Should I do every route to completion?

[Marik]

I have completed chaos and am now into neutral. I have all the unique characters from neutral right now. Should I bother to finish it, or can I safely move on to law?

[Pickleton]

If you got Catiua in your chaos playthrough, I'd go up to the part where she could join and farm a few lord marks if you haven't already. From there, I'd do the first 5 (I think it's 5) floors of PotD for the Warren Report entry of that version of the fight in your log, since iirc it's different from the Law/Chaos versions. Once you've got those done, yeah I'd hop into Law.
You're gonna want to get the princess ending on your final law playthrough, iirc, since you need to have certain characters in your party and alive in warren report (not sure which ones, but I know the Golyat 3 are among them).

[Haddon]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

If you got Catiua in your chaos playthrough, I'd go up to the part where she could join and farm a few lord marks if you haven't already. From there, I'd do the first 5 (I think it's 5) floors of PotD for the Warren Report entry of that version of the fight in your log, since iirc it's different from the Law/Chaos versions. Once you've got those done, yeah I'd hop into Law.
You're gonna want to get the princess ending on your final law playthrough, iirc, since you need to have certain characters in your party and alive in warren report (not sure which ones, but I know the Golyat 3 are among them).

Mirdyn and Gildas are necessary for CODA, so they need to be alive IIRC. Canopus too. There are a few others that need to be alive to get their final Warren entry, but not to unlock CODA. Also need to beat Nybeth in C1, but that is easy.

[DragonNoz]

What if you're a first-timer? that's what I am. I wanna get the most fun out of the game, but I dunno which I should do. Should I just ignore Neutral, since (story-wise, at least) it's the weakest of the 3 routes?

[Pickleton]

imo Chaos route for first playthrough, especially if you're going blind. Law has "better" optional characters, but you'd need to know how to get them beforehand. Also Chaos has best waifu Cerya.

[DragonNoz]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

imo Chaos route for first playthrough, especially if you're going blind. Law has "better" optional characters, but you'd need to know how to get them beforehand. Also Chaos has best waifu Cerya.

what about Neutral? should I just skip that entirely?

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Originally posted by Pickleton:

imo Chaos route for first playthrough, especially if you're going blind. Law has "better" optional characters, but you'd need to know how to get them beforehand. Also Chaos has best waifu Cerya.

what about Neutral? should I just skip that entirely?

Honestly the storyline feels forced outside of the Nybeth stuff, and none of the Neutral-only uniques are interesting imho. Heck, 3 of them are named generics like Voltaire and Sara from ch1, with one of them being a wizard that has even worse RT than a generic. It also has a way harder version of the fight to get Cerya, since it becomes an escort map.

[DragonNoz]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

imo Chaos route for first playthrough, especially if you're going blind. Law has "better" optional characters, but you'd need to know how to get them beforehand. Also Chaos has best waifu Cerya.

technically, can't you get Law and Chaos on the same playthrough thanks to the CODA?Plus, some think that "Law" was the story that the game was trying to tell, though I can't really confirm if that's "true" or not.

[DragonNoz]

I also come up with theories GALORE for the whole time-travel thing at the end. Like, do Denam and the others retain their memories, or does only their SPIRIT go back? and what of the characters recruited in the Chaos and Neutral routes? how would THEY interact with those of the "other" timeline?

[Raelic]

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Originally posted by Pickleton:

imo Chaos route for first playthrough, especially if you're going blind. Law has "better" optional characters, but you'd need to know how to get them beforehand. Also Chaos has best waifu Cerya.

technically, can't you get Law and Chaos on the same playthrough thanks to the CODA?Plus, some think that "Law" was the story that the game was trying to tell, though I can't really confirm if that's "true" or not.

No.

--

And I did Chaos first and let Catuia die. I got Cressida, but did not do Palace of the Dead. I did the four elemental shrines here too. Of note as well, I did not strip down my Denam and take him solo into one story battle on this playthrough. I did not use Lord class immediately, but did eventually. I recommend doing Coda Chapter 1 here as well so you can get the union level 50 before using Lord class marks. Get Denam to level 50, swap him to every class in the game you can, then change him to Lord last.

Then I did Neutral starting at the end of chapter 2 and letting Catuia live. I did strip Denam down and take him solo for one story battle on this playthrough.

Then I did Lawful starting at the end of chapter 1. I did Palace of the Dead here in chapter 4.

Then I did Coda chapter 1 only. You could do this at the end of the first playthrough as well and I even recommend it so your union level is 50.

That was enough for 100% achievements/trophies.

I used this guide to make sure I got all possible recruits, which weren't all necessary, but some were. Catuia's has an error in the first part, but so long as you follow the second part, you'll be fine either way.

https://www.thegamer.com/tactics-ogre-reborn-all-characters-recruitment/

[DragonNoz]

Alright, I started up Chaos, saw Ravness die. I'll go through Chaos to the end, then loop back to Law. or should I keep a seperate save slot for Law?

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Alright, I started up Chaos, saw Ravness die. I'll go through Chaos to the end, then loop back to Law. or should I keep a seperate save slot for Law?

Only reason to keep a separate save would be if you wanted to play through the other chapter with the same stats and gear as you would normally have at that point. Better to just go through law later on through WORLD, imho. Having the gear and skills despite being scaled down on level still gives you a massive bonus.

[DragonNoz]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Alright, I started up Chaos, saw Ravness die. I'll go through Chaos to the end, then loop back to Law. or should I keep a seperate save slot for Law?

Only reason to keep a separate save would be if you wanted to play through the other chapter with the same stats and gear as you would normally have at that point. Better to just go through law later on through WORLD, imho. Having the gear and skills despite being scaled down on level still gives you a massive bonus.

By "Scaled down", you mean that your levels are instantly taken down to either the minimum or...?

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Originally posted by Pickleton:

Only reason to keep a separate save would be if you wanted to play through the other chapter with the same stats and gear as you would normally have at that point. Better to just go through law later on through WORLD, imho. Having the gear and skills despite being scaled down on level still gives you a massive bonus.

By "Scaled down", you mean that your levels are instantly taken down to either the minimum or...?

Your levels are scaled down to the union level you would be at at that point, and your gear's stats (but not multipliers or effects) are brought down to about what gear the enemy has. This sounds like it would make you about as strong as you "normally" would be, but gear from later on has stuff like multipliers and elemental/racial resistances. Also, you can still use the higher tier skills, and the "shot" items scale with your weapon skill. A character with 40 weapon skill will do hundreds of damage by throwing a shot item regardless of enemy defenses. Meditate IV will restore more MP than Meditate II, etc.

[Raelic]

Originally posted by Pickleton:

Originally posted by DragonNoz:

Alright, I started up Chaos, saw Ravness die. I'll go through Chaos to the end, then loop back to Law. or should I keep a seperate save slot for Law?

Only reason to keep a separate save would be if you wanted to play through the other chapter with the same stats and gear as you would normally have at that point. Better to just go through law later on through WORLD, imho. Having the gear and skills despite being scaled down on level still gives you a massive bonus.

Not to be overly pedantic, and I know you know this, but another reason to keep additional saves is for Fort battles with multiple fights. If you're ever landing on a castle/fort and get pulled into a smaller map, I'd keep a second save just for inside.

The game will not allow you to withdraw after the first fight. There are some difficult fights after the first fight. You might find yourself in a frustrating save spot if you've overwritten your only save and are in the middle of a series of fort fights.

This is out of context to what they were talking about, but I didn't want someone reading this to think they didn't need multiple saves.

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by Raelic:

Originally posted by Pickleton:

Only reason to keep a separate save would be if you wanted to play through the other chapter with the same stats and gear as you would normally have at that point. Better to just go through law later on through WORLD, imho. Having the gear and skills despite being scaled down on level still gives you a massive bonus.

Not to be overly pedantic, and I know you know this, but another reason to keep additional saves is for Fort battles with multiple fights. If you're ever landing on a castle/fort and get pulled into a smaller map, I'd keep a second save just for inside.

The game will not allow you to withdraw after the first fight. There are some difficult fights after the first fight. You might find yourself in a frustrating save spot if you've overwritten your only save and are in the middle of a series of fort fights.

This is out of context to what they were talking about, but I didn't want someone reading this to think they didn't need multiple saves.

Oh definitely. I was more referring to that for story purposes, you don't need a backup save at every fork in case you want to pick a different route without starting over. In the post game you can just pick the node near the end of ch1, make the other choice and then proceed from there. Don't need to roll back to your ch1 save and lose all your late/post-game progress.