This vital entry in the TRPG category will be a favorite, no matter how many times it’s been played.
Tactics Ogre: Reborn, a remake of a remake. The game, which is coming to modern consoles and PC, is a rich reworking of 2010’s infamous RPG TacticsOgre: Let us Cling Together. Square Enix has reanimated the bones from the classic game, bringing them back to life. They make the old game seem new by making them twitch and shake in the right way.
Square Enix has removed all barriers to play, which is the main difference you will enjoy if Tactics Ogre is back. Reborn has fewer restrictions that prevent you from using specific skills or equipment. Wizards, mages, and rune fencers can use magic only, but there are no other barriers. This allows you to give your units the gear you find on the battlefield and in shops more quickly, making your fights a little more balanced.
There are also new skills. These skills make the game more modern and compatible with other tactics games. You can position yourself on either side of an opponent and press them to surrender or defeat. You can do it! A new Pincer Attack skill will allow you to position yourself on either side of an enemy and press them into surrendering.
You can switch to a Finishing Move once you are ready to eliminate that flying bastard who’s been sniping at your healers. These are not powered by the redundant Tp meter but by your MP, a universal resource that powers up magic, skills, and Finishing Moves. This makes it feel more like stamina and gives you one less thing.
The AI program has been reprogrammed, and you can now make certain characters of your army auto-battle. You can have all your archers automatically target enemy soldiers from far away so that you can spend your time managing melee and healing troops and speeding up the more exciting battles. Your enemies will use their skills, and your guest characters will behave slightly differently from the original game. This makes it even more difficult.
You need to improve the pixel-y and blocky aesthetic of the 1990s strategy games. Some smoothing will make it all work on your Switch OLED TV or 4K TV. The menus have been simplified to make them easier to read and less confusing.
You can add Charms to Tactics Ogre Reborn. These items allow you to change the elemental affinity or give XP. Although it is a far cry from its original 25-year-old self in many ways, it feels good.
Do you know what this makes me think about? Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 reunion is the other upcoming PSP remaster. Although the selling points of the two games are different, Tactics Ogre focuses on system upgrades, while Reunion focuses more on visual development. However, Square Enix’s new Tactics Ogre: “Let Us Cling Together” shows that they know how to rerelease the game properly. We have the opposite, despite numerous pieces of evidence.
This could begin a new arc in Square Enix’s history. Perhaps Square Enix will now pay more attention to the Japanese classics, even though the Western content has been shit-canned. This remake and rerelease are on par with Final Fantasy 8 Remaster. It bodes well for Crisis Core, which will be cratering onto modern consoles and computers in December.
Tactics Ogre Reborn is a critical piece in the history of TRPGs – the game was always a foundational part of the series. This remake shows Square Enix’s ability to leverage its legacy content and what it might mean for the future.
