Square Enix has just announced a PSP remake of Super NES classic Tactics Ogre, coming to the U.S. under its original subtitle, Let Us Cling Together. As the second remake of the game -- it originally came to the U.S. on PlayStation in 1998, courtesy of Atlus -- on a machine that's inundated with ports and remakes, this might not seem like such a big deal at first glance. But in fact, it is.
For starters, it's great that Square is doing something with the Ogre franchise, which is a first; despite acquiring the series' original developer, Quest, more than a decade ago, there's yet to be a single Ogre title released under the Square banner. Between this and the DS remake of Lufia II, it looks like Japan's biggest RPG publisher is finally starting to make use of the expansive back catalog of properties it's accumulated through a long string of acquisitions and mergers. The Ogre titles just might be the strongest contender for "cult classic" in its extensive stable of brands -- a franchise for hardcore RPG fans in a way that Dragon Quest very definitely isn't. Exciting as it is to see the Square name on western properties like Dungeon Siege and Deus Ex, there's something about seeing the publisher dredge up such a beloved niche brand that warms the older gamer's heart cockles.
But even more than that, the best part about Tactics Ogre's return is that it also means Square has gotten the band back together: The new remake is being spearheaded by the core Quest team. That means character design by Akihiko Yoshida, art design and direction by Hiroshi Minagawa, music by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, and above all, game design and planning by Yasumi Matsuno. This is the same group who crafted masterpieces like Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and (one assumes) the more cohesive parts of Final Fantasy XII. Matsuno has been almost complete missing in action for the past five years, so seeing his name attached prominently to this remake is intriguing.
According to Matsuno (via Famitsu), the game is a pretty liberal rendition of the original 16-bit title. It seems to incorporate a significant graphical upgrade, a heavy revamp of the story, and a mysterious system that gives the remake its Japanese subtitle, Wheel of Fate. Early speculation is that the idea behind the wheel is that it will allow players to experience every potential iteration of the plot. That sounds like a great addition. See, not only did Tactics Ogre have a powerful story, it had a branching story. In fact, every time someone argues that a game can't tell an interesting story and still offer player control over the outcome, Tactics Ogre is my go-to counter-example. Sure, these days we have BioWare's works and the Fallout series to show the potential of player input, but ten years ago the idea of a heavily story-driven RPG that allowed the player to determine its ultimate outcome was fairly novel.
In a lot of ways, Tactics Ogre was very much the rough draft for Final Fantasy Tactics. Heck, the story revolves around a trio of characters -- protagonist Denim Powell, his sister Kachua, and his friend turned rival Vice Bozeg -- whose relationship was carbon-copied by FFT's Ramza, Atma, and Delita. Combat played out with a rudimentary turn-based tactical battle system in which character speed and relative heights played major factors. There was even a job system, albeit a much simpler one than in FFT.
In some ways, Tactics Ogre was a more compelling game than its successor. The player-driven story had a lot to do with that, because the plot branched several times at significant moments in the story. Players had to make tough choices -- choices that were taken out of their hands in FFT. At the end of Ogre's first chapter, for instance, Denim is forced to choose between obeying an order to kill innocents or going rogue. The plot is rigged so that Vice will always oppose your decision, but the action you choose there radically changes the story and battles you experience in subsequent chapters. Imagine if the end of FFT's first chapter forced you to choose between helping Delita's sister or teaming up with Algus/Argath to fight alongside the nobles, and you begin to understand how affecting Tactics Ogre dynamic story can be.
The game also offered much more demanding battles than FFT. Where the latter's battles topped out at around 14-15 characters at the absolute maximum -- only five of whom could ever be player-controlled -- Tactics Ogre let you go ten-on-ten. One could argue that FFT didn't need such large battles, since the Job system allowed more varied multiclassing, giving a party of five the same breadth of skills available for a ten-member team in Tactics Ogre, but the resulting scope of combat made for an experience that's still unique among tactical RPGs. Amazingly, the "rebuild" looks to up this, with as many as 30 combatants on the field at once. That won't be the only improvement for this adaptation; it'll also include new characters, music, and story elements. Despite the developers' decision to mimic the visual style of the 16-bit original, this new take on Tactics Ogre offers a lot of niceties introduced by its successors, such as true 3D battlefields. The team claims its goal is to create a version of the game that would resemble “how TACTICS OGRE would be if it was developed and played now.”
There's plenty of room for other improvements here, to be honest. Groundbreaking and influential as Tactics Ogre was, it was also a wildly lopsided videogame. Much has been made of its legendary difficulty level, but the problem with the game wasn't so much that it was hard as that its challenge scaled in an uneven way that made the immense size of the player's party a liability. Enemies in all battles leveled up alongside Denim, whereas in FFT enemies were at fixed levels in all story battles. This made every fight a challenge, to be sure... but it also put everyone who wasn't Denim at a severe disadvantage. Since Denim participated in every battle, he leveled up quickly... and the other nine participants tended to lag behind him, leaving them wildly underpowered next to the enemies. In a game where a single experience level is a significant advantage, a party of warriors five levels below the enemy rabble tended not to last long without extensive training between story fights. I certainly wouldn't complain if they could even that out a bit without compromising the game's innate spirit of overwhelming odds.
However it ultimately plays out, I'm genuinely excited to see one of the greatest RPGs ever made receiving such a comprehensive overhaul courtesy of the original developers. Unlike the PS1 port of Tactics Ogre and even FFT's PSP remake, I'm pretty confident this release won't suffer from slapdash porting shortcuts. And maybe if it does well enough, we'll finally see the Ogre series expanded on with a fresh sequel by its core team. Here's hoping, anyway.
Dave's Take: OOOOOOOO yes. I can't wait for this.
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