What's the best strategy game you've played?

[MrPopo]

Beat FM1 on both SFC and DS, haven't finished the USN campaign on DS. Beat the Emma campaign for FM3, and beat FM4 a year ago? Have FM5 but haven't started it yet.

[ScOtacon]

Vanguard Bandits for the PS1 is one SRPG i really enjoyed that no one else seemed to mention. Its got people fighting in giant mech's with swords, spears, and axes, a bunch of characters with unique personalities to recruit, and 3 different story lines (2 of which are pretty similar through.) Its not too difficult since you can kind of abuse the in battle saving, but some final missions would be difficult otherwise.

Gemfire is a personal favorite on the Genesis. I'm sure its mostly nostalgia, but i used to love playing this with my older brother when i was younger. Lots of replayability since you can play four different scenarios as 1 of 4 different kingdoms. The computers AI is kind of dumb though, so once you can predict what they are going to do it gets easy.

Rondo of Swords on the DS was a fun change up to the typical SRPG mechanics. Instead of moving next to units and then attacking them, you attack by moving through the units. So you can attack as many units per turn as you want as long as they are in your move path. At first i didnt like it, but it really grew on me as the game progressed and you get used to the mechanics. You can get Cotton the witch as a recruitable character too, so thats fun.

And Front Mission Games are great. I've only played through 1,3, and 4, but thought they were all a good time.

[Xeogred]

Has anyone here played Suikoden Tactics? Been really curious about that one.

[Soldier Blue]

I think it's a good game. I haven't played too much of it, but I remember the graphical menus and presentation to be rather eye pleasing and it has lots of branching paths for the story. A lot of the characters return from Suikoden IV so fans of that game might like it more. I think it had voice acting too if I'm not mistaken.

[Sarge]

I played it for a bit, but I don't remember much other than the color-based system. It's tied into Suikoden IV. There are a few folks that loved it, at any rate.

By the way, a series I completely forgot about (how could I?): Growlanser.



I've only beaten two games in the series: II and IV, but I've progressed quite a bit in III before losing about ten hours of progress to a memory card death. For my money, II is the tighter experience, as it's a more "pure" SRPG with no exploration elements to speak of, and IV is basically structured like Shining Force II, except the battles are all real-time affairs.

Also, Der Langrisser and Growlanser are joined at the hip, with Career Soft developing both. And Satoshi Urushihara did the artwork for both series as well (yes, that guy).

[Exhuminator]

Looking forward to when Popo plays FM5, just for another opinion on it.

Hey Popo, how does Front Mission 4 compare to Tactics Ogre in the difficulty department?

Vanguard Bandits for the PS1 is one SRPG i really enjoyed that no one else seemed to mention. Its got people fighting in giant mech's with swords, spears, and axes

Okay, I gotta play Vanguard Bandits soon.

What's the verdict on this one folks?:

[Sano]

Age of Empires II and Command & Conquer 3 are my favorite.

[MrPopo]

It's hard to compare FM4 to TO. FM is from the more traditional school like in Fire Emblem, while TO draws more heavily from tactical western RPG combat. It feels like it starts from a Gold Box base and then adds things like facing and elevation so positioning and movement are even more important than usual. I also have only ever gotten a few missions into either TO game and in general that style of SRPG doesn't appeal to me much; the main reason I have TO and FFT is because of their high reputation.

[Jmustang1968]

I agree that FFT has plenty of problems. I still greatly enjoyed it when I played through it for the first time just a few years ago. However, I was a bit disappointed with Shining Force. I beat it around the same time as FFT, and walked away feeling the game was overrated, even for its time. Granted, it's Shining Force 2 that everyone loves so much. But really how different can SF2 be versus SF1? Is it actually challenging? Did they fix the crappy shopping system? Does the OST contain more than 2 songs? Well, I'll find out eventually. I need to see if SF2 is available on the 3DS eShop... that'd be perfecto.

Well you guys convinced me. I ordered these today:





So I understand from a plot perspective that TKOL needs to be played after LUCT. But I worry that TKOL will feel flaccid (gameplay wise) after playing through the refined and polished LUCT.

ALSO:

@Jmustang1968 have you ever played Front Mission?

What about the rest of you? Any FM fans around here other than me?

Yes played FM DS remake and the PS2 FM. I like them, very good game to me, but not amazing.

Speaking of story, play March of the Black Queen first. Prominent characters in LUCT are in MotBQ

[Exhuminator]

It's hard to compare FM4 to TO. FM is from the more traditional school like in Fire Emblem, while TO draws more heavily from tactical western RPG combat. It feels like it starts from a Gold Box base and then adds things like facing and elevation so positioning and movement are even more important than usual. I also have only ever gotten a few missions into either TO game and in general that style of SRPG doesn't appeal to me much; the main reason I have TO and FFT is because of their high reputation.

Well thanks for the descriptive comparison. I can tell you this much; FM5 is definitely harder than FM4. (And for the record FM4 was significantly harder than FM3.)

play March of the Black Queen first. Prominent characters in LUCT are in MotBQ

I can give it another try. I played it for a bit a few years ago, and the gameplay didn't grab me at all. Granted I didn't really know what I was doing either.