Favorite and Least Favourite Tactical RPGs

[Dice]

Anyone else feel that UNDERLYING the FFTactics success-hit % was another one that was like the percent it would hit the displayed percent?

I can't even begin to tell you how many of my 95% hits had missed.

[ZeronHitaro]

Anyone else feel that UNDERLYING the FFTactics success-hit % was another one that was like the percent it would hit the displayed percent?

I can't even begin to tell you how many of my 95% hits had missed.

Or the flip side of that where the enemy's 20-30% success rate crippling status effects would hit every single stinking time? Charm in particular was the worst. ~.~;

[Darilon]

Anyone else feel that UNDERLYING the FFTactics success-hit % was another one that was like the percent it would hit the displayed percent?

I can't even begin to tell you how many of my 95% hits had missed.

Or the flip side of that where the enemy's 20-30% success rate crippling status effects would hit every single stinking time? Charm in particular was the worst. ~.~;

I remember silently chanting "miss miss miss"
It was great when they did miss though.

[terrencelee]

Did I mention Valkyria Chronicles?

srsly one of the best games made. ever.

even part two was pretty damn enjoyable, the story was very *meh* but mechanically speaking it was pretty much a perfect port of the original. and VC3 is in the works *giggles like a 9 year old school girl*

not many SRPGs i dislike, i have a hard time getting into the older ones (like fire emblem) simply due to the old graphics. im finally restarting FF XII revanent wings, ive never played more than 20 minutes into the game at a time. and front mission was pretty bad too

[MeshGearFox]

re: FFT's percentages.

It's Square. If it's not a case of them just outright fucking up the math and the balance, it's probably a big wad of pointer errors and misplaced function calls somewhere in the source code.

[Goli]

Love:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and A2: I actually like these two more than FFT. I loved the ability learning system in FFIX and I love it here, add that plus TO/FFT style SRPG battles, multiple races and jobs AND a lack of slowdown (WotL...) = ♥♥♥.
Valkyria Chronicles 2: Though I still've not finished it I really like it. It has some pretty big difficulty spikes though...
Jeanne D'Arc: Because it's pretty much a TO clone with a colorful graphics, a lighter storyline and no character classes!
Devil Survivor: I thought the battle system was very well implemented and it had an engaging storyline. It became a little TOO hard near the end though...
And of course Tactics Ogre. I don't think I have to explain why...

Hate:
NIS SRPGs: I've only beaten Disgaea 2, which was fun for a while until I realized I was grinding just because, and wasn't having any more fun. I also played a little of Phantom Brave and hated the movement system, as well as how Marona has to get her units. I can tell I wouldn't like their other games... Also, while I don't consider myself a graphics whore they surely could add more animation frames to their characters...

[Jimmy]

Valkyria Chronicles changed everything for me and supplanted Fire Emblem in my top SRPG slot. I played through it twice in a row last year during Christmas clocking around 80 hours total on the two playthroughs. That brings me to another point about SRPGs in general because games in this genre are about the only games I can stand to play for longer than 40 hours. I don't grow tired of them easily, but since they encourage long play times and a lot of commitment I can't really play them right now. Also because they are pretty involved I haven't played a whole lot of them either. I'm hoping to maybe get my hands on VC2 next summer, but that means I'll need a PSP as well, so it may or may not happen unfortunately.

Anyway, here is the list of SRPGs I have played with my favorites at the top and least favorites toward the bottom.

Valkyria Chronicles - I was addicted to it from the get-go. I love the nice balance the game finds between active and turn-based battles as well as the more modern setting and all the weaponry, classes, and such that go with it.

Fire Emblem (series) - Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon were pretty "meh" titles, but I still love FE7 and FE9. Really, the stories and characters in all of the FE games aren't usually cool or unique, but usually aren't really bad. Some times I'd even say the series barely even breaks even with cliche as far as narrative and characters are concerned. Yet I can't pull myself away from them partially because of the weapons triangle that surprised me with its depth even while being fairly simple and straightforward. The other reason is because the challenges the games present. They're hard, downright frustrating at times, but that just makes victory that much more sweet when you complete a chapter. I guess, more than any other game, Fire Emblem speaks to some sort of sick and sadistic side of me in that I like the feeling of actually conquering the various chapters and submitting the game to my will so to speak.

Bahamut Lagoon - This was my first SRPG. remember hearing about this game a lot back in the days of less than legal gameplaying and I tracked it down. I really enjoyed the plot and the unexpected twists it took on the one hand, and loved developing the dragons on the other. I still wish Squeenix would localize it and give us even a pseudo-sequel or spiritual successor of some kind with a similar gameplay style. Oh well.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - I loved it when I played it. I really enjoyed developing units into the various classes and making super powerful units with a very diverse skill set, but the plot was pretty awful and I felt no sense of reward when I completed it. I figured I'd never play it again for such subpar story, so I traded it in.

Final Fantasy Tactics - I only played it on the Playstation. It may not have been the best choice to follow up Bahamut Lagoon because it was kind of on the difficult side. But more than that I just thought it was broken due to some *erm* power balance issues in some of the classes.

And as much as I love the genre that is the very limited experience I've had playing it. I've dabbled with Ogre Battle 64 and the Shining Force series a bit but never had the time or energy to really pursue them. I lusted after the first Disgaea for a while but was never able to get my hands on it and had lost interest by the time the second one rolled around. And I never have known what to think of Front Mission. Maybe one day I'll get pursue other series and individual games further.

[Kevadu]

I'm hoping to maybe get my hands on VC2 next summer, but that means I'll need a PSP as well, so it may or may not happen unfortunately.

Get one.  If not for VC2 then for VC3, which from what I've seened looks a lot better (though I did like VC2's gameplay, the story segments were garbage).  Not to mention that there are tons of other SRPGs on the PSP (though a lot of them are ports are remakes).

[TiamatNM]

• Albert Odyssey - It ends up feeling more like a JRPG, except the whole world is a big Battlefield. Makes walking to town a chore, but it's a novel enough idea to warrant its spot on my list.

I'm a bit confused by this one.  I played Albert Odyssey for Saturn (still have it actually) and I can't recall any reason why it would be a tactical/srpg game.  It plays just like any old traditional turn based rpg where your characters get in random encounters and then during battles you just stand in place doing moves.  Are you saying that having enemy enounters on the world map was a novel idea?  


I loosely define SRPGs as any RPG where you can command your characters to move around the battlefield freely, be it grid based or otherwise.  Whether the game actually requires much strategy or not has little to do with me categorizing them as SRPGS.  For example, Disgaea games generally require very little strategy but I still count them because of the way the battle system is set up.  With that in mind here are my favorites and least favorites...

Favorites:
Shining Force III series - This is certainly my favorite.  The games are solid all around and a lot of fun to play.  The friendship system is really nifty and I wish more games would have systems like it.  
Growlanser series - I've only played the three games released in the US.  Of these games Growlanser 2 is the only one that easily categorizes as an SRPG but I might argue that 3&5 are as well because the battle system is mostly the same you just have less characters and are traversing dungeons instead of a map (though that's a big difference).  
Yggdra Union - A challenging SRPG with some unique mechanics and cutesy character artwork.    
Knights in the Nightmare - Some may say this does no count as an RPG but I think it is an SRPG more than anything else.  With a real time battle system split into turns, bullet hell esque evading of attacks, characters with limited movement abilities that generally can't be hit by enemies, and a variety of other quirks, this is the most innovative one I've played.
Phantom Brave - Another SRPG with unique mechanics.  The main character is weak and all other characters must be summoned into an item on the field.  In addition, summoned characters can only remain on the field for a limited number of turns.  I also think the free movement system is an improvement over the grid system in Disgaea, but I'm aware a lot of of people don't like it for whateaver reason.  
Dragon Force - edited this one in, I dunno how I could forget about it since it is hands down one of the best SRPGs.  Super addicting game with lots of characters to choose from.  My 2nd favorite

Least favorite:
Front Mission 4 - I was bored at college one day so I went to the game store and saw this for like 15 bucks used.  I hadn't played any others in the series, but I like mechs and strategy RPGs, and it was made by Square, so I figured it had to be decent.  I played the game for like 2 days and dropped it like a ton of bricks.  I found the combat (and story) to be utterly boring.  
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - I played this game for like a day after rummaging through my brother's games to find something interesting.  I could not stand the character art and music, and the story was just retarded.  

[terrencelee]

are there any fire emblems on next gens or on next gen handhelds? the only ones ive seen have been for GBA and older. i really want to check out the series but i have a hard time going back to anything pre-ps2 these days

[Itches]

I'm playing through Valkyria Chronicles now and the battle system is a lot of fun (Just beat the Chapter 7 fight which felt especially tactical as I was close to losing but planning ahead about 3 rounds resulted in things playing out exactly as I intended). I will say that the entire story and character interactions thus far really bother me. The game gives me the same vibe as Eternal Sonata which had an awful story and apparently no one really knew how to not be peppy/happy even during sad moments. I think it's just the overly anime presentation that drives me crazy. But like I said the battles are pretty rewarding so far.

My favorite tactical RPG is Final Fantasy Tactics just because it's one of the first I played. I generally love games that have class systems and FFT had primary and secondary classes which was awesome. Same reason I enjoyed FF5 way more than I should have. Extending from this I also loved FFTA (though not as much because the whole Judge thing irked me).

[DPB]

I'm a bit confused by this one.  I played Albert Odyssey for Saturn (still have it actually) and I can't recall any reason why it would be a tactical/srpg game.  It plays just like any old traditional turn based rpg where your characters get in random encounters and then during battles you just stand in place doing moves.  Are you saying that having enemy enounters on the world map was a novel idea?

No, I think he's referring to the originals on the SNES/SFC, apparently those are tactical RPGs. The Saturn game is a spin-off of those, it's called Albert Odyssey Gaiden in Japan.

I'm not that keen on this genre myself, since most games of this type have very little exploration at all, merely a series of battles interspersed with dialogue and cutscenes. The only ones I really liked were the Arc the Lad and Shining Force series, since they have more elements from traditional RPGs.

[mjrpgfan]

Recommended turn based tactics games

North American/English titles:

DS: Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Rondo of Swords, Panzer Tactics DS, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Knights in the Nightmare, Drone Tactics, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Age of Empires: Mythologies

DS games that look decent but I haven't actually played: Dawn of Heroes, Mytran Wars

PSP: Wild Arms XF, R-Type Command, Knights in the Nightmare, Valkyria Chronicles II, Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fate

GBA: Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Super Robot Wars Original Generation 1 and 2, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

PS: Front Mission 3, Nectaris: Military Madness, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

PS2: Eternal Poison, Daisenryaku VII Exceed, Front Mission 4, Suikoden Tactics

PC: X-COM: UFO Defense, Panzer General and other games by SSI such as Steel Panthers, Sid Meier's Civilization V, Elven Legacy, Fantasy Wars, Field of Glory series, Wesnoth, just about any modern tactics game from Slitherine. I'm not an expert at PC tactics games but there are a ton of quality wargames and quite a lot of games I've never tried before.

WII: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

PS3: Valkyria Chronicles

360: Operation Darkness

WII, PS3, and 360: Military Madness: Nectaris Remake

iPhone/iPad: Military Madness: Neo Nectaris, Battle for Wesnoth HD, UniWar, Reign of Swords

SAT: Iron Storm

Import titles: Ready to learn some Japanese?  Here are some great import tactics titles. Most Super Robot Wars import titles are decent, if unremarkable.  A few of them are a cut above the rest and deserve mention here.  The Daisenryaku series from SystemSoft is the only wargame series still being produced for modern consoles and portables.  There are a ton of Daisenryaku titles and they mostly play the same. If I'm missing a good import title, let me know. I certainly haven't played them all.

DS: Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu

PSP: Valkyria Chronicles 3, R-Type Tactics II: Operation Bitter Chocolate

GBA: Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi

PS: Front Mission 2, Berwick Saga, Tear Ring Saga: Yutona Eiyuu Senki

PS2: Super Robot Wars Z / Super Robot Wars Z: Special Disk, Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, Super Robot Wars Original Generations, Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~, Super Robot Taisen Impact

PC: Daisenryaku Perfect

SNES: Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776


Front Mission 4 is a good SRPG if you enjoy tactical combat and customization.  The hidden simulators are fun to unlock and clear as well.

[terrencelee]

Recommended turn based tactics games

360: Operation Darkness

i thought i was the only person who beat that game

[Lazlowe1984]

Disgaea 2,Valkyria Chronicles 2 and Final Fantasy Tactics:War of the Lions

I hated Cross Edge