The original inspiration for Final Fantasy Tactics gets a new remaster, that reconfirms Tactics Ogre as one of the best ever tactical RPGs.
You’d assume that any game that got more than one remaster must have to be something pretty famous, like Resident Evil 4 or Skyrim. That is usually the case but sometimes, especially if it’s a Japanese game that wasn’t originally released in the West, it can take multiple attempts before there’s anything close to a definitive version. Such is the case for Tactics Ogre, which is a game most people have never heard of but, if they’re strategy fans, will find instantly recognisable.
We didn’t realise this was a remaster at first and assumed from the subtitle it was actually a reboot of the series. Alas it is not. It’s a remaster of PSP game Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, which in turn was a remake of 1995 SNES game Tactics Ogre – which was also ported to the Saturn and PlayStation but never released in the West until 2011.
That is a complicated family tree, and we doubt that this incarnation has any greater chance for mainstream success than the others, but it is a highly influential game, whose impact on the wide strategy genre is rarely appreciated. If you know what Final Fantasy Tactics is, and are looking at these screenshots in puzzlement, assuming they’re one and the same game, there’s a good reason for that – except that Tactics Ogre came first.
PIC 1