Also, I unlocked the Lord class. I’m going to spoiler how this class works but I will say obtaining it only happened because I was NOT following a guide to recuit a specific and very powerful story character - I actually flubbed it and the story progressed naturally and not for the best (I’m on track to get a particularly dark ending, iirc, but one I’ve never seen before at least) but I did then (as compensation, I suppose) pick up the Lord class.
If anyone else finds themselves with the Lord class, and thinking “this doesn’t seem great” let me explain. So the Lord class is sort of like the Onion Knight or Mimic type classes in other games - in the OG LUCT switching to Lord allowed you to retain access to every skill you ever learned from other classes. So if your Denem (this is a Main Character only class) had quite a varied time of it with lots of different classes you bought skills from, Lord could use all of them and equip nearly every spell (all elemental and all draconic, even). In Reborn, you don’t buy skills - you unlock them automatically as you level up. By the time I got my hands on Lord I was level 36 and that’s pretty much every skill unlocked for all the classes I had been (which was Warrior and Terror Knight). Not much different than a Terror Knight it felt like, though the Lord has incredible stats so it was a flat upgrade by a good margin in every single stat, so I was pleased about that. Then I realized “what if I just become the other classes I have marks for quick?” so I did - Mage, Berserker, Dragoon, Swordsman, Ninja, etc. and then when I went back to Lord… I had ALL THE SKILLS to pick from. I went with a few from Terror Knight, Phalanx from Knight, equipped some powerful buff spells like Drain Health and Quickness, and just now as I see with Scouting there are a ton of Dragons and Griffons in an upcoming battle, I temporarily equipped Dragonslayer! The versatility is incredible. And again, his stats are out of this world, so Lord was a pretty good freaking consolation prize, turns out.
Thanks for the explanation. Another minor quibble with the game, this fact really ought to be more obviously accessible, given the central role of recruitment in the game, combined with the extensive division of the recruitment skill.
I think it’s one of the systems in the game that makes a lot of sense after you bounce against it a few times - for example, you’ll never not know Familiars are Umbra units now. Deep games like your grand strategy Paradox stuff or things like Shadow Empire are complex and can be hard to get the details you might want, but I feel about those games (and Tactics Ogre) that it actually lends a lot of longevity to the games, if you are willing to roll up your sleeves, dig in (and ask questions).
Still, if a given spot on the unit page gives the relevant race for recruitment, I don’t think it would overdo the demands of a complex game on the UI to always give that information there, and never give something else instead. Not a big deal, and I don’t mind information that is truly being withheld, but I see no plus to burying things in levels of the interface.
However, I may have come to another huge blindness that is all on me: I was working out and listening to a video about the game, most of which was simple stuff. But the guy said that a given Finisher was ice based. So you would be better off if the unit worhipped the ice god. Huh? Where is the fact that a given Finisher is associated with a given element? I cannot find this!
Hard to argue with that - I think it’s a JP thing to be honest, most of the time when systems are weirdly opaque for no reason, it’s a JRPG. /shrug
I would think you would see that info in Finisher description that tickers across the top of the screen. It might be a good note about the finisher’s element, but the finishers seem to mostly be about doing Slashing or Crushing damage, is the thing, so I have a feeling this guy might be making assumptions without actual facts. Some of the finishers have an elemental look to them, undeniable, but I don’t recall actually seeing that element listed. I could be wrong though.
The Phampora Wildwood has enemies you can either recruit or possibly get drops from.
I tried that, too. But I’ve had more consistent mileage out of a +1 bow for stuns combined with Ninjutsu spells. Wreck havoc without risking serious damage to a fairly low defense unit.
I am relieved. I was afraid it was another case of my UI-dyslexia. :)
Just to chime in, that particular familiar you highlighted may not have been a recruitable fairie but there definitely are familiars you can recruit. I got one early in Chapter 4 and it’s my first source of the Heal 3 spell.
In the PSP version you had to have specific characters only available in the chaos route to recruit familiars if I remember correctly. Don’t know if that’s still the case though.
This could be the case then, I am on the chaos route.
Also, I really wish the Ease spell would target more serious effects first. I’m not sure if it has an order it prefers and it just prefers to remove ‘Averse’ over ‘Frightened’ but I haven’t had it hit frightened yet.
I also wish the woodlands at least remembered which areas you’d already been to so that you could find the new spot that opened up immediately. Having to clear the whole place because you don’t know which end has new areas to get to is very annoying. I had to do 10 or 12 fights to find the new maps; just indicate where they are. On the plus side I’ve got plenty of money again.
It seems to me this game is showing there is a substantial demand for turn based tactics / SRPGs of this quality of tactical crunchiness with a modern UI and modern access to information. My understanding is that Triangle Strategy was a try in that direction that only partly succeeded. I’d like to see a game of this nature designed from the ground up for modern systems, with a modern UI, preferably by a developer with chops like HBS, Owlcat, or (even better) Triumph.
Make it happen devs. I feel there is a market. I certainly would give you my money if the game is done right.
Might be the wrong thread for this but I’ve never played a Japanese style tactics game. What’s the difference between these and games like Battle Brothers and Urtuk?
The big differences are mostly aesthetic/thematic, and mechanics tend to be more opaque in the Japanese tactics games. That’s not to say they’re fully transparent in BB or Urtuk, but I think they’re at least slightly more transparent to people who aren’t doing a deep dive into youtube videos and wikis.
Also, too many words in Tactics Ogre. But you can skip them. :)
Oh! I thought of one major difference: Tactics Ogre and most Japanese tactics games are more clearly linear.
That makes sense, Familiar is the class. It is passing strange there isn’t a Race or Ancestor or something category, but maybe they expect you to use the model/art to know what the species is?
Speaking of, I ran into some Lizardman Hoplites and they seem to have some incredible skills. I wonder if I shouldn’t try and recruit one to play around with…
My hope is we get a full-blown Tactics Ogre 8 game at some point.
I’m also very excited to replay a modern remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, which is still rumored to be coming. That’s the game this team went on to make after they created Let Us Cling Togther (whatever it was called back in the 90’s), and while in some ways I prefer Tactics Ogre, in other ways (enough I probably love both equally) I really like FFT.
Hoplite is fun, Juggernaut is one of my favorite melee classes in the game. If it wasn’t changed, they have a tile more move distance than any other bruiser class, which makes them total backline terrors. I never got to use the Patriarch, since they were one of those units that were near impossible to recruit in a reasonable amount of time.
Oh man, am I gonna buy a $60 game that I’ve already played through twice? I’m getting the itch!
I played it in 2011, 2012, and 2017 and I put 39 hours into this new game and I’m nowhere near done with it. It feels different enough that it’s worth a revisit even for us vets, the changes are all good as far as I feel from what I’ve seen - I even really like the level cap, it makes the campaign feel a lot more interesting to me and puts the tactical considerations front and center in a really satisfying way. It’s also really liberating, not having to worry that by exploring all the incredible side/optional content pre-WORLD or CODA you are diminishing the main story’s difficult and interesting battles.
I assume it’s possible to get a mark for this too? I have one lizardman who has been stuck as a warrior because I haven’t gotten anything better he can switch to. Haven’t gotten many marks for the chapter 2 classes yet. One ninja and I think that’s it. Other than that I recruited a swordmaster and that Familiar but just haven’t been seeing new marks.
Speaking of, what skill do I need to recruit those golems I fight every so often? The recruit BEAST skill is not it and I haven’t found one that is right. I seemingly have some class marks that affect them so clearly there must be some way to recruit them.
It is awfully annoying especially, as somebody pointed out above, the recruit skills all reference that category and yet the UI is really bad about letting you in on what category things fall into.
I agree with you there. Triangle Strategy seemingly tried to streamline out a lot of that crunchiness with character classes being locked in and limited itemization. I’d still like to pick it up some day but the streamlining kept me from grabbing it right away even if I think I like the hd-2d style of graphics better.
I’d say the second FFT Advance game was probably the last original SRPG that really felt like it had all of the pieces that I want in one of these.
There is definitely a different feel to them that’s hard to put my finger on. All I can figure is it’s because they keep a lot of the conventions of a JRPG whereas the western versions generally do not. They’ve traditionally had deep class/job switching systems whereas I can’t recall this being too common in a western tactics rpg. If you like Urtuk I think you’d find something like Tactics Ogre to be in the same ballpark. Certainly moreso than a Battle Brothers.
I’m sure it’s possible - I think a lot of these “unusual” and higher end class marks tend to drop in dungeons though, usually when you first beat an enemy of that class type. I may now have some Hoplite marks in my inventory, though I have no Lizardfolk to use them on. Yet!
Golem is its own category, I believe Warlock/Witch class can recruit (and power up) Golems.
Triangle Strategy did a lot of things right, imo, including visuals and story, but it stumbled a bit with replayability and a sense of open/sandbox gameplay. It was super on rails and limited in number of actual tactical engagements, which was fine because there wasn’t a lot to the actual character progression. I hope someday we get a Triangle Strategy 2 that is a lot more ambitious in scope.
I almost forgot about this, but I really enjoyed it not even that long ago (3 or 4 years?) on my old New 3DS XL system. I’d love a chance to play this on the Switch for sure.
Yeah, I don’t know why but I don’t consider Battle Brothers or Urtuk or those games “tactical RPGs”. I don’t really know why though. Probably doesn’t help they are really more like rogue type games.
