Tactics Ogre - Let Us Cling Together (PSP)

[Kevin Grey]

Sorry if this questiuon has been asked before but is this remake better or worse then the original game? I've heard the conflicting points of view about it from people who played both. (I haven't played either one yet, but I am planning to do it soon).

I have minimal experience with the original because it was frankly too cumbersome so in my opinion the remake is dramatically better. Anecdotally I've seen very few opinions that feel that the original version is superior.

[BleedTheFreak]

I have minimal experience with the original because it was frankly too cumbersome so in my opinion the remake is dramatically better. Anecdotally I've seen very few opinions that feel that the original version is superior.

I definately agree here - I've only (in fact) seen a single review (and it wasn't a professional review, more like a blog post) where the reviewer preferred the mechanics of the first game.

That said, I will say the game isn't super challenging. Some fights are definately hard, but most of them aren't and I'm not the best at strategy games.

The AI is solid and competent but not amazing or smart. For example, it will ALWAYS use it's Terror Knights dumb by attacking and THEN using Frightening Strike or whatever it's called. Or it will drop a Petrify on a unit with a 0% chance of success. However, in 60+ hours of gameplay, the AI served itself pretty well over all.

Not sure of the AI in the original game - I never played that (though I watched a buddy play it quite a bit - and this one is MUCH improved as far as I'm concerned from EVERY time I watched him play he was in training mode beating up his own units to get everyone to be the exact same level - ugh, I'm glad that's gone).

[Mind Elemental]

Yet another "Canopus build" question!

This is more about the availability of gear (I'm currently near the end of chapter 1) - will better one-handed axes and bows unlock later on? Canopus starts with those two as his weapon skills, and I like being able to use him in either ranged or hand-to-hand combat. So I'd rather not switch him to Archer (which would allow him to wield 2H bows), and besides, I wouldn't be able to switch him back to his starting class! But the new axes and bows I see in the shops are all two-handed, and his starting shortbow is becoming increasingly obsolete....

[razarok]

Yet another "Canopus build" question!

This is more about the availability of gear (I'm currently near the end of chapter 1) - will better one-handed axes and bows unlock later on? Canopus starts with those two as his weapon skills, and I like being able to use him in either ranged or hand-to-hand combat. So I'd rather not switch him to Archer (which would allow him to wield 2H bows), and besides, I wouldn't be able to switch him back to his starting class! But the new axes and bows I see in the shops are all two-handed, and his starting shortbow is becoming increasingly obsolete....

I'm also in chapter 1, though still in the middle I believe. I, for one, immediately unequipped bow+axe skills and gave him the crossbow skill instead. I also bought the 1900 (crushing dmg, I believe) crossbow.

This makes him two-shot most squishies and also do good damage to armored foes.

[BleedTheFreak]

Yet another "Canopus build" question!

This is more about the availability of gear (I'm currently near the end of chapter 1) - will better one-handed axes and bows unlock later on? Canopus starts with those two as his weapon skills, and I like being able to use him in either ranged or hand-to-hand combat. So I'd rather not switch him to Archer (which would allow him to wield 2H bows), and besides, I wouldn't be able to switch him back to his starting class! But the new axes and bows I see in the shops are all two-handed, and his starting shortbow is becoming increasingly obsolete....

As razarok mentioned above getting Canopus a crossbow early on is a good move. I didn't do it until chapter 4 (because I already had a bow ser in the party and he was falling behind only being able to use the 1h bows) but I'm glad I did - but I regret not having him build up all that skill in the meanwhile.

He's probably excellent at any role you give him, so you could probably swap him into a Warrior or other front line fighter and hand him a shield to go with that axe and he'd be terrific. Like most of the named characters, he's pretty powerful.

[Tyrion]

Sorry if this questiuon has been asked before but is this remake better or worse then the original game? I've heard the conflicting points of view about it from people who played both. (I haven't played either one yet, but I am planning to do it soon).

There is literally nothing better about the original game. The only unfavourable comparison I've seen was because the complainer thought that the CHARIOT system made things too easy (despite the fact that it's completely optional and makes the game a hundred times more playable).

[Thasero]

Both one-handed axes and one-handed bows do show up again later in the game, but there's a fair dry spell from Chapter 1 until the time they show up. Crossbows also switch from being one-handed to being two-handed for a bit, although again, one-handed crossbows will appear later on.

If you want to have a character equip both melee and ranged, one way is to just craft items to their +1 equivalents when you see that the next tier of weapons requires 2 hands. A shortbow +1 or crossbow +1 will fare pretty well until the shops cough up the inventory.

The main difference between bows and crossbows is flight path. Bows can shoot over obstacles and gain bonus range when firing at lower elevations, but conversely have limited range against higher elevations. Crossbows need to have line-of-sight but are always able to hit a target that's within the horizontal range, even if it's on top of a skyscraper.

Once you get access to throwing weapons and blowdarts, those are ranged weapons that consistently only require one hand and therefore are reliable swap weapons. The bad news is that you have to buy ammo for throwing weapons and the good blowdarts require crafting to get the base item.

[Mind Elemental]

Thanks for the help, guys!

I ended up giving Canopus the two-handed, $1900 crossbow but leaving him in his starting class (I didn't want to change his class to give him a two-handed longbow). The flat trajectory and limited range of the crossbow aren't ideal for him, considering he tends to have the high ground, but it works acceptably enough because of his mobility - and it packs a nasty punch.

I'm a little bit into Chapter 2C now, and really enjoying some of the little touches with the storytelling. It is well worth paying attention to the Warren Report...

[razarok]

Really enjoying this game. I think I'm near the end of chapter 1. There was an interesting 'moral' choice opportunity, where I actually had to put the game down for 2-3 minutes and consider my options. This looks like PSP GOTY so far for me, perhaps even portable GOTY, though there are still going to be many releases and I still haven't played the supposedly excellent Radiant Historia.

Some more questions:

1.) Do (cross-)bow attacks count as physical attacks? Are they influenced by Fortify (or whatever the increased physical dmg skill is called?).

2.) Is divine magic (healing) influenced by augment light?

3.) Is there any way to customize the AI settings? I just tried it in one fight and characters seemed hellbent on using unneeded items (magic leafs at the beginning of fights, even though first enemy contact would take 2-3 rounds).

4.) Same with Spellcraft. Does it only affect direct damage spells or the effeciveness of spells in general (crowd control, healing etc.)?

5.) Any way to tame melee fighter guests? I just spent an entire battle chasing a guest warrior with 3 healers and even then he died in the end...

6.) This might be because I'm still in chapter 1, but what's up with the discepency in the amount of units I can field in random encounters and story missions?

[doopliss]

1.) Crossbows are physical attacks so strengthen boosts it. Not sure of the formulas but some weapons are influenced by dex as well as strength though.

2.) Augment light seems to only have a slight effect on healing (1-3 points in my experience). It's mostly there to boost offensive light magic (spirit surge, etc). Healing magic in general seem to have mostly set values for HP recovery.

3.) Not that I know of, I tend to burn through items quickly with AI on too.

4.) Spellcraft boosts offensive magic damage, while spell strike boosts the chance of status effect like spells to hit.

5.) Guests will only join you once you fulfill certain storyline conditions. Each race has a corresponding skill to recruit it, though (coax recruits reptile units, etc).

6.) More maps open up where you can have more characters as you go through the storyline. There are a few where you can have up to 12.

[razarok]

1.) Crossbows are physical attacks so strengthen boosts it. Not sure of the formulas but some weapons are influenced by dex as well as strength though.

2.) Augment light seems to only have a slight effect on healing (1-3 points in my experience). It's mostly there to boost offensive light magic (spirit surge, etc). Healing magic in general seem to have mostly set values for HP recovery.

3.) Not that I know of, I tend to burn through items quickly with AI on too.

4.) Spellcraft boosts offensive magic damage, while spell strike boosts the chance of status effect like spells to hit.

5.) Guests will only join you once you fulfill certain storyline conditions. Each race has a corresponding skill to recruit it, though (coax recruits reptile units, etc).

6.) More maps open up where you can have more characters as you go through the storyline. There are a few where you can have up to 12.

Thanks for clearing all that up!

[bluemax]

I switched Canopus to an archer midway through Chapter 1 and gave him a normal bow. I'm in Chapter 3 right now and he has a Baldur Bow +1 and absolutely destroys mages and archers.

[Tortilla]

I'm chugging through chapter 3 at the moment and I'm coming to the conclusion that melee characters are just about useless. I kept expecting later game skills or equipment to make a difference but at the end of the day my spellcasters and archers kill 80%-90% of the enemies in every fight.

I think it's time to stop waste time leveling up melee classes and just resign myself to a party of 50% archers, 25% casters, and the other 25% as token clerics and meatshields.

[JM]

I'm only on chapter 2 but surely the meatshield aspect is pretty critical? And for some reason my melee characters are a lot faster than everyone except Captain Deathwing himself (Canopus!).

Strategy guide is in the post... I'm adoring this game. I want my commute to be longer.

[Shmtur]

I'm chugging through chapter 3 at the moment and I'm coming to the conclusion that melee characters are just about useless. I kept expecting later game skills or equipment to make a difference but at the end of the day my spellcasters and archers kill 80%-90% of the enemies in every fight.

I think it's time to stop waste time leveling up melee classes and just resign myself to a party of 50% archers, 25% casters, and the other 25% as token clerics and meatshields.

Make a ninja - dual wield solves the problem. My ninja can one-hit (well, technically two) almost everything at this point.

I switched Canopus to an archer midway through Chapter 1 and gave him a normal bow. I'm in Chapter 3 right now and he has a Baldur Bow +1 and absolutely destroys mages and archers.

I did the same, minus the Baldur Bow - the previous (two handed) bow has a longer range, so on 50% or more of maps, Canopus can hit the enemy on the first turn. Anyone who leaves Canopus as the default class is missing out; he's even more ridiculously powerful as an archer. Having a melee weapon doesn't matter when you can kill enemies halfway across the map.

[Matt Bowyer]

I'm chugging through chapter 3 at the moment and I'm coming to the conclusion that melee characters are just about useless. I kept expecting later game skills or equipment to make a difference but at the end of the day my spellcasters and archers kill 80%-90% of the enemies in every fight.

I think it's time to stop waste time leveling up melee classes and just resign myself to a party of 50% archers, 25% casters, and the other 25% as token clerics and meatshields.

I have not found that to be the case. In Chapter 4, with both of them having upgraded equipment, Denam as a Knight is clobbering people for around 90 damage, and Arycelle as an Archer is shooting them for 130. She's doing more, certainly, but she also struggles when facing anything like a Knight, a Golem, a Dragon, etc. When one of those latter two enemies shows up, my Witch can unleash some magical hell on it, but she's more useful debuffing people and Strengthening Denam and my other knights.

I tend to roll with two knights, a ninja, a swordmaster, a witch, a wizard, an archer, two vartans, and then whoever I'm fond of at the moment. I still use a valkyrie, though she's mostly for casting Fire-Touched on people.

[Matt Bowyer]

I did the same, minus the Baldur Bow - the previous (two handed) bow has a longer range, so on 50% or more of maps, Canopus can hit the enemy on the first turn. Anyone who leaves Canopus as the default class is missing out; he's even more ridiculously powerful as an archer. Having a melee weapon doesn't matter when you can kill enemies halfway across the map.

I did this, then turned him back into a Vartan. The longbow has 5-8 range versus the 3-6 of the Baldur Bow, but I think his 5 Move vs. 3 is more valuable. Canopus can cover a lot of ground now and that makes him more useful to me in some of these maps where you start out at a massive disadvantage. Getting him up on a roof on turn one and shooting clerics dead immediately is -very- valuable.

[Tortilla]

Make a ninja - dual wield solves the problem. My ninja can one-hit (well, technically two) almost everything at this point.

I do have a ninja but his damage output with dual wield isn't super impressive. He's my best melee damage dealer certainly but he's not one shotting anything. Are you using dual crafted weapons on your ninja?

[Matt Bowyer]

I do have a ninja but his damage output with dual wield isn't super impressive. He's my best melee damage dealer certainly but he's not one shotting anything. Are you using dual crafted weapons on your ninja?

I can't answer for Shmtur, but my ninjas weren't using crafted weaponry and they were still one-shotting things with Double Attack, up to and including terror knights and occasionally regular knights. Not so much for dragons, though.

[Tortilla]

I have not found that to be the case. In Chapter 4, with both of them having upgraded equipment, Denam as a Knight is clobbering people for around 90 damage, and Arycelle as an Archer is shooting them for 130. She's doing more, certainly, but she also struggles when facing anything like a Knight, a Golem, a Dragon, etc. When one of those latter two enemies shows up, my Witch can unleash some magical hell on it, but she's more useful debuffing people and Strengthening Denam and my other knights.

I'm not sure I'm following you here, because I notice the same damage split you listed and that's why I've concluded melee characters are fairly worthless for anything except tanking. My archers do noticeably more damage, just like you pointed out, against any target susceptible to physical attacks. Yeah they won't one shot a dragon or a golem but that's what the spellcasters are there for.

Why wouldn't you just switch up your party and drop, say, one knight and a swordmaster for two more archers? You'd get better damage output and more importantly you'd get a much more consistent ability to focus attacks on a target of choice.

[Matt Bowyer]

I'm not sure I'm following you here, because I notice the same damage split you listed and that's why I've concluded melee characters are fairly worthless for anything except tanking. My archers do noticeably more damage, just like you pointed out, against any target susceptible to physical attacks. Yeah they won't one shot a dragon or a golem but that's what the spellcasters are there for.

Why wouldn't you just switch up your party and drop, say, one knight and a swordmaster for two more archers? You'd get better damage output and more importantly you'd get a much more consistent ability to focus attacks on a target of choice.

A) Knights can heal, and I still often need to heal,
B) Knights prevent enemies from making it to my precious mages and archers,
C) A Knight with Phalanx on can absorb a TON of damage from mages/terror knights/dragons/etc.
D) It can take a full turn of everyone focus-firing a dragon/knight/golem/etc. to get rid of it, and by then everything else is one turn closer to killing me. Sending 1-2 Knights out to stall them with Rampant Aura and Phalanx means I can let my archers focus on the squishy targets and my knights serve as the front line.
E) My Knights can recruit since they're right next to the enemy, and I leveled Rogues up from 1-13 solely through recruiting then firing.
F) I don't wanna. Yes, this is completely personal, but I don't want to field an entire army of archers in the same way that I didn't want to send out an army of calculators in Final Fantasy Tactics. Sure, I could, and there are battles where I've used 5 Archers. But I don't want to do that. I'd rather field a balanced force and have at it.

[Tortilla]

Hmm, I probably shouldn't bring up my calculator FFT exploits then. Though honestly calculators in FFT were forgivable. You had to grind a LOT to develop a scary calculator character. Archer is one of the base classes in this game so it seems odd that they are such powerhouses.

[Matt Bowyer]

Hmm, I probably shouldn't bring up my calculator FFT exploits then. Though honestly calculators in FFT were forgivable. You had to grind a LOT to develop a scary calculator character. Archer is one of the base classes in this game so it seems odd that they are such powerhouses.

Oh, I sent one calculator out into most every battle in FFT, but not 5-6. You don't have to use 12 Archers in TO anymore than you had to use Orlandu and 5 Calculators in FFT.

[Tortilla]

I may have done the Orlandu and main character and all the rest calculators thing in FFT. Once. Just for a moment. Just to see how it felt.

[Matt Bowyer]

Pretty sexy, huh?

Yeah, it's possible to cheese TO without a whole lot of work, and that's good for when you need to get through something difficult and you just want to see what happens next. But I know of a few battles that had I not had Knights (and a Vartan for mobility), I would have lost. Cressida, for one. HATED THAT. But I did it!

[Adam B]

Using Orlandu in FFT is cheating. Even Agrias is pretty unfair.

At least TO doesn't have that level of silliness.

[Tortilla]

Yay! An accusation of cheating for using a rpg feature that is clearly working as designed and is offered to the player on a platter! I haven't had this debate on the internet for years. Thank you Adam, I'm really reveling in the nostalgia over here.

[Adam B]

I clearly meant that a bit tongue-in-cheek, since yeah he's a character who always joins your party at a certain point in the story and is fully controllable shortly thereafter. Don't let me stop you getting up on that cross, though.

[Tortilla]

Yes, I know you weren't serious. Neither was I. My bad for not including more winkyfaces.

[Matt Bowyer]

I think you guys need to use the Chariot to rewind to turn 176 and try that again. Too many misses!