This game is almost a deep cut considering it released in early 2010 so I think its inclusion in professional publications of best games of the decade will never happen. But damn, that remake was how a remake should be done.
Complete overhaul of the game, a contender of the best JP-EN localization ever made, a lot more content, new recuitable characters, INSANE quality of life features that even Fire Emblem has taken note of such as the ability to rewind turns, the ability to go back to previous chapters and take different routes without having to replay the entire game, the absolutely *excellent* Warren Report chronicling everything about the game to the point that each music track of the music player has liner notes from composers telling you what they had in mind when creating this piece.
The music itself was redone and really gave more life to its excellent soundtrack. Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata even came back to re-arrange it
(the only good music quality I could find on youtube)
This game was a labour of love from start to finish in order to honour this game. Square-Enix didn't even want to greenlit this but Hiroshi Minagawa not only pushed to make a remake of this game (he had worked on the original), he also made a point of reuniting the original staff from Quest to work on this remake despite them being scattered around. Minagawa even got Matsuno to return working on it despite having resigned from the company during the development of Final Fantasy XII. That is dedication.
They even included a super cool premium edition with an art-book, a mini soundtrack, an instruction manual and a 50% voucher for Vagrant Story on PSN. I had that one and I really loved the presentation though I wish it was the full soundtrack
Things were in a bit of disarray after FFXII, but they all came back to deliver another excellent product to prove how they still have it and are some of the best developers Square-Enix ever had. Hell, some of the staff working on Tactics Ogre ended up being part of the task force to salvage Final Fantasy XIV alongside Naoki Yoshida. It's by far the most well-done remake Square has ever done for one of their game. It blended the old with the new, it kept the original essence of the game while elevating it even further with what could work.
All of this wouldn't work if the original game wasn't also a thing of beauty already. The localization succeeded so much because the script was already a huge heavy-hitter, and personally one of the most biting story in the entire landscape of gaming out of what I have played. Choices were meaningful and legiitimately made me pause for extended periods of time to make my decision, Matsuno's story took no shortcuts to display the horror of wars and already displayed his penchant to show what it is to be on the wrong side of History. What History means in the first place. Banri Oda, one of the writers and the lore supervisor of FFXIV said that Tactics Ogre was the main influence for displaying a political landscape in FFXIV. Tactics Ogre is still a huge point of influence for game writers to make stories tackling themes with more bite than "war bad" and thinking in systemic terms rather than simply moral ones.
Is there a chapter name that goes as hard as this one?
The designs are also great, they hired Tsubasa Masao, who is known for his work on Zone of the Enders 2 at Konami (he also did Metal Gear Acid) and his style is very good and also a bit similar to Akihiko Yoshida. I love the way he draws clothes from different materials. It might be medieval fantasy but characters are still very well dressed. Even armour design is excellent. I especially love the oversized shoulder armors and the cloth that they put in front of their chestplate. They all have style, it's not just regular medieval armour.
Of course not everything was perfect. The lack of a fitting room made it overly tedious to know what equipment was better to buy when you could not compare your current equipment (FFT had it), and crafting was harsh. The AI had some bad ideas sometimes especially in missions where the goal was to kill the leader (you just had to zerg rush), also rescuing AI partners was so stupid because they would rush head-first into the battlefield before you could get to them.
But overall it's such a great and special experience that it is easily forgiven (ok except the lack of a fitting room).
BONUS:
I have a Switch that can play homebrew and emulators so I popped Tactics Ogre on there to see how it would look with some tweaking in the PPSSPP emulator. It actually looks real good, especially with the zoomed-out camera now being much easier to see on a bigger screen. Of course it's not integer scaling because the PSP resolution was 272 pixels but if Square-Enix made a port with wider (narrower?) screen resolution it would be perfect. As it stands it looks extremely good to me
direct screens from switch screenshot feature
Hope you enjoyed it
Complete overhaul of the game, a contender of the best JP-EN localization ever made, a lot more content, new recuitable characters, INSANE quality of life features that even Fire Emblem has taken note of such as the ability to rewind turns, the ability to go back to previous chapters and take different routes without having to replay the entire game, the absolutely *excellent* Warren Report chronicling everything about the game to the point that each music track of the music player has liner notes from composers telling you what they had in mind when creating this piece.
The music itself was redone and really gave more life to its excellent soundtrack. Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata even came back to re-arrange it
(the only good music quality I could find on youtube)
This game was a labour of love from start to finish in order to honour this game. Square-Enix didn't even want to greenlit this but Hiroshi Minagawa not only pushed to make a remake of this game (he had worked on the original), he also made a point of reuniting the original staff from Quest to work on this remake despite them being scattered around. Minagawa even got Matsuno to return working on it despite having resigned from the company during the development of Final Fantasy XII. That is dedication.
They even included a super cool premium edition with an art-book, a mini soundtrack, an instruction manual and a 50% voucher for Vagrant Story on PSN. I had that one and I really loved the presentation though I wish it was the full soundtrack
Things were in a bit of disarray after FFXII, but they all came back to deliver another excellent product to prove how they still have it and are some of the best developers Square-Enix ever had. Hell, some of the staff working on Tactics Ogre ended up being part of the task force to salvage Final Fantasy XIV alongside Naoki Yoshida. It's by far the most well-done remake Square has ever done for one of their game. It blended the old with the new, it kept the original essence of the game while elevating it even further with what could work.
All of this wouldn't work if the original game wasn't also a thing of beauty already. The localization succeeded so much because the script was already a huge heavy-hitter, and personally one of the most biting story in the entire landscape of gaming out of what I have played. Choices were meaningful and legiitimately made me pause for extended periods of time to make my decision, Matsuno's story took no shortcuts to display the horror of wars and already displayed his penchant to show what it is to be on the wrong side of History. What History means in the first place. Banri Oda, one of the writers and the lore supervisor of FFXIV said that Tactics Ogre was the main influence for displaying a political landscape in FFXIV. Tactics Ogre is still a huge point of influence for game writers to make stories tackling themes with more bite than "war bad" and thinking in systemic terms rather than simply moral ones.
Is there a chapter name that goes as hard as this one?
The designs are also great, they hired Tsubasa Masao, who is known for his work on Zone of the Enders 2 at Konami (he also did Metal Gear Acid) and his style is very good and also a bit similar to Akihiko Yoshida. I love the way he draws clothes from different materials. It might be medieval fantasy but characters are still very well dressed. Even armour design is excellent. I especially love the oversized shoulder armors and the cloth that they put in front of their chestplate. They all have style, it's not just regular medieval armour.
Of course not everything was perfect. The lack of a fitting room made it overly tedious to know what equipment was better to buy when you could not compare your current equipment (FFT had it), and crafting was harsh. The AI had some bad ideas sometimes especially in missions where the goal was to kill the leader (you just had to zerg rush), also rescuing AI partners was so stupid because they would rush head-first into the battlefield before you could get to them.
But overall it's such a great and special experience that it is easily forgiven (ok except the lack of a fitting room).
BONUS:
I have a Switch that can play homebrew and emulators so I popped Tactics Ogre on there to see how it would look with some tweaking in the PPSSPP emulator. It actually looks real good, especially with the zoomed-out camera now being much easier to see on a bigger screen. Of course it's not integer scaling because the PSP resolution was 272 pixels but if Square-Enix made a port with wider (narrower?) screen resolution it would be perfect. As it stands it looks extremely good to me
direct screens from switch screenshot feature
Hope you enjoyed it
