to pretend that it is. It was originally a Super Nintendo game, and few, if any, changes were made when porting it to the Playstation. Spell animations in battle look pretty good, but slowdown can occur at times, which is strange for a system that is supposedly way more powerful than the Super Nintendo. When speaking, the characters have portraits that are very well done. They have a rough, hand-drawn quality that looks very nice, and suits the game well. While some look at little odd (there are many characters in the game, so not all of them can be great), most suit their characters well. And Denim, the main character, ages and matures as the game goes on, and his portrait changes with him effectively. Overall, the graphics should not be a sticking point, but definitely don’t look all that fantastic. Sadly, the Gameboy Advance prequel to this game, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, has a smoother look and better visuals.

In the music department, the game really shines with the limited tools it had at its disposal. While all of the scores are limited to the MIDI palate, many of them shine with an aural excellence that only early Final Fantasy games can even touch. Epic battles towards the end of the game, as well as the conclusion itself are underscored by somber pieces that actually rise above their primitive hardware to tug at the heart strings. The in-battle and training music is fairly repetitive, and since you will spends many, many hours in these modes, you may get sick of them, quite honestly. But during story passages in the game, as well as during important and decisive battles, the music is of fantastic quality. The sound effects, though, rarely rise above what you have come to expect from older Super Nintendo games. There are digitized voices for just a few choice events, like one that says “fight it out” before battles. The rest of the effects are mainly clangs and clinks for the swords, and other such basic sounds. In the sound department, the music over-achieves, while the effects just go for a “C,” and rarely try harder than that.



Graphics - 3/5 - Nothing that will blow you away here, but nothing that will make you puke, either. Just keep in mind that they are several years old, and you should be okay.

Sound/Music - 4/5 - The music is extraordinary, but the effects fail to rise above mediocre.

Gameplay - 5/5 - This is why you will play this game for over sixty hours. With branching storylines that change depending on decisions you make in the game, as well as a ton of options for customizing your characters and their classes, you could literally play this game for years.

Characters - 5/5 - About as deep as you’re going to find in a video game. Nearly every character gets fleshed out to have their own ambitions, desires, and emotions. There’s even a brief profile saved in the game for each major character.

Plot/Storyline - 5/5 - Absolutely vast and epic. The storyline varies a little depending on in-game decisions, so each time you play it will be unique. Like a good novel that you can’t get out of your head, you will be thinking about this plot for quite some time.



Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is one of those special games that comes along every once in a while that only a privileged few get to experience and appreciate. If there is any way you can get your hands on this game short of theft or murder, by all means do it. For those who loved Final Fantasy Tactics, understand that this game is woven from the same cloth. As a matter of fact, several developers from this game were pulled by Squaresoft to design Final Fantasy Tactics, they were so impressed with the game’s design. Once you get immersed in this experience, you will see why.