Tactics Ogre Reborn - November 11 (PS4/PS5/Swtich/Steam)

EDIT: Officially announced on August 4th with a trailer!

Looks like a page appeared for this on psdeals.net and while we don’t have an official announcement, there is too much information from official sources for it to be fake. So, time for a new thread.

This is a remaster of the PSP version - original thread here.

It looks incredible - the high resolution updates to the art assets look perfect, and it sounds like we’re getting some really important gameplay updates/fixes, as well as many mechanical changes that the fanbase is really excited for. It feels like fans of the PSP version were given free reign to fix the issues that the community had with this otherwise perfect gem, so I’m expecting huge things from this version!

I hope it’s announced for other platforms, like Steam or the Switch, but so far it’s only leaked on psdeals so it’s hard to say for sure - being it was a PSP only title before, it might well be exclusive. I’ll update this space if I find out otherwise.

PS5 or Steam, regardless, I’m in. This was one of my favorite strategy games of all time and I’d love to jump in and replay it, especially with some of the changes to the games AI and class/level system as described (hopefully there are other changes, like the fairly boring but kind of necessary crafting system).


My God. It’s full of stars.

This was in the big Nvidia leak a while back, so we’ve known about it for a long time. (That all but confirms a PC version, and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t also come to Switch.) There was also a PSN listing a couple months back that got pulled pretty quickly that more definitively confirmed it. Kind of wild that we already know more about this game via leaks than we would have learned if any sort of official announcement from Square Enix had happened by now.

I heavily disagree about the graphic improvements - some of the assets look fine, but the character sprites look like they got shoved through a filter from an old SNES emulator. It’s especially obvious when you look at them side-by-side:

Hopefully there’s an option to disable the sprite filters, or failing that, hopefully modders are able to fix it in the PC version.

To clarify, we’ve known about it being in the leak, but it’s even now still not officially announced, technically.

I suppose there is always a camp that doesn’t like the new HD version of pixel art. I can understand that, certainly, but I think this is going to look a lot better, especially on a 65" OLED TV or an Ultrawide 1440p display, depending on what platform I play. If there IS an original Pixel filter option, I would actually use that if I was playing in handheld on the Switch though - I think that original style lends itself better to smaller screens.

I would be more on your side of things if they changed the art style - for example, Final Fantasy on the mobile/original Steam release (before the pixel remaster) I just preferred the one style over the other.

But here, to me, this is the same art style just in HD. I think it looks really clean and I like it a lot. EDIT: I am also eager to see how this looks in motion, likely 60 smooth fps. I suspect it’s going to be really something.

Oh nice! Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre is probably my favorite series. Hopefully there’s a way to speed the game up more and I’m happy.

Maybe a higher difficulty level? Regardless, I’m very excited!

I agree - this bit makes me hopeful it’s been addressed in at least some fashion.

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I’m really excited to play this again (on the Switch? Please, on the Switch…)

But I disagree about the changes to the class leveling system. It’s a step back that it’s going to increase the already significant grinding.

That and the filtered sprites are the two things I’m not 100% sold on.

This isn’t even what’s happening here. These are quite clearly the PSP sprites shoved lazily through a filter, not “HD pixel art.”

Reminder that there’s a very good pair of articles from Defender’s Quest dev Lars Doucet about HD remastering of pixel art, and about Square Enix’s own history of doing this the laziest way possible:

Looks like HD sprites to me. I don’t really care how they achieved the result, I like it. I’m really sorry you do not, but I’m not really interested in debating what you like or don’t like - you do you, I’m not trying to change your mind.

To me this is a big improvement, especially to the battle maps and portraits, but the units look excellent in my opinion.

If they’re going to take the easy way out, I’m surprised they don’t throw them into one of those AI upscalers at least.

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The character portraits and backgrounds were redone by hand, it sounds like.

Yes, they are definitely higher resolution. They aren’t actually filtered, either. The interior detail of the sprites is pixel sharp. The black outlines on the characters are not, though, giving the impression that a filter is in play. Hopefully the outline is optional. The Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition had a similar effect and option.

Looks good to me. Can’t wait.

Oh, PS only? Hope they port it to Switch. Or maybe I should just play the Vita version which I own but haven’t playes much of.

We don’t really know - it’s just that it was found on the PSDeals site, it still hasn’t officially been announced yet.

The vita version is good.

Someone did some work to show off the PSP filters vs. what we are getting from the remake. Others have since realized the black outlines are what looks filtered (I think that was pointed out in this thread as well) and that the actual models retain HD pixel art, but the black outline seems like it might be necessary to be able to more easily pick out game pieces on the board (so to speak).

Anyway, some work here to show off the improvements vs. the PSP version.

Fascinating. I wonder if the non-pixel black outline is part of it. It feels like it’s missing some pop.

I’m sure it’ll look fine in motion when playing so it’s totally irrelevant to the game itself. I’m more interested in the graphic design mystery of why a lot of us react to it this way at first glance.

I feel like I remember discussions along these lines about “I hate/love this new style! “Every time some sort of older game gets remastered. For example, I kind of remember this kind of discussion around the pixel remasters of Final Fantasy. Which I loved personally, but I remember others disliking or not liking as much as the PSP versions.

For me the big news is being able to play the damn thing again. I’m not about to go and buy an old PSP a third time just to play this game again because I once again have a hankering to play it. Especially if it ends up having Ultra Wide Support and I can play it on Steam or PC or whatever, though I’m most likely to be interested in a switch version just plan handheld mode again. Kind of it was designed to be played in my opinion.

Yeah, I think this looks great, but I haven’t played the original.

Officially announced for Switch, Steam, PS4 and PS5.

Excellent.