/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5283019
No, it's all Ogre now.

>>5283019
First one is Ogre Battle Episode V: March of the Black Queen. Where are episodes 1-4?

>>5283189
I actually have no idea, does anybody have an answer for this?

>>5283189
Similar to Lucas's initial plan for Star Wars (before he chose to do the prequels), the Ogre Battle games were meant to start in the middle of the saga covering specific points. Takahashi's initial Xenogears plan was similar. Ultimately large-scale far-reaching plans like these aren't a safe idea because they rely on circumstances to remain consistent. Lucas was lucky because he ended up with full creative control and total wealth, but he ended up only making three more movies and not doing his initial nine movie plan.

God I fucking love Tactics Ogre so much

I know it’s become a meme but let’s all just be honest with our selves here... Ogre Battle? Tactics Ogre? Vagrant Story?

PURE FUCKING KINO

>>5283680
I don't know if you're being seriously or not but you largely have to thank Yasumi Matsuno for some of this. His skill in writing a really cool geopolitical struggle is what sets apart this series from other Japanese video game fantasy settings
And >>5283463 's post makes me feel sad because it will always feel like the Ogre Battle Saga will be incomplete and we're never going to get anything like it ever again...

>>5283716
It most likely will never be finished. Matsuno is "difficult to work with" to quote some SE people. He's used to having pretty much full control over story and a lot of control over development, which isn't really a possibility anymore now that budgets are so large and staff sizes so big, or most importantly target audiences so vast.

He does ensure that there's plenty of nuance in the stories he writes though, and they usually turn out fairly grounded since they're almost always based on real life events (Such as the war of the roses for FFT, or the Yugoslav Civil War for LuCT), and popular among westerners because the events are familiar even to those who don't know exactly where they came from and because the west prefers greater detail to the behind the scenes happenings and logical consistency. He had a small opportunity to work on something current with SE in the form of a set of raid instances based on FFT/FF12 for FF14, but I don't know if he'll continue. I believe when Yoshida was asked if this signified his return, he basically said it was up to Matsuno, in the sense he'd have to learn to work in a modern development structure and not complain when a committee of peers overrules him.

>>5283741
I'll admit that I did get a little excited when I saw some love from the Final Fantasy games Matsuno worked on within FF14, even though I couldn't really be arsed to play the damn game. I really was holding onto the dream that it meant he was back but now that you say he'd have to "learn to work in a modern development structure and not complain when a committee of peers overrules him" it really makes me think about what I'm asking for here. Of course I still want him to work on a game anyway.

>>5283753
the story in the FFT raid shit in XIV is kind of awful

>>5283761
Wouldn't really know anything about that, I don't really have time for MMOs these days.

>>5283069
fpbp

>>5283189
>>5283242
Shhh... don't tell anyone but Conquest of the Crystal Palace is the first one.

>>5284283
What the hell is this?

bump
Goddamn it, where are my Ogre bros?

>>5285630
is Oger Battle 64 good enough for you to put up with, ya know, the 64 part?

>>5285640
>the 64 part?
What do you mean? That's probably what makes the game actually worth a damn. I mean the battles are probably some of the most vibrantly animated battles in the entire series, that includes the psp version of Luct. I think one of the worst features of the game is the Elem pedras(which replace the Tarot Cards) but if you liked March of the Black Queen you might enjoy 64 a little more.

>>5283753
The kickstarter that Matsuno got Jewed hard on has switched developers and might be picking up development again so you might see more of his game kino in the future.

>>5285663
You mean Unsung Story? Yeah it has new updates, have you seen em? Pretty much Matsuno and the artist Yoshida have nothing to do with it anymore and while it may sound petty have you seen the fucking 180 design philosophy they took lately? The concept art promised a semi realistic with a touch of fantasy art-style and the shit I'm seeing on there now has pretty much made me no longer interested. There's a chance it still could be fun but it's not what I wanted.

>>5283761
It's fucking miserable, but hilariously, he DID offer to write an original story bu Yoshi-P specifically requested ebin references only.

The Tactics Ogre shit in FFXIV just makes me miserable instead of happy, realizing the franchise is forever held hostage. but hey, at least we had a 5 second Denim cameo for PotD (you can briefly see him when they try explaining that Nybeth is apparently a retarded dimension-hopper now.)

>>5285701
>Nybeth
Wait, he's in the game? What?

>>5285676
imagine how big her pussy is

>>5285640
Absolutely. Easily one of my favorite games ever, period. Loved how they waited to drop the remixes from the original until the end of the game. Magnus being on the opposite side of his father in the middle of a war was a nice personal touch considering the overarching political storyline. Most of the units are actually useful. Good stuff all around.

>>5283019
i tried tactics ogre for ps1 a couple of days ago and i really liked it but the necessity to grind stone throwing in the training moment every other combat so i dont get my ass kicked really annoyed the shit out of me

please tell me the psp version is better

>>5286903
It's worlds better. I can't begin to describe how good it is. I find it hard to post in these threads because all I can say is "yeah these games are fucking awesome" there's no discussion

>>5286903
PSP version is a masterpiece.

>>5286934
>>5286917
>>5286903
Didn't the PSP version add Crafting? It was a bit tacked on and was kinda poorly implemented. I like the idea but it kinda just gave me headaches after a while. Otherwise, I agree with that version being the definitive version. Has an amazing soundtrack arrangement too.

>>5287151
Crafting is entirely unnecessary.

>>5287151
>tfw no good ravness porn

>>5287190
Ravness is not for lewding.

>>5286903
>please tell me the psp version is better
Eh, it's almost a different game in terms of mechanics and doesn't really solves any of the problems of the original version, if anything it adds more of them and has somehow a worse translation.
It has some decent extra content though and some nice extra cameos for Ogre fans, plus some other really odd references and cameos to Vagrant Story for some reason, some of which make zero sense, especially since they retcon the original game's lore.
>>5287185
Why do you lie on the internet, anonymous?

>>5283019

Did Queen ever care that this game was named after their songs?

>>5285640
>>5286458
I haven't played it in years but I seem to remember all the battles being automated. Is that true or was that just an option you can toggle? I really disliked it and it was kind jarring after playing Tactics Ogre on PSP.

>>5287228
I doubt they ever even noticed
>>5287247
>battles being automated
Pretty sure that's the way any Ogre BATTLE game plays, remember that Tactics Ogre =/= Ogre Battle in terms of mechanics.

>>5287259

Why was this jap so obsessed with Queen tho

>>5287279
Queen is popular in Japan, and it's not all unlikely that famous people like I dunno David Bowie influence characters and themes in Japanese Vidya. Dude just really liked Queen, and honestly with titles like "March of the Black Queen" and "Ogre Battle", perfect for a high fantasy.

>>5287151
Semi related to the PSP version. Has anyone here tried the One Vision mod for LuCT? I've heard it fixes a lot of the issues from the original, including the crafting system.

>>5287437
I did not know about this mod.

>>5287259
>Pretty sure that's the way any Ogre BATTLE game plays, remember that Tactics Ogre =/= Ogre Battle in terms of mechanics.
Ah ok.

Carth is my favorite unique character in OB64. If I remember, he's the latest one you can possibly recruit. And if I remember, you have to have a low CF and must have chose "..." at the execution, meaning no Zenobians even offered to join. But he himself wants to change and fix his mistakes. He is like, the embodiment of a person redeeming themselves. You have to be "bad" to get him, and then if you want the good/neutral ending, there's not a lot of time left, and you have to try extra hard to be "good".

My favorite hero/boss interaction is having Carth face Richard in that one siege level. Carth is like "I trusted you!" and Richard is like "lol you're a retard".

Also I just like how, upon entering combat, he sometimes says "I fight to spread the teachings of Lodis". Even though Lodisism is used by the villains, and the word "lodis" almost makes the player think "evil bad guy", Carth still sincerely follows the faith, and will fight for it even if others think ill of him for it.

Note that it's been years since I played, so I might be wrong about some of these details.

>>5287279
Queen is one of those bands that the japanese tend to like a lot. They even made a song with japanese lyrics (which coincidentally is titled Let us Cling Together).

>>5287678
If we're talking about Characters, my favorite character is Lanselot Tartaros. Mainly because of Knights of Lodis because it puts his character in perspective. He kinda feels like the "Big Boss" character of the series. I really love how his weapon Anbicion actually references the Angel he fought in Knights of Lodis too, and it's really a shame we'll never get a Episode 8 to see more of this fucking guy.

>>5287437
It's pretty cool. I played it back at version .83 or something, so I don't know if it's still like this, but knights and clerics got a lot bulkier, and clerics were more effective at healing. Those changes alone made a lot of fights more difficult and interesting. You no longer could snipe and almost oneshot a cleric (and archers were toned down too, by making them slower), but at the same time I felt like I needed to deal with the clerics asap or I'd be making no progress. It was a cool change, made me play differently from before.

Crafting was made to have a 100% success rate. I don't care about all the other changes. Seems like it's mostly just giving and taking away access to certain weapons/armors/spells for various classes.

>>5287279
they're plebs

So, who is the most autistic: Matsuno or Kawazu?

>>5287812
Doesn't Matsuno draw giant relationship maps of the characters in his game to plot out the story?

>>5287812
>A writer/director
>A mechanical designer/director/writer
The answer is obvious, the japanese don't call him a god for nothing

>>5283761
I sat and watched it. It actually made me really upset since I'm way too invested into Matsuno's work. Makes me glad there will never be a another follow up to the TO or FFT series since it would be fucking terrible.

>>5285701
Do you have a source for Yoshi-P asking Matsuno to write a reference story? I'd like to believe it's Yoshi-P's retarded influence ruined it more.

>>5287226
>Why do you lie on the internet, anonymous?
Not him, but it's true. I finished all the routes and only barely touched the crafting part when I went for the post content. It's absolutely unnecessary.

>>5287247
It's been some time since I played the original Ogre Battle, but I do recall you being able to interrupt combat to fire off a Tarot card. I definitely remember in Ogre Battle 64 that you can change tactics mid-combat, so you can tell your units to focus on the leader, the weakest member, I think even the highest calculated threat as well. In a few of these cases I think it adds a penalty modifier in the event a unit has to move to a further opposing square for an attack. It's been well over a decade and now you've got me itching to play again.

>>5283019
They literally have the same exact face. Either one could be in drag.

Any mods for the ps1 version? I fucking hate the psp mechanic changes.

>>5290552
Wait but... Only the psp version has Ravness, right? You wouldn't want to miss out on her, right?

>>5290596
>muh dick

>>5290605
I think the added characters were pretty cool.

I always thought this was the ultimate autist series. Imagine justifying playing a strategy game in which Ogres battle each other to a normie.

>>5291009
>a strategy game in which Ogres battle each other
Uhhhhhhh....

>>5283019
I always like pretending that in some way the Ivalice and Ogre Battle series take place in the same universe, and that it is really just one giant series.

>>5283463
The difference being that, awful prequels and sequels aside, Star Wars was a story people wanted more of, with characters people loved.

The Ogre series has a story no one cares about and characters no one knows.

>>5291325
No one's gonna contest Star Wars being more popular, but the Ogre Battle Saga was actually pretty successful in Japan for while, and Tactics Ogre was rated number seven in the Famitsu magazine for 100 best games of all time once. People knew about the series and cared about it at the time, more so in Japan perhaps. So like whatever, he was just making a comparison anyway you autist.

>>5287764
Im retarded, I haven't recognized thats him till now

>>5290596
>Murder camp full of kids, women and elders just for your dick

>>5291414
You would've had to have gotten the best ending in The Knight of Lodis for the reveal.
https://youtu.be/vN4U1sI2tyk

>>5292449
Ahh, thank you

>>5287764
I agree wholeheartedly. People like to shit on Knight of Lodis, but I think it's the best game in the series, with its only real fault being the GBA slowdown. The gameplay is much better balanced than Let Us Cling Together (and way less annoying and tedious than the PSP remake, too), the graphics are nice on a GBA screen, the music is awesome, and the story is the best in the entire series. It's the only one that ditches the politics angle and focuses on the actual characters, the only one where even the main antagonist is well developed and sympathetic. It's also quite a feat how they took Lans and gave him a coherent backstory that quietly hit powerfully explains a lot of his actions. Great stuff all around.

I do think the story of Cling Together is overrated. It focuses too much on the politics of a fictional fantasy land without really developing the characters, so it ends up feeling quite shallow. The multiple paths are really cool in theory, but in the end it's also shallow since there's only one real factor that alters the ending. That being said, it's still a good game.

I really disliked the remake, though. It brought to the game the worst parts of Matsuno. The result was quite needless and annoying to play, and the terribly overdone translation doesn't help it at all.

>>5292637
I'd agree with you mostly on this, however I felt like the whole requirement system for emblems I thought were a little bit tedious in the later part of the game. But overall it was pretty damn good.

>>5291347
I'm not even saying they are bad games. I loved Ogre Battle/64.

But I can't even remember the story of the game, and I'm generally very good at that sort of thing. I can remember retarded details about FF8 or MGS, and I played those around the same time.

>>5290552
b-but all of the extra dungeons, classes, monsters, Lans.. you just don't have a heart, Butcher of Golyat

>>5290552
https://youtu.be/FkQbS9T_P10
There's a hack for the SNES version that's considered the definitive version, however I don't remember if it was translated. It's called "Chronicle Valeria"
https://youtu.be/FkQbS9T_P10

>>5292752
>Posted the YouTube link twice
I fucked up

>>5292734
I honestly think it's because the story tends to be very samey. Person of Lordly Caliber does have plot twists and good character arcs near the end, and that alone makes it way more memorable than March of the Black Queen for me. That one has an extremely generic story and all characters might as well be cardboard cutouts.

>>5292729
The emblem system definitely becomes a chore in the endgame. It's more rewarding to stick with the characters you make near the beginning since they're bound to have more experience and emblems. In the endgame, it's better to just persuade enemies that have the class or emblems you want. It's still a great idea, though. It, along biorhythm. helps make all characters unique.

>>5292768
>March of the Black Queen
Easily the most generic entry in the entire series, to the point where I don't even think most of the entire series gets it's identity from at least in terms of story. However, the reason why people like it so much was because it's game-play was considerably unique.

>>5292775
MotBQ is just really chill and relaxing to play and it's aesthetically fucking outstanding to just see and hear while you play it, at least outside of the mind numbing overworld/barracks. Once you're on the battlefield it's ludo af

One thing OB64 really dropped the ball on was messing up the color palette and gritty sort of tabletop aesthetic that was there.

>>5292842
>it's aesthetically fucking outstanding to just see and hear while you play it, at least outside of the mind numbing overworld/barracks.
So... during the very short and limited battle cutscenes?

I think it's fun and unique as a game, and the music is great, but the visuals are boring. You can't just dismiss the overworld and menu, that's where most of the game happens. Person of Lordly Caliber is a significant improvement in that department. So are the Tactics game, too.

What's extremely generic is the plot and backstory. It's so generic that I was shocked that it took such a serious political turn in Let Us Cling Together, where you have the flat characters of March of the Black Queen show up in an attempt to show drama. What happens instead is that you don't really care because they were barely characters in the original.

Let Us Cling Together did go way overboard in the politics to a fault when it comes to its story. All the magic and fantasy of Ogre Battle was turned way down in an attempt to make the story be taken more seriously. It turned chaos gates into a political plot, and even the final boss and the significance of Kachua were mostly political, with the game barely exploring the personal implications of their plot twists. The pretentiousness of the PSP translation only makes this harder to sit through for me. Person of Lordly Caliber and Knight of Lodis had a far better balance between politics, characters and story.

Even then, March of the Black Queen was the only one that had a generic story. Even if I dislike the politics, it's at least something unique.

>>5292842
Yeah, the interest in these games is there but the demand doesn't outpace the supply so I got the old PS1 era MotBQ guide at a gaming show fot like fifteen bux just because I love the art. I'm at a different con right now and a guy has several Japanese copies of all the games in some form or another, all of them cheap. I'm trying not to be a massive hoarder but goddamn, you can stare at the boxes and manuals when you're taking a break sipping coffee admiring the details.

So how infuriating are any "challenge" runs of these games? You know, min/maxing stats, acquiring all characters possible in a route, no weapon purchases, etc. I agree emblem collecting in KoL was a little rough.

>>5292842
>OB64 really dropped the ball on was messing up the color palette
It was the 64 era so naturally a lot of games attempt to show a lot of color. Character models in game may appear a little silly at times but honestly Ogre Battle 64's visuals are pretty top notch most of the time. Yeah it doesn't have as much grit as the other games but It did feel like a natural progression of Ogre Battle considering the art featured in March of the Black Queen. Besides, like >>5292929 said, there's just far more interesting visuals in 64 that really make up for it.

Hell, the character models have a lot of personality to them too.

>>5292930
>So how infuriating are any "challenge" runs of these games? You know, min/maxing stats, acquiring all characters possible in a route, no weapon purchases, etc. I agree emblem collecting in KoL was a little rough.
The Ogre Battles are extremely annoying to play if you want to min/max anything. Just getting the best ending in March of the Black Queen requires a lot of micromanaging. Wanting to 100% it as much as possible on one path requires you to pull off certain near impossible things, like massively drop and regain reputation in a single stage. Person of Lordly Caliber was a bit more lenient, even if the chaos frame/rep meter was "hidden".

The Tactics Ogre are easier to min/max to a degree. The Let Us Cling Together remake is impossible to 100% without wasting hours on end on the shitty drop and crafting system, but the original is way more manageable and requires far fewer hell gate runs, for example. Even then the path system is bound to lock you off of a lot of characters and items.

I'd say Knight of Lodis is actually the easiest to min/max and to get rare items in. If you time how you play Quest Mode wisely, you're bound to get a lot of things even just by fooling around. The A+ ending is the only thing that takes some serious planning, if only because of the time limit. Getting all emblems are not that hard unless you want all characters to have all of them.

>>5292637
>GBA slowdown
when compared to FFTA, there was absolutely no excuse

>>5293074
How many floors did the hell gate had anyway?

>>5292993
>Yeah it doesn't have as much grit as the other games
The artwork itself is grittier than the in game models, which look extremely chibi. I still thing it looks wonderful as a whole, way better than March of the Black Queen.

Personally, my favorite artwork is the Knight of Lodis one. I've heard it being called generic, but I found to be it very cohesive and memorable while being simple. I liked how it looked practical and avoided being too gaudy, quite an accomplishment given the genre.

>>5292929
>You can't just dismiss the overworld and menu, that's where most of the game happens.
you're suggesting that the overworld and the field are the same thing and they're not. The field and the small menus when the map is still in view are totally fine.

>>5293089
It had 100 floors. I found it took two whole trips to get all the Roderick secret techniques to drop.

>>5293074
This is all pretty much true, but there's also the fact that the "bad" or "evil" endings are metal af and really worth seeing on their own

>>5293091
Gonna be honest, I feel like Yoshida's artwork really knocked it out of the park for me in terms of design the most out of any of the games. Comparing Yoshida's designs to the original Luct artwork, I can't help but see it only as an improvement. That said Luct has a lot of promotional art that I can't really seem to find in any high resolution at all, which sucks because it looked pretty good.

>>5293114
I'm convinced that the bad ending in Person of Lordly Caliber is the canon one. It's the only one that actually explains the title of the game, and it's the only one that shows the real point of the conspiracy (to revive Rashidi in the body of a god).

Most endings in both Tactics Ogres are interesting in their own right, but the "bad" ones in March of the Black Queen tend to be quite short and boring.

>>5293137
>Truly he was... A person of lordly caliber...

>>5292929
I don't know, I personally prefer a more mundane story dealing with the natural realms of politics and things that are the domain of man. That's not to say I don't like a little supernatural stuff going on too, but when it has less screentime, it makes every time it shows up just that much bigger of plot point.

Once you have ancient workings and being of incalculable power start showing up, normal, "human" motivations and desires start to fall by the wayside as the threats become global and cosmic in scale. What I mean is, losing a war and getting your nation enslaved is tragic, it's impactful for you, but the rest of the world is generally going to shrug their shoulders and carry on with their lives. Having demons show up and murder half the world and enslave the rest is a danger so immense that literally any sacrifice to contain or stop it is now justified, so the internal conflicts that wrack the characters are meaningless. They no longer have agency over their actions since anything they can possibly do will be a lesser evil in comparison.

Just my thoughts though, a lot of people do like it when the stakes are really high, so it's not like what I'm saying is gospel or anything. Sometimes the end of the world for the main character doesn't have to be anything more than Tuesday for everyone else.

>>5293210
>Having demons show up and murder half the world and enslave the rest is a danger so immense that literally any sacrifice to contain or stop it is now justified
FYI that's the threat during the LuCT endgame, Lodis having the power to do just that by opening the Chaos Gate at Eden.

I do agree with you that character development and small scale conflict is better and more meaningful, but the thing is that in LuCT there's seldom any of that. Kachua is the only one that gets any development, and even that is hugely dependant on your political choices. Everyone else is just a political figurehead, Vice being the worst example of this since he doesn't even embody any politics, he just nonsensically goes against whatever you choose during the massacre. The plot has a great potential to develop its characters, but all it does it talk about its own ideas, and the characters are little more than puppets.

Compare it with something like Knight of Lodis. There's a supernatural threat there too, but it's not a world ending thing (as we see in the bad ending, it destroys a tiny island at most). The threat is thematically tied with forgiveness and redemption, foreshadowing Lans' own, and it's Lans and Eleanor who are at the forefront of it. When Eleanor discusses her life as an orphan, it's heartfelt and the story focuses on her feelings for quite a while. When Denim and Kachua do so, it's all for the sake of their political and plot development, with their feelings not being the focus at all. The only time when they matter is when and if Kachua kills herself.

Even side characters have their feelings at the forefront in KoL, like Elrik and Eupharie's relationship, whereas characters like the four sisters are literal plot devices, and all other important characters only matter because of their political beliefs, not their feelings.

Basically I agree with you, but I don't agree that LuCT pulls any of what you said off. KoL and PoLC are way better at that.

>>5293321
>When Denim and Kachua do so, it's all for the sake of their political and plot development, with their feelings not being the focus at all. The only time when they matter is when and if Kachua kills herself.
The game literally makes you choose between your ideals and Kachua's chastity tho

Her mental state turns out to be a greater priority

>>5293341
Hence my last sentence.

Also, her killing herself is only important because of her royal status, her not being the heir sinks Valeria into chaos. If she doesn't kill herself, her emotions stop mattering for the rest of the game. Whereas Eleanor's state of mind or Magnum's feelings and actions tie into the endings and denouements of their respective games.

>>5292734
>>5291325
Piss off, autist. Also, star wars is for fags.

Has anyone played the Chronicle Valeria hack for Tactics Ogre?

>>5292746
Why would I want to play the oversimplified ez mod version of this game for tedious end game content and THE MOST TEDIOUS CRAFTING SYSTEM OF ANY GAME EVER

>>5293646
If I could read moon, I would. This would be the only game I'd do it for,

>>5293787
That crafting is only in the PSP remake