What RPG are you playing right now?

[dsheinem]

Question: Are Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle related to each other?

yes

[Xeogred]

Question: Are Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle related to each other?

Pretty much directly, yeah. Canopus appears across some of the games from what I hear.

I haven't touched the OB games yet, but from what I gather it's kind of a Suikoden situation. The separate games being a separate story for some country or something, all taking place in the same world though.

Matsuno had plans for several more chapters supposedly, saw this in some older interview. That was before Square bought out Quest and pretty much threw the Ogre Battle IP away, only to give us a remake... lol.

[AppleQueso]

So do they play similarly or something? What's the difference between them? I've never played either series.

[Xeogred]

Not at all actually. Ogre Battle (the SNES one at least?) uses some ridiculous card battle system or something. I don't even know, just look it up on youtube or something. It looks extremely complex and people have told me to know the card rules and other stuff before I even start the game, lol

The Tactics Ogre games play just like FFT. So that kind of sums them up. I like the TO games more though, better down to Earth stories in my opinion and I like its simpler class system. That and you usually get to control 10 units in every single battle, unlike FFT which often limited you to 4-5 or something.

FFT, Vagrant Story, and FFXII, all games that Matsuno was involved with, have the same composer who worked on the OB and TO games.

[Jmustang1968]

Question: Are Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle related to each other?

Question: Are Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle related to each other?

Pretty much directly, yeah. Canopus appears across some of the games from what I hear.

I haven't touched the OB games yet, but from what I gather it's kind of a Suikoden situation. The separate games being a separate story for some country or something, all taking place in the same world though.

Matsuno had plans for several more chapters supposedly, saw this in some older interview. That was before Square bought out Quest and pretty much threw the Ogre Battle IP away, only to give us a remake... lol.

Ogre Battle on SNES is the original. Then both Ogre Battle 64 and Tactics Ogre are direct sequels at around the same time, but different parts of the world. Some characters from OB like Lans, Warren, and Canopus go on to Tactics Ogre. The OB protagonist, Debonair, Gilbert, and a few others are characters in OB 64. Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis is a prequel to TO LUCT. However, the way they write it, it is better if you play LUCT first.

The gameplay in the Tactics Ogres are different than the Ogre Battles though. TO plays like a tradition SRPG. OB has a real time map, that is pausable to issue orders, where you deploy armies and move them across the battlefield. A big part of the strategy is how you form and customize each battle group with troops. Certain units get different attacks and number of attacks depending on their grid position in the unit. When the unit meets an enemy in battle, they each have a fixed amount of attacks per encounter. Once either all units have finished attacks or one unit dies, the encounter is over. The winner is the unit that did the most damage. You dont directly control the unit, but give generic strategy commands not so different from FFXIII. Knowing what which unit will do based on the strategy command or what have you, is a part of the strategy, and it can be changed on the fly. Very unique game.

[Jmustang1968]

Not at all actually. Ogre Battle (the SNES one at least?) uses some ridiculous card battle system or something. I don't even know, just look it up on youtube or something. It looks extremely complex and people have told me to know the card rules and other stuff before I even start the game, lol

The Tactics Ogre games play just like FFT. So that kind of sums them up. I like the TO games more though, better down to Earth stories in my opinion and I like its simpler class system. That and you usually get to control 10 units in every single battle, unlike FFT which often limited you to 4-5 or something.

FFT, Vagrant Story, and FFXII, all games that Matsuno was involved with, have the same composer who worked on the OB and TO games.

Nah it isnt a card battle game at all. You can occasionally use the cards to do a devastating attack, maybe similar to a summon or something, but each card has one use. You get more cards if you liberate a town. But it isnt the basis for the battle system.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, the battle system is mostly about building really awesome units whos skills compliment each other, and how you maneuver them across the battlefield to engage in enemy units they do well against. You don't get to directly control your units in battle; instead you can set general tactics like Strongest or Leader.

I've only found one other game with a similar system: Soul Nomad & The World Eaters on the PS2. Instead of unit movement being real time the game is turn based, but army on army combat is the same.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Star Ocean: Second Evolution for PSP. This is a series I never got into when it first hit the US in the PS1 days and to be honest I'm not exactly enjoying this one. I've only played about 2 hours but most everything was extremely tedious dialogue and cut scenes. Something better change soon or I'm done with this one.

[Hatta]

That sounds a lot like my experience with Star Ocean 3. I can forgive heavy cutscenes with tiresome dialog, poor acting, and juvenile plot if the combat is good. But the combat was largely just running to your enemy, striking, and running away. But that's action RPGs for you.

[brunoafh]

Star Ocean: Second Evolution for PSP. This is a series I never got into when it first hit the US in the PS1 days and to be honest I'm not exactly enjoying this one. I've only played about 2 hours but most everything was extremely tedious dialogue and cut scenes. Something better change soon or I'm done with this one.

I personally enjoyed the original Star Ocean much more. As with any RPG you ought to give it more than 2 hours before writing it off though. Some of my all time favorite RPGs start off painfully slow.