Final Fantasy Hacktics

As I gleamed from Zephyr's ambiguous post in Spam, he had said that Yasumi Matsuno had returned to Square Enix for a remake of Tactics Ogre. I couldn't believe the news, so I had to google it to be sure. Lo and behold our man is back in his chariot, running the show!

http://www.gamingplanet.info/tactics-og ... inal-staff (http://www.gamingplanet.info/tactics-ogre-being-remade-for-psp-by-original-staff)

I have personally never played Tactics Ogre, so this is fantastic news for me who knows relatively nothing of the story! Another Matsuno produced game... I never would have imagined. And with Square Enix nonetheless. This is a restart of relations I feel. I think we can expect that this is just the tip of the iceberg for the return of the incredible man!

urge to actually get a psp... rising...

[attachment=1:3va7l4kb]OFace-1.jpg[/attachment:3va7l4kb]


Oh-oh-oh-oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh my St. Ajora!!!!!


And that new art of theirs is just fantactics!!!

Quote from: "winshmo2"[attachment=0:be00uoi9]Untitled.png[/attachment:be00uoi9]

I came.  That is so fucking beautiful.  Vagrant Story-ish + Tactics Ogre-ish = Manseed all over the ceiling.

I'm glad i made your day, i also read that he wants to update the story and expand upon what he sees as his amateurish writing of 15 years ago.

Also it seems i sorta misspoke as its not so much a remake but a re imagining of what Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together would be on the modern day PSP  and its trademarked title is Tactics Ogre: The Wheel of Fortune

Quote from: "Zypher"I'm glad i made your day, i also read that he wants to update the story and expand upon what he sees as his amateurish writing of 15 years ago.

Also it seems i sorta misspoke as its not so much a remake but a re imagining of what Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together would be on the modern day PSP  and its trademarked title is Tactics Ogre: The Wheel of Fortune

That's only in Japan it's being trademarked as such, apparently a recent press release said that it will keep the subtitle "Let Us Cling Together". For NA.

Ah man I wish I wish I wish it was a new Tactics Ogre game, such a great series. But this is still very exciting and I will DEFINITELY be getting this! At least it's more of a 'remake' than a straight port. That's always nice.

original vs remake screens

Denim's portrait = win
Kachua and Vice's portrait I object

Quote from: "Pickle Girl Fanboy"

Quote from: "winshmo2"[attachment=0:15ine02r]Untitled.png[/attachment:15ine02r]

I came.  That is so fucking beautiful.  Vagrant Story-ish + Tactics Ogre-ish = Manseed all over the ceiling.

lol
It is very beautiful indeed

Shelley with no panties omsa!

It's nice to see square keeping the scantily-clad-female-characters-in-video-games trope alive.

As I said on chat, I would complain that video games sexualize women far too much... but...

This is Yoshida, he sexualizes both men (Ashley Riot, Sydney Losstarot, John Hardin, Balthier, Basch to name a few...) and women (Callo Merlose, Ashe, Fran, Lady Samantha I'm sure there are more...) equally, so complaining in that regard would be hypocritical.

New stuff announced for TO remake! New classes, new playable characters(one sprite [s:g6qvfrit]even looks like Agrias[/s:g6qvfrit] is probably designed off Agrias).
I really couldn't help myself from getting a hard on from these new screens  


http://www.siliconera.com/2010/08/12/in ... r-classes/ (http://www.siliconera.com/2010/08/12/introducing-rogue-one-of-the-new-tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together-classes/)

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/29/ta ... character/ (http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/29/tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together-screens-showcase-new-character/)

Damn they're so good but what the hell's uppwith that outline? They all have overdone outlines!!!

Very cool always been a fan of Tactics ogre... This is coming out for psp right?

Quote from: "LastingDawn"This is Yoshida, he sexualizes both men (Ashley Riot, Sydney Losstarot, John Hardin, Balthier, Basch to name a few...) and women (Callo Merlose, Ashe, Fran, Lady Samantha I'm sure there are more...) equally, so complaining in that regard would be hypocritical.

I really did love that about Vagrant Story.  Now, both women and men can run around in ass-less chaps and leather thongs!

Beautiful artwork, one epic inspiration reference.


Can't wait to try this out

Man, I am so psyched up for this. Always wanted o try out TO, now I have great opportunity!

Note:
She will be on my frontlines
download/file.php?id=6583 (http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/download/file.php?id=6583)

PS: IMO sexualizing womens to some degree is very good, Yoshida knows how to not cross that degree, hehe.

Latest news, it will be released in Japan on 11th November!

I am really excited for this. I played the SNES original completely in Japanese before I knew there was an English PSX version.

Lol, I am an idiot... it is coming out for PSP.  That's it I am SOLD, lol! Well I was planning on getting a PSP sometime soon. =P

All hail Lord Yazz! I bought a PSP for Persona 3 Portable a while ago and I've been in desperate need for some more games for it, so this comes as a very positive announcement. I'm also pleased that Squeenix seems to be getting the original Tactics Ogre team back together to work on it. It looks like they just recently announced the release date for the Japanese version, so I'll have to watch like a hawk till they announce a NA date.

Damn, I would prefer if it was The Knight of Lodis.  Oh well.  As long as it doesn't have the horrendous balance issues I've read about the original, I'm sure I'll love it.  ...I might find it awesome either way, really...

It just really pissed me off when character died in battle without means to bring him back, bullshit I say!

Quote from: "Kagebunji"It just really pissed me off when character died in battle without means to bring him back, bullshit I say!

I'm more than used to that with Fire Emblem... couple it with an OCD like inability to let anyone die without instantly restarting, and you get some headaches! But I kinda like it, maybe I'm a bit sadistic.

PSP Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together has more text than FFXII had! (http://www.fftogether.com/forum/index.php?topic=2876.0)

We can now be sure this is no cut and paste job! With Matsuno at the helm immersion into the expanded story is first and foremost on his mind. It is clear that by this amount of dedication to his pet project he is glad to be back among those that can appreciate his true talent!

Oddly this just makes me sad that FFXII wasn't truly a complete project :(. Though I am really looking forward to this.

These graphics look similar to TO Knight of Lodis on GBA. Hmm, this does look interesting, but I agree fully with what Lijj said, why are the black outlines so strong? They seem to do this on all the recent tactics games like FFTA, TO KoL, ect. Its not bad, but FFT graphics are better. As for the story, hey wtf? It starts with the end of TO KoL! Sorry for spoilers if anyone wanted to play that, but Alphonse Loeher is the guy on the devil horse. He is on an island and burns down a town in the middle of the winter because he is going against the Lodis Empire/or is working with them. TO has been a fave of mine, if you want to play this game, quickly go get a emulator of GBA and play TO Knight of Lodis for the back story. You need to beat the game under 25 hours (or something, either way its easy) with 50 kills by Alphonse and no more than 5 unit permanent deaths. Then you will see the ending which is undeniably the beginning of this game. Notice how Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis has very simalar graphics. Here is proof:

it does look alot like FFTA

too much IMO

Heh, well this is how it originally looked. It's very clear where Matsuno got the influence for the FFTA style. Though an odd note. The maps in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together are gigantic! Especially compared to FFT and FFTA map, and they also allow up to 20 unique units rather than FFT's 9. Though if I had to guess that's likely because of how much sprite room each sprite takes up in RAM for FFT. Also playing Tactics Ogre you can see where A Lot of influence for FFT came from, the Warren's Report section in that game is nearly Identical to the Brave Story in FFT.

I disliked the old one, so I'm not expecting much out of this one either. But I'm going to end up trying it anyways, since I like tactics games.
So far most tactics games I've played I dislike, but I like the genre! It sucks. I need to make my own. =P

Eh, most of the time what ruins tactical RPGs are silly little balance oversights and a failure to keep the difficulty curve from flat-lining long before the max level.  You would think that eventually one of them would produce a tactical RPG that is able to stand on its own without fan tweaks to fix the balance...

Making sure Alphonse was at the front in every fight helped difficulty in Knight of Lodis (enemies scaled solely to his level).
Wild ARMs XF managed to keep some difficulty in the game up until the final chapter.  Then it was like a balloon had popped...  They ceased providing strategic puzzles and instead just threw randomized enemies at you with a bit higher stats than the average enemies up to that point.  I suppose using sub-par equipment would help, but really, you shouldn't have to purposely play poorly to get a challenge...
The first two Disgaea games should have had less grinding in the post-games.  (Never did play the third.  No PS3.)
The Fire Emblem games offer a challenge but can get TOO cruel (they could have just made them unusable in the next fight instead of permanently dead...), and the lack of freedom in characters makes me want to put this series and games like it into their own separate sub-genre.  I much prefer the customizable job system ones.

Disgaea (and nippon ichi tactics games in general) could really stand to benefit from a line-of-sight system. Being able to shoot someone despite 4 units and a wall between you and the target makes things kinda ridiculous, not to mention devalues strategic positioning.

And the post games always suck. Makai Kingdom's post game was the best of them that I've played, as the random dungeons were fun, rewarding, and challenging. Desperate need of a quick save though, since if you leave a random dungeon before finishing it it's gone and you lose out on a lot of potential weapons and levels, and those dungeons could take 4 hours or more....

Then try that weird GBA game Rebelstar Tactics. It always has the same difficulty throughout the game and leveling up doesn't help you at all. A level one character has a relatively good chance (when in range) of killing a level 20 for example. Now if only this game was Final Fantasy...

Edit: Some flaws with this GBA game are:
1 Its a GBA game. Which isn't bad, but this game actually has load times and is very short in comparison to FFTA.
2 No jobs. Characters just improve on your own customization upon level up. You can choose that they improve rifles or heavy weapons for example.
3 All the characters look exactly the same. WTF?! Even female units! This was really plain and simple laziness. At least shoulda gave the hero characters (only 8 I believe) their own sprites.
4 Story is ridiculous. I mean c'mon, this is a stereotype alien game.

Why you would want to play it?
1 After first 2-3 intro chapters, the game really picks up.
2 There are tactics involved! No way you can play this game SCC style, you'll end up dead!
3 Did I mention there are actually tactics? Unlike FFTA or Knight of Lodis, you can't just surround an enemy and chop him to death in 1 turn, you actually have to think how to kill all the enemies by finding nice firing positions, using grenades and explosives on "tough" enemies, covering each others backs, ect.
4 I wouldn't write all this crap if I didn't find the game fun and challenging. Take my word for it, just play this game and you will probably be inspired to make a patch or something like this for FFT. I found the whole battle system very nice, and the whole idea of how you hide behind stuff and pop out to take a few snap shots at the enemy and then hide again reminded me somehow of Metal Gear Solid. Also the fact that you can run out of ammo and then you must rely on close combat (which is really only used if desperate or if you want to use stealth tactics) makes the game very fun. You also get sniper rifles! Yay!
5 If someone dies (sometimes there are exceptions) including the hero, they remain dead for the chapter but are revived afterwards for the next chapter, but they lose all of their equipment, so don't make a habit out of dying, or you won't have enough guns/ammo for the next chapter. If no one dies for a couple of chapters though, you will have so many weapons and ammo that you won't know what to do with it all. I mean, I didn't die and I had like a stockpile of 40 grenades, which could get me through a few chapters easily.
6 There is friendly fire, overview and explosions (grenades, rocket launchers, fire) caused by the player hurt the player. No charging up to an enemy just to make sure you won't miss him at point blank range with the rocket launcher!

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/10/01/tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-togethers-tgs-trailer-now-has-english-text/ trailer including the Ogre Battle theme and if i may borrow a phrase from Freya from VP: IT IS MAGNIFICENT!

It only looks better in the opening and the spell effects, other than that it looks EXACTLY the same as the GBA game. Sorry, but this is not that impressive. And then they throw at you "What decisions will they make? What destiny will they unfold?" Well thats in all the TO games, multiple story paths and endings. I don't want to make it sound like I dislike TO, but this just looks too similar to KoL.

It was mentioned around the time it was announced, that they wanted to update the graphics but at the same time try and make it indiscernible from the SNES sprites people have come to know. Granted that is an odd route for them to take (like really odd, almost to the point of pointlessness). Also the magnificent part of my post was for the Ogre battle theme itself (nice update since the previous ones I had to resort to listening to, were from Lordly Caliber and KoL). I am somewhat intrigued that they are implementing a job leveling mechanic instead of leveling characters. Im not sure what I think of their Mulligan-like system though since it seems like an expansion of the save and loading mid battle in the original but being able to selectively choose which turn to start from seems a bit game breaking

i played the snes ver. a little and i don't like how one can only have 4 moves under ability! even cheating you can't add more, and lvl'n up erases the current movelist in battle! Sucks!

Quote from: "Jon"It only looks better in the opening and the spell effects, other than that it looks EXACTLY the same as the GBA game. Sorry, but this is not that impressive. And then they throw at you "What decisions will they make? What destiny will they unfold?" Well thats in all the TO games, multiple story paths and endings. I don't want to make it sound like I dislike TO, but this just looks too similar to KoL.

Graphics yes, that's the point. Matsuno Asked that they keep it in its original style. Though what has he added that's new? Well apparently he's balanced the system, added the Wheel of Fate concept, allowed you to "go back in time" so you can take other paths, and apparently has added more text than even FFXII had! 20,000 characters jumped to 70,000 characters. Matsuno wants to expand heavily on his created world.

I see, that does sound much better. Go back in time? How would that work, do you lose levels or something? Interesting for a TO game...

Quote from: "Jon"I see, that does sound much better. Go back in time? How would that work, do you lose levels or something? Interesting for a TO game...

I forget how it works, there's some sort of "rewind" option in battle. Though it's not been told if that's limited or infinite.

Tbh, it sounds now a bit awkward; Prince of Persia-like time travel, strange but might be cool if not abused and limited.

It sounds like a good way to allow players to see all the different story paths without having to completely replay the game each time. I'm assuming that a lot of this text is coming from additional branching paths.

Apparently the remake is going to be rather forgiving when a unit of yours dies.
generic units (and i assume whichever story character units that join you) have 3 hearts

When a unit dies it will receive a counter like in FFT, however once it reaches zero its out for the battle only and one heart is subtracted from their three.

Once all three hearts are gone, only then will the unit be permanently dead

TO KoL had the best "death" system imo, when someone dies you can either revive them before the battle is over or they are gone for good. To me this makes the most sense. I like FFT's death system as second best for tactics games. Also that one shooting tactics game I mentioned, has a unique death system that when a character dies, you get them back after the battle is complete but they lose all their weapons and items. This wouldn't work in any other tactics game however >_>

Siliconera has an awesome video with English voice over (but Japanese captions) and its pretty epic in setting the mood of the game

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/10/29/wa ... oiceovers/ (http://www.siliconera.com/2010/10/29/watch-the-tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together-prologue-with-english-voiceovers/)

also the 3rd video is a intro to the basic job classes ala FFT

while the 2nd is merely the first 10 minutes of the game itself

also
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/10/28/trade-ghost-battle-data-with-other-tactics-ogre-lets-us-cling-together-players/

seems like you can trade ghost data of other players by basically designing teams and assigning AI routines to the units (Attacker, defender healer and etc) and even give them phrases to say when they are in certain conditions

"apparently he's balanced the system"
This is what I'm most curious about.  So having less weight won't make your characters exponentially better, hopefully?  And bows won't rule the day?

This is looking like a great article for describing the US version. I'm so pumped for this game.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/113/1139250p1.html

Yay! Tactics Ogre is downloadable! I am starting my download.

For Et: Ha! I will play it sooner than you!

Just bought it, myself.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO BUY IT SO WE CAN SEE MORE AWESOMENESS FROM MATSUNO!!!

The game needs to be patched asap.. AI is still horrible :(
TO 1.3 please

Quote from: Ryu on February 15, 2011, 05:11:49 pm
Just bought it, myself.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO BUY IT SO WE CAN SEE MORE AWESOMENESS FROM MATSUNO!!!

Spending money to support the stuff you really like is a must! I buy most of my games used, but this is getting bought new.

Quote from: Cheetah on February 16, 2011, 02:54:36 pm
Spending money to support the stuff you really like is a must! I buy most of my games used, but this is getting bought new.

*^5's Cheetah*

:)

I would have bought it if the Tarot Cards and Artbook were available here, but alas St. Ajora is not in our favor.. T_T

Seems so familiar

I love it! How have I not bought this yet? Oh yeah, I need to beat Birth By Sleep first.

Yay, another KH fan!

...sadly, TO is far better than BbS was. I'm on Chapter III currently. Great game, albeit somewhat difficult.

Well I just got the European collectors edition of this game in the mail today, and I'm super stocked. I have been waiting for a good deal on the game and this obscure site had the collectors edition for $30, regularly $70, so I thought I would go for it even though I thought it was a bit shading. Well it took 2 or 3 weeks but now it is here brand spanking new and I got a great deal.

I was going to provide a link for everyone but they raised the price back up to 60 pounds, British site, so probably not worth it.

I debating whether to just keep it in it's wrapper as new or to crack it open. I will be playing it off a memory card regardless. What do you guys think?

I'm still trying to find the time to beat Birth By Sleep with Aqua before I start this up. I doubt I will ever get around to beating KH with all three characters.

Hmm. sounds like something you could keep for awhile then sell for a bunch later or just worship it on an alter for many years to come.

Tactics Ogre rocks. I have over 100 hours on it, and I intend to keep playing after I am done with other stuff. Really worth it.

Here is the European Premium edition at a price of $32. It is kind of an odd British site, but I recieved mine when I ordered it brand new and in great condition.

http://www.cdwow.us/games/tactics-ogre-let-us-cling-together-premium-edition-psp/dp/20477723?utm_medium=email-html&utm_source=power-reviews&utm_campaign=power-reviews-text

Hmm, just read a rather (pretty decent Google Translate...) interesting analysis on Matsuno's career up until the present, written only a month ago.

Matsuno's Curse (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://finallol.blogspot.com/&ei=0kUCTr_BM5TpgAfWpOX9DQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CD4Q7gEwATg8&prev=/search%3Fq%3DYasumi%2BMatsuno%26start%3D60%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbo%3D1%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D684%26tbs%3Dqdr:w%26prmd%3Divnso)

I haven't read it all, but great find LD.

Matsuno working on undisclosed project!

@YasumiMatsuno Ciao Mr. Matsuno, How many hours a day working? Working from home through programs like Skype or in office?
---------------------------
@AntonioCaroli well.. varies from day to day, about 8-12 hours ? from this month, I'm residing in the development studio for new project.

New Matsuno project, hmm? Can't wait to get more details!

Also...

How curious... and I for one am glad to hear this, especially since Vagrant Story holds a special place in my heart. Just rather large spoilers for the game below...

@YasumiMatsuno In Vagrant Story, did Ashley's wife and son really existed or they was just his false memory?
----------------------
@Sacred_Fool I think the story confusing, however, the truth is you have the players felt. FYI, I think his wife and son really existed. thx


So it is good to finally get verification that Tia and Marco were in fact really his family. Just goes to show how depraved Rosencrantz really is to say all the stuff he did then.