Tactics Ogre

What is it? A turn-based strategy RPG, similar to more well known titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, etc. Pros: - Scaling Difficulty (higher level you are, higher level the enemies are) - Decent story (about on par with FFT, not an epic, but "Good" by RPG standards) - Branching Story (Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral - not necessarily "good/bad/neutral" either) - Mana System keeps mages useful throughout the battle, though they are not "nuke the battlefield" strong. - Well designed tactical play (one of my favorite factors being the ranged combat, with things such as shooting beyond range at a penalty, range penalty for shooting uphill, range bonus for shooting downhill, and last but not least "throw stone" for if you don't have a ranged weapon on a human character, pick up a rock and throw it at the fools) - Really good sprite work, especialy considering it's a SNES title ported to PSX ("excellent" SNES graphics, "Pretty Good" 2D PSX graphics) Neutral: - It's an interesting mix of Ogre Universe lore & FFT styles if you are familiar with those games more than this (Ogre Battle - even including staples such as Lans and Warren, and familiar class changes). Bad: - The Classes, while not "limited" compared to other games, do feel a bit more generic (there's nothing akin to a Time Mage, a Summoner, a Mathematician, Geomancer, etc. - though you can emulate some of these effects, it's not really as intrinsic to the class, so much as what you've bought and the characters you play). - Loading Times... it's PS1, this is sadly normal. --- The short: The game is as good as I remember honestly, remembered renting it when I was younger, but could never find a copy to buy at the time. This game is pretty much the precursor to its more popular cousin: Final Fantasy Tactics. Just a note: This game is significantly different than it's PSP port, and is more akin to the classic SNES version released in Japan. Honestly to the point where I consider the PSP version to be a different game outside of story (The change is even more drastic than the difference between PSX FFT and FFT:WotL - since the PSP Tactics Ogre has drastic changes to the leveling system, game start, etc. vs the PSX version)