LogFAQs > #946913823

I agree with the recommendation to wait a bit on the FFTA games. They will definitely feel like a let down coming right off of the original. I would say they're average games at best. FFTA's story is more of a low-stakes drama about kids dealing with everyday issues through fantasy escapism. It doesn't do a good job exploring that subject matter either. In both FFTA and Tactics Ogre there's more of an influence from character level, while in FFT combat performance comes mostly from equipment and class choices, which I think makes for a faster paced, more tactical game overall. FFTA games are just really easy while Tactics Ogre seems grindy to me. If you're even one or two levels below the enemy you'll have to plug away for ages to take them down while they'll kill your units in 1-2 hits.

Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre are both set in the same universe, and they share a director with FFT. Their stories definitely are a lot closer in tone and themes to FFT. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is the better of the two Tactics Ogre games. It kind of feels like a direct precursor to FFT, but the mechanics aren't as fun and it has a branching story with three different routes. You can kind of think of it as FFT except Ramza and Delita are the same character and which person he becomes depends on player choice. It's definitely more complex morally than most RPGs that use player choice. It was originally for Super Famicom but the PS1 port got localized to NA. There's also a PSP port, which I don't really like from what I've tried. It has a flowery PSP FFT type translation and it almost completely changes the gameplay. I'd go with the PS1 version if you do play it, and would definitely recommend it over either FFTA game, but I'm not a huge fan of it myself because of the flaws in the gameplay. There's also a GBA Tactics Ogre game called the Knight of Lodis. It's alright, basically just LUCT with a less interesting story.

Ogre Battle has a completely different style of gameplay. Your units are grouped into small squads that move together, the level is basically a world map with forts and other objectives on it and you choose which squads to send where. The combat is all auto-resolved when two squads meet kind of similar to Fire Emblem. There's an SNES game and an N64 game. I think the N64 one is generally considered better. It does not have Matsuno as the director though. I remember finding the gameplay fun but can't recall anything about the story of either game.

TLDR: FFTA and A2 are skippable, Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle are worth playing but not nearly as good as FFT IMO

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 10/129
Currently Playing: God of War (2005)