Throughout the Ultimate Fantasy model, one of the vital well-known sub-series is the Ivalice Alliance. Set inside the fictional land of Ivalice, the handful of initiatives that comprised these video games have been marked by their deal with a extra grounded setting that explored the dramatic politics of a magical medieval world. Nevertheless, earlier than Ivalice got here alongside, its creator—Yasumi Matsuno—initially labored on one other unrelated sequence referred to as Ogre Battle that featured an early model of the setting. Techniques Ogre: Let Us Cling Collectively on the Tremendous NES was the second launch on this sequence and was largely seen as one of many best SRPGs ever made, but it surely by no means fairly garnered the next many believed it deserved. Now practically 30 years later, Sq. Enix has determined to present it one other crack at discovering a broader viewers with Techniques Ogre: Reborn, a remake of the PSP remake they made a couple of decade in the past. Although it nonetheless exhibits its age in some methods, Techniques Ogre Reborn does a fantastic job of cleansing up this SRPG traditional and presenting it to a brand new era.
Techniques Ogre locations you within the position of Denam, a Walister teen residing beneath the bootheel of the ruling Galgastani within the wake of a civil warfare that occurred just a few a long time in the past. Sick of residing in oppression, Denam ropes his sister and greatest buddy into becoming a member of a resistance to overthrow the ruling regime. As extra allies be part of and the resistance escalates right into a full-scale warfare, Denam is examined as he navigates the political and ethical panorama whereas staying true to his unique beliefs.
It is a gripping and darkish story all through, although it does really feel a little bit dense at first. The higher deal with political squabbling right here is welcome, however the lack of introduction to main names and occasions could make it really feel such as you’re watching season 4 of Recreation of Thrones with none of the context. Ultimately, you get a way of it however it may be so much initially to trace all of the relationships and motivations happening.
When you do get into it, there’s loads of plot to get drawn into, particularly given the presence of a number of routes and endings relying on key selections you’ve got Denam make at sure factors within the story. No matter what you select, vital characters will die or abandon you, and for those who’re ever curious how issues may’ve gone for those who selected otherwise, there’s a useful function to return in time to main plot factors and play out the opposite path.
Gameplay in Techniques Ogre takes the form of a typical isometric Technique RPG, whereby you give orders to a crew of round a dozen warriors to attain victory over a equally matched enemy group. Each character has a small assortment of weapons, abilities, assaults, consumables, and magic at their disposal, they usually can every transfer a brief distance each flip and take (with some exceptions) one motion. If somebody dies, you normally have three turns to hustle somebody over to them to subject a revive; in the event that they don’t make it in time, the incapacitated unit is lifeless for good and takes all of your hours of onerous work and funding with them.
So far as this style goes, Techniques Ogre is about so simple as the setup will get—not one of the relationship transport of Hearth Emblem or character stacking ridiculousness of Disgaea to be seen right here—but it surely clearly has the basics down nicely. It doesn’t take lengthy earlier than you get a grasp of the essential movement of a typical battle, and there are many attention-grabbing variables thrown in to maintain each struggle feeling attention-grabbing.
For instance, not solely do terrain sorts have completely different results in your stats, however one should take elevation into consideration when shifting and attacking items. Firing an arrow at an enemy at too excessive a place might solely end in you hitting a wall, or worse, an ally who was standing in the best way. There’s additionally an intensive elemental system at play, whereby each character belongs to a component that’s weak to some assaults and powerful in opposition to others. Components similar to this imply that sending in your Berserker to wash home isn’t at all times a viable possibility, you must think about how your selections might have penalties.
Thankfully, Techniques Ogre: Reborn isn’t punitive in the way it treats your decision-making abilities. There’s a useful new function referred to as the Chariot Tarot that permits you to roll again to earlier turns for those who don’t like the end result of a selection you made, and doing so will even create a branching timeline so you possibly can return to the preliminary selection in case your redo turned out even worse. Certainly, this Chariot Tarot feels a little bit damaged—Hearth Emblem’s Divine Pulse, for instance, felt prefer it couldn’t be used practically as a lot as a crutch—however we respect the way it permits for a way more dynamic form of problem scaling. These of you who need that old-school problem can merely not use it, whereas gamers who need to maximize their effectivity in a battle can cling to the ‘Golden Path’ they make by constantly discovering the most effective end result.
One other new change for this remake is the introduction of Buff Playing cards, that are randomly spawning collectibles in a battle that may give you a large edge. Every card will increase a stat for the character who picks it up, and that buff will follow them for the rest of the battle. Typically, you must go a little bit out of your option to choose one up, however these playing cards can utterly flip the tide for those who’re good about who you ship to seize one and when.
Plus, issues are made a little bit extra attention-grabbing by the truth that enemies might be equally buffed by them, which introduces a defensive component to snatching up playing cards earlier than your foes can energy up an excessive amount of. Although we felt generally these buff playing cards have been a little bit too highly effective for their very own good, they nonetheless add a welcome dynamic component that matches fairly nicely with the already deep fight system.
Between battles, you journey a world map that permits you to top off on provides, comply with the primary story, or break off for some aspect plots and dungeons that may internet you some tasty rewards. We appreciated the removing of random battles right here—any grinding you need to do can now be executed through a manually activated ‘coaching’ battle—although the Union Stage looks like an unfair handicap. With this mechanic, your social gathering is given a max stage cap till they progress the story additional, which may make a number of the tougher battles really feel unnecessarily troublesome if you aren’t in a position to grind a bit forward of time to stage your characters additional. Nonetheless, even this strictly imposed ceiling is softened a bit provided that any expertise gained on a maxed-out social gathering is transformed right into a consumable useful resource you can later dole out your self.
Concerning character progress, one of many largest adjustments made on this remake is a removing of the previous class-based system in favor of 1 that’s a lot much less reliant on grinding. EXP is doled out after the battle is over to all social gathering members equally, with the decrease leveled members getting a barely bigger lower. As they stage up, characters’ stats will naturally be influenced by the present class they’ve geared up they usually’ll study new lively and passive abilities unique to that class. You may solely equip 4 of those abilities at a time, which may really feel somewhat limiting given how a lot selection you’re given later, however we appreciated the chance to load out characters otherwise relying on the struggle they might subsequent be in.
Maybe most significantly, reclassing characters now is an easy matter of utilizing a consumable useful resource to modify them to your most popular class, the place they may immediately have all of the unique abilities unlocked for that class and their stage. Within the final model of Techniques Ogre on PSP, you would need to begin over from stage one with each reclass, which meant a laughable grind was wanted simply to get that character to the place they have been earlier than. Now, the tedium has been eliminated, however the depth remains to be there.
It’s quality-of-life adjustments like these that actually elevate Techniques Ogre Reborn, as practically all of the antiquated rougher edges have been smoothed out with well-implemented trendy fixes. Scared of creating the incorrect selections? Simply bail your self out with the Chariot Tarot. Aggravated by having to micromanage each member of your group? Activate the surprisingly competent AI on most of your group and simply fear about just a few characters. Bored by the generally glacial tempo of battle? You may double the animation pace on the press of a button. It’s very clear that the builders of this remake spent an terrible lot of time really taking part in it; because it looks like practically each place within the sport design that could possibly be a degree of irritation has been given an answer.
That mentioned, Techniques Ogre generally can’t get out of its personal approach. A part of that is most likely because of the unique launch launching practically three a long time in the past, however there are sometimes factors the place the sport would clearly be a greater expertise if it was reined in a bit. For instance, sprawling vertical battlefields sound like a fantastic concept, till you must spend two entire rounds individually guiding 12 items up a hill to the middle of the battlefield simply to allow them to start to interact the enemy. This remake does so much to chop again on the tedium, but it additionally wasn’t unusual for us to spend half an hour taking part in out a battle that was principally simply going by way of the motions.
Past this, it typically looks like main strategic selections and performs are blunted because of the diluted worth of particular person items. Having practically 30 items on the sphere duking it out doesn’t make you are feeling such as you’re presiding over some cohesive epic battle, however somewhat such as you’re watching a disconnected sequence of comparatively boring catfights between characters making an attempt to chop one another with spoons. In a contemporary title like Into the Breach, for instance, every member of each your group and the enemy group looks like a completely vital contributor to the broader battle, which makes every battle between items nail-bitingly intense. Even titles with bigger squads like Hearth Emblem nonetheless handle to be rife with large performs and key moments that pressure a change of tack. Techniques Ogre generally manages to engineer moments like this, however right here the resolutions of most battles felt somewhat anticlimactic and muted.
As for its graphical presentation, Techniques Ogre: Reborn is somewhat disappointing, particularly when in comparison with Sq.’s ongoing utilization of HD-2D. The spritework right here is okay, but it surely employs that gross pixel smoothing filter that trendy sport corporations love to make use of with their re-releases of older video games. Most sprites thus have weirdly formed curves and colours that are inclined to run collectively like water was spilled on a portray. In the meantime, the maps have some nice-looking tilesets and environmental particulars, but it surely doesn’t take lengthy earlier than you begin noticing simply how a lot property are being reused. Techniques Ogre’s visuals are at the least satisfactory, then, however after seeing how Sq.’s beautiful new rendition of Reside A Reside seemed just some months in the past, it’s onerous to really feel like Techniques Ogre didn’t get shafted right here.
Fortunately, the audio aspect of the presentation did fairly nicely this time round. Not solely has the unique soundtrack been given an orchestral therapy, however the complete script has been spruced up with a full voice solid. There are each Japanese and English voice performances right here, and we significantly appreciated the considerably nostalgic approach wherein they’re executed. Not one of the actors are unhealthy of their roles, however there’s only a trace of that form of timeless cheesiness of voice performing that was current in lots of video games within the ’90s.
