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Essentially, a lot of the people who claim to like this game loved the story (which is still fantastic), but abused the heck out of wonky mechanics to breeze through the game. Same as FFT, imho.
However, when the game was remade into TO:Reborn, they fixed a lot of the exploitable issues (stat scalings, skill bloat, etc) and imho made it far more in line with Matsuno's other works.
People didn't want that, though.
They wanted to steamroll through the game like you could with the PS1/PSP versions if you had even a slight understanding of the mechanics. The funny part is you kinda can still steamroll through this version, but you just have to get used to the new mechanics. The stubbornness not to do so is imho the very root of the mixed reviews.
An analogy to this would be someone who claims to love FF8, and has played through it 20+ times. Then they remake it and fix the godawful scaling system and nerf the hell out of card mod (can only mod spells based on character level, for example).
People then dogpile about how the game has been ruined.
Like ... "No. It's been fixed. You may not particularly like the outcome, but deal with it."
You see people complain about patch note nerfs and stuff all the time, but slamming the developers and game itself constantly for it? That's just straight up goo-goo-ga-ga baby behavior. At least 3 year olds only throw a tantrum for a few minutes.
Literally all it would have taken was making the Union level and constantly spawning cards optional features, and boom 85-90% positive, probably.
Or you didn't. If you didn't it would be a strategically pretty good game, hard but fair.
And I agree, you can still steamroll through Reborn. But nowadays it feels like,
An expensive sidegrade. I like to disagree.
They remade all graphics into 1080p versions. Just play the Original or heck the PSP version in a emulator or on a PSTV and you see how big a difference the graphic is. Then they remade the OST with a real orchestra this time around, not just like the PSP version. Full Voice Acting in English and Japanese which both don't sound bad and there is allot text.
I know yeah still $50 but for some reason people are fine to pay $60 for Triangle Strategy which even looks a little worse then Tactics Ogre Reborn. Buy it on a sale then, I would say compared to other games it is hardly a bad game.
The graphics are one of the recurring criticisms of the game. You can find numerous topics and reviews mentioning the up-scaled and "filtered" effect Reborn has. Hell, there's some here on Steam.
The arranged soundtrack sounds really really nice, but so did the PSP version. Its of course subjective by nature, but many people prefer many songs from the PSP version over the Reborn arrangement.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tactics_Ogre/comments/128635y/tors_music_is_really_darn_good/
The voice acting is really good overall, again like an 8/10. But... that alone is not worth 50 dollars.
Though most of the stuff was already there, so they saved the developer portion that has to come up with things but because they reworked the fights they still had to do their fair share of try and error. A good example is that in the PSP version the max group size was 10 if memory serves, in Reborn you have many fights where you can bring 12.
I do not know, the graphic does not feel like up-scaled and with a weird filter on it. The game has the same issue the PSP version had, which was crystal clear when you zoomed out but got blurry when zoomed in. Reborn is blurry zoomed in and zoomed max out. The middle setting is crystal clear, at least to me.
For the Soundtrack yes, the PSP was already very very good, you need to listen carefully to hear the difference.
I don't think the commentary about players being skillgapped is a legitimate argument toward negative reviews. The opportunity to gain endless stat boosts in repeatable dungeons is available long before any battles can be considered a brick wall. With the ability to let AI do the fights for you it's just not a viable excuse.
The point about this game being an expensive remaster and not comparing to a brand new game doesn't really hold water for me either. I tried several times to tolerate Triangle Strategy and I put it down after a half hour. I have over 600 hours in Tactics Ogre and I at least can say I got some enjoyment out of it in comparison.
Let's face it though- many of us don't have our own opinion and we're subjected to the will of the masses. If enough people repeat an opinion it becomes true regardless of the merit backing it or lack thereof. Besides it's much easier to avoid subjecting yourself to a "bad experience" than to figure out whether or not you like it for yourself. Least common denominator gaming is here to stay because of the desire to follow the flock.
You're really better off not being concerned with the opinion of others when it bears no significance to how you feel about the subject. In my experience the games with universal praise are often shallow experiences made for porcelain sitting.
If the game was targeted at gamers who played the game before, there is a natural comparison with this and the previous versions. And I believe that is where there is a disconnect. Those gamers have to somehow adapt to the randomised skill cards and also the way classes are stuck with 4 skills and 4 spells amongst other features. If these are not features that most ppl ask for (I assume there aren't based on the comments of returning players in general), they will not likely be receptive of the changes and therefore have a negative opinion.
imho it is a major reason, though.
Sure, you can technically grind for money, crafting ingredients, stat cards and stat-food (through tame/auction) in Phorampa from Ch2, but it takes a long time for very little benefit. Random cards on the map iirc only give about 0.3 to a single stat, which is about 1/10 of what a level would get you (depending on class). This means a full run of all stages in Phorampa would only get you a handful of permanent stat ups, assuming you're taming and auctioning the beasts/dragons. Further, even with those additional stats, it's not going to change that rushing in with a team of 6 berserkers with 100% heal items in all 4 item slots, 2H weapons. and wearing armor without a matching multiplier is going to get annihilated unless they can somehow burst down the boss first. In the end, you reach a point where have to use things like a better balanced team, exploiting elemental/racial multipliers and buffs/debuffs.
But anyway, what that boils down to is what I'd call "getting skillgapped and not even attempting to understand why". It's not a coincidence that these complaints seem to all be about Ch3 bosses, since they start coming in preloaded with cards, 1 or 2 levels above the Union Level, and with more skills than just "level 10 1H-swords". Ch3 is where they start to punish you for trying to brute force with an unbalanced team.
People get whipped, think "I'm not dumb, and I crushed the PSP version, so there's no way it's my fault", blame the new game mechanics, leave a negative review, and then move on with their lives (or make sure everyone knows how much they've been "wronged", like my good friend Pibbs).
Using buffs like strengthen or fortify, using debuffs like breach/weaken/frighten/stun/poison, including a knight with rampart aura/guardian force/phalanx to keep your frontline healthy, better RT/MP management. These are all skills that will overcome things like a stat disadvantage. There's a reason why you almost never see people complaining about Ch4 fights, and that's because Ch3 is when the game forces you to learn, and once you know, you know. The only real complaints I ever hear about Ch4/CODA are:
1) PotD is either "a boring slog" or "annoying because of the pits".
2) The last Ch4 fight is annoying because of the doppelganger mirror-match, so you have to completely change your strats compared to other fights.
Note that neither of these have much to do with cards, auto-skills, or "having my whole team 1-shot", because by this point, they know.
I'm going to point the finger at the free money exploit too. Even less reason to take the time going through repeatable dungeons. Players would be more prepared if they had to grind money, in fact the game is rather stingy with it suggesting it should be done a lot.
They then buy the most expensive shiny armor and wonder why they're dying.
The funny thing is that if you understand the nature of multipliers, stats matter even less.
----
For example:
Let's say you're in Ch3. The most expensive gear in the shop is Baldur, and let's just assume you have enough money/mats to upgrade everything to +1. You have a berserker and you want him to use a Baldur Hammer+1.
So let's check out the differences between a full set of:
Baldur+1 gear[i.imgur.com] vs Ch2 gear +1'd[i.imgur.com].
As you can see, the exact same dude here is losing out on 14 defense by going with the upgraded Ch2 gear ... but then!
Baldur set will have 8 crushing resist, and the Ch2 upgraded set will have 14 crush resist and 1 resist from all race types. So if you're fighting humans, beasts, lizardmen, dragons or golems, the Ch2 upgraded set will be a far better defensive option.
Understanding things like multipliers lets you do things like this:
Denam in Baldur gear with a ton of charms[i.imgur.com] vs a fresh Terror Knight with a ton of crushing/humanoid defense multipliers[i.imgur.com]
Ready? FIGHT![i.imgur.com]
Edit: Figured while I was siming that, I'd show the difference in armor reductions.
Buffsuki Denam vs Ch2 upgraded set[i.imgur.com]
vs Baldur[i.imgur.com]
Still funny to think having all the money you could ever need in this game could be hurting a player two fold.
I agree. If the game is to hard, that would be something to write in the Review, possibly people fear they be called out on it so they come up with other reasons.
I think you are right with this. There where many games similar to Tactics Ogre over the years, Vandal Hearts on the PS1 is one of them among many others on the PSP. Allot of them came with one or more gimmick mechanics that the player has to either like or not like. Some of those games have unusual strategies.
Like as example Mutant Year Zero. I played X-Com, but Mutant Year Zero plays different despite it looking similar, which threw me off originally. In Mutant year Zero you are supposed to try and single out enemies and kill them silently and the best way to do that early on is to just strait walk up to them, even use your movement to run as close as you can to reach 100% hit chance even if they "see" you doing so. If all three of your characters can do as example 18 silence damage, you can kill any enemy that has 18 or less HP without raising any alarm. Later on it gets more complicated forcing you to utilize other mechanics to force critical hits or stun the target to succeed.
Another one was The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk which I found hard early on, but once I understood all the mechanics about Attacks of Opportunity and how to ideally block the AI it became easier. BTW the AI is really good in that game, it punishes every little mistake you make.
Those people that played Original Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre PSP expected "more of the same". I don't know how many people played Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 1 and Advanced 2, those two where also full of gimmick mechanics... which is why I didn't finish them. I hated the Judge.
You are probably right. I think the main difference is the kind of grinding that is required.
In Tactics Ogre PSP not the character gained experience the class gained experience, characters only gained skillpoints needed to unlock more skillslots, and to buy skills. The game got rather ridiculous with how many skillpoints you needed to unlock all 10 skillslots, and unlocking a rank 3 or 4 skill was not cheap either. I played Tactics Ogre PSP for 600 hours and most of that time I ran through Phorampa and Palalce of the Dead for crafting materials but also for skillpoints.
I guess it is not as enticing if all you get is a couple cards for 0.3 stat boost and possible more stat items if you fulfill the other requirements now, is it?
The funny thing is, Ogre Battle PSP already had all those mechanics in place, they where just not tuned as significant as in Reborn.
One thing I read quite often, was people complaining about Archers not dealing any damage anymore, all of a sudden. If you took a closer look, you would have seen that coincidentally at that spot where Archers start to suck the enemies came running with Baldur equipment. The fact that they suddenly had allot more pierce resistance on their gear surely did not have any hand in the fact that Archers did less damage suddenly...
In Reborn the armor value is not the only thing to look out for.
As for Archers, there are Crossbows with crushing damage and later on their real use is the status effects they can cause with their bow finishers among other things. You just can't dominate the game with 3 Archers on your team anymore, which is a sharp turn compared to the Original and PSP versions.
In addition you can setup most units in two ways, either reliant on Auto Skills or not.
As Pickleton says, the later you are in the game the more multipliers and mechanics come in.
The thing is the timing when certain gear appears at spots in the story as it did in Tactics Ogre PSP. The gear itself has the same/similar modifiers. The game does have a big encyclopedia that explains like everything Pickleton and I talked about. Thing is, Tactics Ogre PSP did do those mechanics rather mildly.
Another thing new to Reborn is that they brought back birth elements.
I remember being in a fight, 70% of the enemies where birth element fire and they all went strait for one of my units which was birth element ice. I wondered why, double checking stuff until I figured its the birth element.
There where later more fights, where you have a couple enemies having only one element, and they always hone in on the unit they can deal most damage to. So it pays to check enemy birth elements and sometimes not bringing certain units.
I am not so sure. There are things like Random Fights that I don't understand why its not in the game. You could always retreat in Tactics Ogre PSP, and it literally doesn't save much game space.
The power cards I think are in the game so the longer a fight lasts they help shorten the duration, and making certain units boss encounters. I remember pushing Lance into a card, and suddenly he had no more 2 physical cards and it felt like a deflated balloon, lol.
The Union Level Cap is actually similar, if they had used the system of Tactics Ogre Original you could not have a under-leveled unit in the back while the stronger units deal with the enemies and level that unit up that way. You would be forced to use Training to get that unit up to the others.
The PSP version's main reason for making you level up Classes not characters is probably just that, they tried to make you not need Training Mode that much as in the original.
I think even then people would complain about something. The version I liked most was the Original, Reborn is a close second as it has good graphics(though I would have loved them turn it into the Final Fantasy Tactics like camera ;p)and a ton mechanics that are important.
And it is one thing... it is not unfair.
BTW Pickleton, talk about a Wall-o-text xD
Resistances are not multipliers to Final Damage (after stat-based calculations). They are percentage modifiers to the Stat Overhead, which is the result of subtracting a defending unit's contributions to damage reduction from STR+VIT/MND+RES (Toughness Value) from an attacking unit's contributions to damage dealt from STR+DEX/INT+MND (Offense Value).
Most enemies throughout Chapter 3 do not have a large enough Stat Overhead against your units for the (potentially) higher Physical and Racial Resistance values on the first tier of crafted heavy armor (Bronze Helm/Chainmail/Gauntlets/Chain Leggings) to outweigh the extra 14 DEF from the upgraded Baldur set.
Even against boss enemies who have slightly higher STR+DEX/INT+MND totals than regular enemies, any potential increase in damage reduction from wearing the former set will only be in the low double digits (~10-15 points) at best.
In addition, the Codex of Gems (and by extension, access to Stat Rings outside of lucky boss drops) only drops from the bosses of the Phidoch Castle Curtain Walls (end of Chapter 3), so your frontline fighters will very likely still be using the Warrior's Ring +1 (3% Crush/Slash Pierce Resist), which brings the comparison between the first tier of crafted heavy armor and the baldur tier closer in terms of total Physical Resistance values.
Here is a more accurate simulation comparing both armor sets, with both the attacker and defender at the appropriate levels to simulate early-mid Chapter 3 units: https://imgur.com/a/eURnP7e
The fights in question that people complain about tend to be against enemies that are those exceptions, however. That said, it's just barely at the equilibrium of the "Stat Overhead".
I first ran a simulation for Snow Hektor, using charms and grinding out a knight's sword skill in training mode to have the exact same offensive stats he does.
Hektor v2.0[i.imgur.com]
For the "test dummies", I made a lvl1 warrior and berserker, charmed them both to lvl20, and swapping between the sets made no difference against his regular attacks. The STR bonus on the Bronze/Chain equip did have them able to do more damage to him, though. The hypothesis going forward was that Baldur gives a nice amount of anti-magic damage, but in a pure phys v phys slugfest, the upgraded bronze/chain set seems to be the winner.
To confirm, I tried replicating Balxephon[i.imgur.com] and Oz from their fight in Ch3 Law, but they both have unique weapons I can't quite get, and weapon/magic combinations I can't use. I tried a "close enough" with a rune fencer leveled/charmed out to have the same stats as Bal (had to go up to lvl37 before I got close enough to finish with a few charms!!!), with same equipment aside from spear being a Scorpion+1 since it gives about the same ATK value. The dummies that I made no changes to other than charming their levels up to 25 took less physical damage in the Bronze/Chain set, and less magic damage in the Baldur set.
So yeah, in the end, I think we're both right. Against non-boss enemies, Baldur is objectively better defensively. However, against physical-oriented stat'd out bosses, the Bronze/Chain set does give enough more multipliers to make up for the hard armor while edging out a bit offensively.