
Within the Final Fantasy brand, one of the most famous sub-series is the Ivalice Alliance. Set within the fictional land of Ivalice, the handful of projects that comprised these games were marked by their focus on a more grounded setting that explored the dramatic politics of a magical medieval world. However, before Ivalice came along, its creator—Yasumi Matsuno—originally worked on another unrelated series called Ogre Battle that featured an early version of the setting. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on the Super NES was the second release in this series and was largely seen as one of the greatest SRPGs ever made, but it never quite garnered the following many believed it deserved. Now nearly 30 years later, Square Enix has decided to give it another crack at finding a broader audience with Tactics Ogre: Reborn, a remake of the PSP remake they made about a decade ago. Though it still shows its age in some ways, Tactics Ogre Reborn does a great job of cleaning up this SRPG classic and presenting it to a new generation.

Tactics Ogre places you in the role of Denam, a Walister teen living under the bootheel of the ruling Galgastani in the wake of a civil war that took place a few decades ago. Sick of living in oppression, Denam ropes his sister and best friend into joining a resistance to overthrow the ruling regime. As more allies join and the resistance escalates into a full-scale war, Denam is tested as he navigates the political and moral landscape while staying true to his original ideals.
It's a gripping and dark story all the way through, though it does feel a little dense at first. The greater focus on political squabbling here is welcome, but the lack of introduction to major names and events can make it feel like you’re watching season 4 of Game of Thrones without any of the context. Eventually, you get a sense of it but it can be a lot initially to track all the relationships and motivations going on.
Once you do get into it, there’s plenty of plot to get drawn into, especially given the presence of multiple routes and endings depending on key decisions you have Denam make at certain points in the story. Regardless of what you choose, important characters will die or abandon you, and if you’re ever curious how things might’ve gone if you chose differently, there’s a helpful feature to go back in time to major plot points and play out the other path.

Gameplay in Tactics Ogre takes the shape of a standard isometric Strategy RPG, wherein you give orders to a crew of around a dozen warriors to achieve victory over a similarly matched enemy team. Every character has a small collection of weapons, skills, attacks, consumables, and magic at their disposal, and they can each move a short distance every turn and take (with some exceptions) one action. If someone dies, you usually have three turns to hustle someone over to them to issue a revive; if they don’t make it in time, the incapacitated unit is dead for good and takes all your hours of hard work and investment with them.
As far as this genre goes, Tactics Ogre is about as simple as the setup gets—none of the relationship shipping of Fire Emblem or character stacking ridiculousness of Disgaea to be seen here—but it clearly has the fundamentals down well. It doesn’t take long before you get a grasp of the basic flow of a typical battle, and there are plenty of interesting variables thrown in to keep every fight feeling interesting.
For example, not only do terrain types have different effects on your stats, but one must take elevation into account when moving and attacking units. Firing an arrow at an enemy at too high a position may only result in you hitting a wall, or worse, an ally who was standing in the way. There’s also an extensive elemental system at play, wherein every character belongs to an element that’s weak to some attacks and strong against others. Factors such as this mean that sending in your Berserker to clean house isn’t always a viable option, you have to consider how your decisions may have consequences.

Fortunately, Tactics Ogre: Reborn isn’t punitive in how it treats your decision-making skills. There’s a helpful new feature called the Chariot Tarot that allows you to roll back to previous turns if you don’t like the outcome of a choice you made, and doing so will even create a branching timeline so you can return to the initial choice if your redo turned out even worse. Indeed, this Chariot Tarot feels a little broken—Fire Emblem’s Divine Pulse, for example, felt like it couldn’t be used nearly as much as a crutch—but we appreciate how it allows for a much more dynamic kind of difficulty scaling. Those of you who want that old-school challenge can simply not use it, while players who want to maximize their efficiency in a battle can cling to the ‘Golden Path’ they make by continuously finding the best outcome.
Another new change for this remake is the introduction of Buff Cards, which are randomly spawning collectibles in a battle that can give you a massive edge. Each card will boost a stat for the character who picks it up, and that buff will stick with them for the remainder of the battle. Often, you have to go a little out of your way to pick one up, but these cards can completely turn the tide if you’re smart about who you send to grab one and when.
Plus, things are made a little more interesting by the fact that enemies can be equally buffed by them, which introduces a defensive element to snatching up cards before your foes can power up too much. Though we felt sometimes these buff cards were a little too powerful for their own good, they nonetheless add a welcome dynamic element that fits quite well with the already deep combat system.

Between battles, you travel a world map that allows you to stock up on supplies, follow the main story, or break off for some side plots and dungeons that can net you some tasty rewards. We appreciated the removal of random battles here—any grinding you want to do can now be done via a manually activated ‘training’ battle—though the Union Level feels like an unfair handicap. With this mechanic, your party is given a max level cap until they progress the story further, which can make some of the harder battles feel unnecessarily difficult when you aren’t able to grind a bit ahead of time to level your characters further. Still, even this strictly imposed ceiling is softened a bit given that any experience gained on a maxed-out party is converted into a consumable resource that you can later dole out yourself.
Regarding character growth, one of the largest changes made in this remake is a removal of the former class-based system in favor of one that is much less reliant on grinding. EXP is doled out after the battle is over to all party members equally, with the lower leveled members getting a slightly larger cut. As they level up, characters’ stats will naturally be influenced by the current class they have equipped and they’ll learn new active and passive skills exclusive to that class. You can only equip four of these skills at a time, which can feel rather restricting given how much choice you’re given later, but we appreciated the opportunity to load out characters differently depending on the fight they would next be in.

Perhaps most importantly, reclassing characters now is a simple matter of using a consumable resource to switch them to your preferred class, where they will instantly have all the exclusive skills unlocked for that class and their level. In the last version of Tactics Ogre on PSP, you would have to start over from level one with every reclass, which meant a laughable grind was needed just to get that character to where they were before. Now, the tedium has been removed, but the depth is still there.
It’s quality-of-life changes like these that really elevate Tactics Ogre Reborn, as nearly all the antiquated rougher edges have been smoothed out with well-implemented modern fixes. Scared of making the wrong decisions? Just bail yourself out with the Chariot Tarot. Annoyed by having to micromanage every member of your team? Activate the surprisingly competent AI on most of your team and just worry about a few characters. Bored by the sometimes glacial pace of battle? You can double the animation speed at the press of a button. It’s very clear that the developers of this remake spent an awful lot of time actually playing it; as it feels like nearly every place in the game design that could be a point of irritation has been given a solution.

That said, Tactics Ogre sometimes can’t get out of its own way. Part of this is probably due to the original release launching nearly three decades ago, but there are often points where the game would clearly be a better experience if it was reined in a bit. For example, sprawling vertical battlefields sound like a great idea, until you have to spend two whole rounds individually guiding 12 units up a hill to the center of the battlefield just so they can begin to engage the enemy. This remake does a lot to cut back on the tedium, yet it also wasn’t uncommon for us to spend half an hour playing out a battle that was mostly just going through the motions.
Beyond this, it often feels like major strategic decisions and plays are blunted due to the diluted value of individual units. Having nearly 30 units on the field duking it out doesn’t make you feel like you’re presiding over some cohesive epic battle, but rather like you’re watching a disconnected series of relatively boring catfights between characters trying to cut each other with spoons. In a modern title like Into the Breach, for example, each member of both your team and the enemy team feels like an absolutely critical contributor to the broader battle, which makes each conflict between units nail-bitingly intense. Even titles with larger squads like Fire Emblem still manage to be rife with big plays and key moments that force a change of tack. Tactics Ogre sometimes manages to engineer moments like this, but here the resolutions of most battles felt rather anticlimactic and muted.

As for its graphical presentation, Tactics Ogre: Reborn is rather disappointing, especially when compared to Square’s ongoing usage of HD-2D. The spritework here is fine, but it employs that gross pixel smoothing filter that modern game companies love to use with their re-releases of older games. Most sprites thus have weirdly shaped curves and colors that tend to run together like water was spilled on a painting. Meanwhile, the maps have some nice-looking tilesets and environmental details, but it doesn’t take long before you start noticing just how much assets are being reused. Tactics Ogre’s visuals are at least passable, then, but after seeing how Square’s gorgeous new rendition of Live A Live looked just a few months ago, it’s hard to feel like Tactics Ogre didn’t get shafted here.
Luckily, the audio side of the presentation did pretty well this time around. Not only has the original soundtrack been given an orchestral treatment, but the entire script has been spruced up with a full voice cast. There are both Japanese and English voice performances here, and we particularly liked the somewhat nostalgic way in which they’re executed. None of the actors are bad in their roles, but there’s just a hint of that kind of timeless cheesiness of voice acting that was present in many games in the '90s.
Conclusion
Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a seminal and still-enjoyable SRPG that manages to respectfully hold its own against the many descendants it now exists alongside. Though some elements of its design feel a little archaic, its deeply political and branching narrative, orchestrated soundtrack, and solidly built strategic combat all come together to make for a worthwhile experience. Visually, this version is disappointing, and we wouldn't say Reborn is one to rush out and buy immediately, but if you're a sucker for strategy and want to experience an influential classic with some mod cons thrown in, we'd suggest you keep this on your watchlist.
Comments 66
A 7 of 10 is exactly what i thought this game should get. Im not a fan of turn based tactic games but this looks okay.
Those cons are minor for me (and likely for any fan of the series). Just waiting on my copy to show up.
The ‘chibi’ style characters on the maps look pretty rubbish eh. Bad design choice.
Will probably wait for a big old sale for this one.
Fortunately this review was an outlier, as I've generally been reading very positive reviews about Tactics Ogre: Reborn. It's my favorite SRPG and I've already pre-ordered it, I can't wait to do the Lawful and Chaotic routes on Switch (I did the Neutral route in my PSP save).
Game looks and runs good to me, still waiting for my copy to arrive.
Definitely safe waiting for a sale here, if I get it at all. Not because I think the game is bad, but because it really doesn’t look all that impressive that I should get swept up in the hype from people who loved it back then. Glad that I can give it a try on a modern console now then.
This is one of my most anticipated games of the year. I can't wait.
What do you mean "decent" lol everywhere else is showing off all the reasons why this is a great, if not fantastic release, especially coming from Square who is known to be very hit or miss. Give credit where credit is due.
This review is 100% an outlier for any potential buyers out there. Game is worth the pickup
Huh, definitely the most pointed review I've read yet. Still an instant buy for me.
To say the graphics look awful seems a bit overblown. They look fine to me from these screenshots at least. Sure, they might not wow or meet the bar set by others, but they don't look bad bad.
Still, not paying £40 for this right now. Too much else spent this season.
PS. The only other review I've seen is Metro.co.uk. They seemed a bit underwhelmed as well, but I think they still gave it an 8/10.
I think it looks great. Looking forward to it. I'm glad it isn't hd2d. Really don't like that style.
I wonder if I should get this on ps5 instead. I just want the smoothest experience….
Wow, I know and heard some good seiyūs from the cast - Yūichi Nakamura(Yūki Terumi and Hazama from BLAZBLUE series, Yoshiki Kishinuma from Corpse Party), Hiroki Yasumoto(Azrael from BLAZBLUE series, Kurō "Crow" Kuruwaba and Raven(prior to Xrd, though) from Guilty Gear XX ΛCore Plus R), Nao Tōyama(Vatista from UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH Exe:Late[cl-r]), Hiroki Tōchi(Chris Redfield from Biohazard/Resident Evil series), and Shōtarō Morikubo(Yōsuke Hanamura from Persona series). Also... That's kinda funny, that this game(remastered port) have fully-voiced dialogues, while new game(and new IP!), Harvestella - don't. Sometimes, Square Enix can do some weird business decisions, I suppose...
I used to love these games, but I don't think they have aged well. There's a lot of turn based strategy games these days that seem to be better.
Been playing Orge Tactics 64, I don't think it's a game for everyone, the battle part is slow and quite dull.
The game shines most sorting out your teams.
Never played the SNES one, is it much the same?
@Ryu_Niiyama same! The gearing up music is already playing in my head. I'm going to disappear into this one, and I have the house all to myself.
It’s tough coming out the same month as Pokémon, a game I plan to devote full attention to.
I’m buying this but likely will wait for a sale which shouldn’t be too hard since I’ll be playing Pokémon in the meantime anyway.
Gotta keep that backlog contained! It’s trying to break itself free!
@ItsATM
It's a reviewers opinion. If it doesn't line up with other reviews, that's just a matter of taste. Must we nitpick every review on here?
Aaaaahhhhh, you both have lay-urs….
You know, not everybody likes onions, no….
CAKE! Everybody loves cake! Cakes have layers!
@Classic603 Yes, we must nitpick. What kind of world do you want to live in where anyone is allowed to disagree?
If 9/10 people agree, then the only logical conclusion is to dispose of the 1 person who didn't.
About what I expected. A stone-cold classic, to be sure, but one that has been bettered over time. I'll probably still pick it up when it goes on sale, but the budget pricing and sci-fi theme are making Front Mission 1st Remake look a lot more attractive to me in the immediate future.
A great game, but not enough effort put into this release to be worth the price they're asking.
This is an awful review. It's one of the lowest scores online. I've gotten about 12 hours in and I have to say as someone who owns this game on PSP and an English patch cart on SNES, this is BY FAR the best version of the game. The number of improvements is astounding. Both to the gameplay AND the visuals. not to mention the fantastic soundtrack.
This is legit the BEST VERSION of the BEST tactics game ever made.
@Ratmasterd21 Agreed. How dare this reviewer not fall in line with the others. Let's grab our pitchforks! Our favorite games must score no less than perfect!
@WaffleRaptor01 you seem to defend this team quite a bit. I'm thinking maybe this is a smurf account.
Wow, blandest of the bland character art.
I'm glad they kept the looks classic instead of going HD-2D. Jumping in tonight.
Seeing the current reviews from this site, I'm guessing the next Pokemon will score a 5/10. Otherwise, I won't believe this website anymore lol
@BeefSanta I have to wait for tomorrow. Stupid earth taking 24 hours to rotate bs.
Thanks for the review as always! I’ll leave this on wishlist for now. Not hugely into SRPGS other than FE, so this would likely sit in backlog for a year before I got to it
Love this game and I’m so happy to get an updated version on the Switch. Been playing a lot today and I personally thought the graphics looked good, this isn’t a remake so I’m not sure why the reviewer thought it was. Anyway I highly recommend this to anyone who hasn’t played it before, and of course to everyone that has
strange nintendo life being critical of a game visuals we are talking about the switch here..
@johnedwin
In this case the criticism is less regarding the technical aspects and more to do with the smoothing filter which apparently cannot be turned off.
Yeah, I agree with the review. I wish this game got an octopath/triangle strategy treatment with the graphics.
@eltomo Ogre Battle 64 is a different beast. Where that game has you point and clicking on a map in real time setting up for group battles to play out automatically, Tactics has you managing every move & attack of every individual unit on a grid in turn based moves more like Fire Emblem.
Yeah after playing this a bit earlier today it honestly would have been better if it got the HD-2D treatment and other QoL. Going from Triangle Strategy to this game really shows how much Tactics aged as well despite the updated look + QOL this version got.
The visuals sound like the biggest turn off, and a heck of a turn off. Between that and the thought of spending the first half of a battle glacially moving one unit at a time until they are almost in range to engage the enemy, and I think this is the kind of game that should have gotten a full remake rather than a remaster. A lot of it sounds great, but the moment-to-moment gameplay and the visuals sound grating.
Maybe on sale...
i have not played the game yet but i seen review son you tube and it looks fine may not be hd -2d but the visuals look fine..to my eyes
@Classic603 I think people have died for saying things half as controversial as what you just said lmao
i still think 50e for this game is a well orchestrated theft or as some would say IT'S A TRAP.
nevertheless, as soon as it costs 44,99....
A demo please Square Enix..
Whilst too early to give my score , having never played the original I am already loving it. The art style I think is absolutely fine , it looks cute and unlike an original Super Nintendo game the graphics look very cleaned up and very sharp . I think everything looks great and love the voice acting .
Your reviews have become unreadable thanks to cycling ads that resize and shuffle the article up or down constantly - I have to constantly relocate the passage I was reading. How irritating.
Cheers for the review. Looks like something that I would enjoy. I agree the cons would be cons but reading the revw suggests it's a solid 8 rather a 7. Doesn't really matter I s'pose, as I'm getting it. 85% average review so far
"Really deserved the HD-2D treatment"
not at all! HD-2D is fine, but the problem with thta is that all HD-2D games look totally similar...visually the same games
I got to play a couple hours yesterday and its everything I wanted as someone who spent a ton of time with the gba tactics orge. I like the art style as I feel HD-2D is being done to death.
Can someone who has the game tell us if it's 70% story and 30% actual game like triangle strategy? I got sick of that very fast. And I bloody love turn based strategy.
would definitely prefer clean pixels rather than 'smooth' , but seems awesome other than that
The last two "cons" are really one and the same, aren't they?
@DudeshootMankill I'm about 9 hours in and I've spent 95% of that time either in battle or outfitting my party. Plus, the story that's here is really good so far, unlike what I experienced in Triangle Strategy.
@Dr_Corndog aite then doctor it's a sale. Can you pick any class/job you want for your main character?
@DudeshootMankill I had to check for myself, but yes, you can change the main character's class. It's very easy to change classes.
@Dr_Corndog perfect. I love turn based strategy with lots of room for min maxing. My switch only plays battle brothers really.
Enjoying it so far!
However—and please take this for the single anecdotal data point it is—it seems to chew through my Switch OLED battery quite a bit faster than I would have expected. Runs great, but I sure can't charge my Switch while I play it.
honestly had to set this one down after like a half hour, love the series and this had alot of things i wanted to like about it but after playing a number of games in the series this one might just be the only one ill pass one
Not really into SRPGs or RTS games much (I’ve only really played Mario + Rabbids 1 and Fire Emblem Three Houses in terms of the genre I think). But I love JRPGs and Final Fantasy. That said I’ll probably just wait for an eventual FF Tactics Remaster to come to Switch to try it out given all the acclaim over the years. Glad fans got this too though given all the love for it. Enjoy!
… Wun can only hope.
I was wrong. This game is horrid. 0/10. Between union level, lack of cash, and enemies several levels above me, I give up. In the trash can with this crap. Maybe I suck now but this isn't how I remember the old release. I don't have the patience for this. Moving on. Square you duped me again.
Are the buff cards too intrusive? Every screenshot I see has dozens scattered around, making each level seem much easier or unnecessarily scattered for it.? Maybe I’m focusing too much on it, but it seems like a gimmicky thing thrown in that wasn’t needed. It would nice to option this OFF; anyone know if that is the case? This small feature has become a deterrent to buy, as it has the potential to trivialize the leveling and outfitting of a party by simply granting unearned star boosts…
@CodyDogg I'm a fan of the buff cards for several reasons, but I'll address your concern and leave it at that. A unit has to end its turn on a buff card to get it. For melee units, this often means choosing between taking the card and attacking the enemy. Ranged units have an easier time picking up cards, but even then you have to be careful: pick up a card that's too close to the action, and your squishy archer ends up getting whalloped; too far, and the unit's out of range for that turn. In my experience, then, the cards add strategic depth without overwhelming the other factors.
"[T]he lack of introduction to major names and events can make it feel like you’re watching season 4 of Game of Thrones without any of the context."
This is interesting, as I didn't find the story confusing at all (though I did make sure to watch the prologue video and check the Warren report). Perhaps the reviewer missed these? Although, the standards for storytelling in video games being as low as they are, it wouldn't surprise me for someone to simply balk when presented with a competently written story in a game.
@Dr_Corndog
Ah, thanks for the clarification! While I'd probably prefer them to be absent, I appreciate your explanation of the strategy they DO provide. As with most, my plate is overflowing at the moment, but won't let this one feature completely dissuade me. Into the 'Later pile' you go, thanks again!
Too low. 7.5/10 is a minimum for people who already played the original, where their complaints might be directed on gameplay nitpicks. 8/10 is minimum for newcomers.
An awful lot of comments seem shocked that a SNES game looks like a SNES game. I'd love it if this was a full blown remake too. But we've known since the announcement it was an enhanced port of the PSP version (itself an enhanced port of the original). I wonder if I slide over to Push Square if I'll find people concerned to discover the recent port release of Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is still a PS1/PSP game at its core.
Having now played it for awhile I’m actually really bored 🥱 of it , the story just hasn’t really grabbed me at all and I haven’t gelled with the characters. The battles also feel so long , think this one is gonna stay on the back burner for now
This was the most fun I've had with a strategy rpg since fft. Hands down. And that coda chapter 4 battle was legitimately an insanely hard final battle that I celebrated with scotch and cigar afterwards. I don't normally put over 100 hours in video games, but I as hooked the entire time. 9 out of 10 for me
Hugely underrated game.
Switch owners want ALL the games, well, here's one and it has been largely ignored. Much preferred this to Triangle Strategy.
Level cap killed this game for me
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