The Collection: Tactics Ogre
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together for the PSP, developed and published by Square Enix.
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is a remake of the PSOne title of the same name, which itself was a remake of a similarly titled SNES title. This PSP remake tells of three grown war orphans forced to make difficult choices in a time of war in a game system which allows replayable branching story elements to discover different ways the story can unfold. A direct comparison inevitably comes with the similarly themed Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions; both are war torn countries, both have complex familial relationships, both feature job-based characters in a turn based tactical RPG. Those familiar with FFT will find this both immediately familiar and unexpectedly dissonant.
The job classes featured in TO are similar in nature to those of FFT: use acquired skill points to purchase new abilities for your class to use in combat and be able to use most of those purchased skills when that character has switched to a different class later on. Here, however, many of the classes have overlapping talents, allowing the Divine Magic you acquired as a Cleric to also function when switching over to a Knight. It not only saves you points, but it also subtly nudges character growth in a specific direction to utilize the shared skills. (It's silly to switch your Mage to a Barbarian since the latter can't use magic, but a Rune Fencer would fit the bill.)
Whereas FFT limited your combat party number to 6 or so, most battles in TO require about 8 to 10 unites, max of 12, leading to huge skirmishes and very bloody fights. With 24 or so units on a battlefield at one time it's easy to get lost in the melee, but here you usually have one goal: kill the leader. Should the enemy leader fall, the battle ends immediately regardless of how many troops remain on either side. Sometimes, if you're clever, the leader will be the only enemy unit to die, bringing a swift end to an otherwise drawn-out battle of attrition. Also, TO's Phoenix Down equivalent, the Restoration Stone, is intentionally expensive, limiting you to how often you can revive troops on the field.
The most notable combat feature is the Chariot, a mechanism which recalls the last 50 moves of the current battle. You can choose to return to any move in that list at any time in hopes of changing the outcome of the battle. Do you need to save a character? Are your fighters about to die? Did the monster not drop the item you wanted? Rewind time and try it again! I haven't used it (more to the point, I *won't* use it as I'm stubborn), but then again I haven't actually had to just yet. The battles generally supply monsters/foes equal in strength to your team (unless you're training in a new job), so I tend to go with it. This feature is key to manipulating the branching paths of the story, as certain characters are fundamental to plot and it would be poor form to have a protagonist die in a random fight unless you planned on it in advance. I'll exploit this little nugget when I want to play the Lawful path when I'm finished with my Chaotic one.
Graphically, the two games are comparable. Both feature animated little fighters, both feature neat graphics for attacks, both have similar terrain, and both feature some flashy magicks. Where FFT offers more flair and larger scale magick attacks, TO focuses on speedy battles, a variety of recruitable monsters, and a reigned-in magick system.
In the end, it's not as flashy on the surface but it gives you some great tools to work with and boasts some hefty replay time.
Oh! And should you be wondering, yes, "Let Us Cling Together" is a reference to a Queen song. It seems that this series has several references to Queen throughout its games.
Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Flaming Rats
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is a remake of the PSOne title of the same name, which itself was a remake of a similarly titled SNES title. This PSP remake tells of three grown war orphans forced to make difficult choices in a time of war in a game system which allows replayable branching story elements to discover different ways the story can unfold. A direct comparison inevitably comes with the similarly themed Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions; both are war torn countries, both have complex familial relationships, both feature job-based characters in a turn based tactical RPG. Those familiar with FFT will find this both immediately familiar and unexpectedly dissonant.
The job classes featured in TO are similar in nature to those of FFT: use acquired skill points to purchase new abilities for your class to use in combat and be able to use most of those purchased skills when that character has switched to a different class later on. Here, however, many of the classes have overlapping talents, allowing the Divine Magic you acquired as a Cleric to also function when switching over to a Knight. It not only saves you points, but it also subtly nudges character growth in a specific direction to utilize the shared skills. (It's silly to switch your Mage to a Barbarian since the latter can't use magic, but a Rune Fencer would fit the bill.)
Whereas FFT limited your combat party number to 6 or so, most battles in TO require about 8 to 10 unites, max of 12, leading to huge skirmishes and very bloody fights. With 24 or so units on a battlefield at one time it's easy to get lost in the melee, but here you usually have one goal: kill the leader. Should the enemy leader fall, the battle ends immediately regardless of how many troops remain on either side. Sometimes, if you're clever, the leader will be the only enemy unit to die, bringing a swift end to an otherwise drawn-out battle of attrition. Also, TO's Phoenix Down equivalent, the Restoration Stone, is intentionally expensive, limiting you to how often you can revive troops on the field.
The most notable combat feature is the Chariot, a mechanism which recalls the last 50 moves of the current battle. You can choose to return to any move in that list at any time in hopes of changing the outcome of the battle. Do you need to save a character? Are your fighters about to die? Did the monster not drop the item you wanted? Rewind time and try it again! I haven't used it (more to the point, I *won't* use it as I'm stubborn), but then again I haven't actually had to just yet. The battles generally supply monsters/foes equal in strength to your team (unless you're training in a new job), so I tend to go with it. This feature is key to manipulating the branching paths of the story, as certain characters are fundamental to plot and it would be poor form to have a protagonist die in a random fight unless you planned on it in advance. I'll exploit this little nugget when I want to play the Lawful path when I'm finished with my Chaotic one.
Graphically, the two games are comparable. Both feature animated little fighters, both feature neat graphics for attacks, both have similar terrain, and both feature some flashy magicks. Where FFT offers more flair and larger scale magick attacks, TO focuses on speedy battles, a variety of recruitable monsters, and a reigned-in magick system.
In the end, it's not as flashy on the surface but it gives you some great tools to work with and boasts some hefty replay time.
Oh! And should you be wondering, yes, "Let Us Cling Together" is a reference to a Queen song. It seems that this series has several references to Queen throughout its games.
Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Flaming Rats