Any other Tactics Games you’ve played?

[Gamemast]

Was just wondering what other tactics games outside the Fire Emblem series people have played and recommend (or don’t) playing.

I’ve played Triangle Strategy, Stella Glow, and Pokemon Conquest and enjoyed them all. I’m currently playing Tactics Ogre Reborn and am having a good time.

Furthermore is there anything that non-Fire Emblem games do that you wish FE did as well?

I really like the way player choice affects the story in both TS and TOR. Would love it if FE handled it like them with multiple branches connecting back instead of one choice and you’re done (like in Fates/3H).
I’m also a big fan of TS handling of NG+ and how character progression continues through subsequent playthroughs.

EDIT: preferably games available on the switch as it’s the only console I have. I don’t have a pc either.

Edited Friday at 05:09 PM by Gamemast

[Original Alear]

I loved Final Fantasy Tactics (not the advance games, those are only OK). I think I prefer Fire Emblem for the most part, though sometimes the player phase/enemy phase feels less interesting than having units move individually based on turn speed.

Advance Wars is also great, and though it's not an SRPG, I think it can definitely be called tactics.

The xcom games are also fun, though I dislike that it can be a little difficult to determine how much range a unit has (and thus how good a shot it has if you move it somewhere). I haven't played the older ones, just enemy unknown and 2, as well as chimera squad.

The banner saga games are somewhat fun. Though honestly, I feel like my characters are just redundantly hacking, and I don't really get the strategy of these games very much. It's kind of odd that the system kinda punishes you for knocking down low health enemies because until there is 1 unit left on a given side, the game always alternates between the player and enemy team. (so if there are 2 enemy units and 5 player units, it will go player unit 1, enemy 1, player unit 2, enemy 2, player unit 3, enemy unit 1, player unit 4, enemy unit 2).

[Gamemast]

8 hours ago, Original Alear said:The banner saga games are somewhat fun. Though honestly, I feel like my characters are just redundantly hacking, and I don't really get the strategy of these games very much. It's kind of odd that the system kinda punishes you for knocking down low health enemies because until there is 1 unit left on a given side, the game always alternates between the player and enemy team. (so if there are 2 enemy units and 5 player units, it will go player unit 1, enemy 1, player unit 2, enemy 2, player unit 3, enemy unit 1, player unit 4, enemy unit 2).

Oh yeah I’ve played that trilogy as well… kinda completely forgot about them to be honest. I enjoyed the story and choice elements but the gameplay was kinda not fun like you said.

 

I heard of x-com but it doesn’t really seem to scratch the same itch that FE does. I love my fantasy grid based tactics over the sci-fi alien killer.

[Samz707]

For ones I'd recommend:

 

Jagged Alliance is a fun action-points SRPG with fixed wacky characters, it's kinda like classic X-com with the mechanics but somewhat more forgiving and less randomness, they're actually kinda like Gaiden where they're all set on a series of battle maps on a island/banana republic that are linked together, just in a non-linear open fashion this time.

Silent Storm is basically lite-steampunk (Mech suits though they take a very long time to appear) Jagged Alliance clone, it's 3D with full environmental destruction , (You can kill enemies by shooting through wooden walls/floors with machine guns and explosives/enough gunfire can blow holes in floors/walls for soldiers to climb/crawl through.) it's mostly mission-based but you can play random battles to grind.

Not finished it yet but Fallout Tactics seems decent.

Gorky 17 is basically "Resident Evil meets Vandal Hearts" (the devs were open about Vandal Hearts being an inspiration), it has no permadeath but has a bit of a horror vibe.

Men of War is very different from Fire Emblem but is a fun WW2 series of rts games, it's focused on tactics and has the gimmick of being an RTS where you can directly control units like a third person shooter as well as all units having inventories to manage. (With Theatre of War seeming like a similar game with permadeath but not played much of it.)

9th Company: Roots of Terror is a kind of fun perma-death version of Men of War with some of the complexity removed set in the Soviet-Afghan war but is pretty buggy, only recommend if you're willing to put up with jank and maybe get it on sale as it's super cheap.

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 01:59 PM by Samz707

[lenticular]

There was a similar thread a couple of months ago, so you might want to check that out too, for other recommendations.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Honestly, I played quite a few, and none of them do it quite like Fire Emblem. There are Fire Emblems I'm not crazy for, but even they seem more appetizing than a game that stresses grinding over strategy which is what I see out of the big names like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea. Stella Deus: Gate of Eternity has really awesome mechanics regarding flanking and positional team attacks, but every interaction is scaled primarily on level and you're expected to grind to keep up. Stella Glow sort of works as an incredibly basic Stella Deus (no relation), but it has a pacing problem where the game has to cycle through each enemy's turn and show them ending their turn when they have no targets in range. Takes forever to play the biggest maps.

As far as games that are capital F Fine. Banner Saga I remember mostly liking for its Oregon Trail narrative choices. I don't remember having an opinion on its grid combat. Possibly because I only played the first one. There was this year's Dream Tactics which completely opened my mind on the concept of a deck builder SRPG. You're given a lot of information to work with and an outrageous level of freedom to experiment with its mechanics. But the game's presentation elements (graphics, music, story) are all thoroughly underwhelming so it's just the raw gameplay that carries the game. I heap a lot of praise on XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within, but honestly it's exhausting that every map is Fog of War. You're going to have a lot of frustrating turns where you unveil multiple enemy squads at once, and the first shot they get off destroys your full body cover. I never feel like my strategy is key to my success or defeat; only my patience and use of explosives.

Shining Force is also Fine. Not being able to see the turn order is one thing, but said order being re-randomized each turn is downright obnoxious and kills the potential for strategy. And like Stella Glow it has to show you every enemy ending their turn when they have nothing to do. Banner of the Maid nails a lot of Fire Emblem mechanics really well, but also a lot of Fire Emblem pitfalls. Including the worst Protect the Green Unit chapter I've ever seen. Makes Zephiel's room look like a fortress because at least the enemies don't spawn inside of it. Valkyria Chronicles works some of the time. But like XCOM it's all Fog of War and you don't know what's out there until you've committed that unit's turn and spent their non-refundable AP. This may be a bizarre theory, but if those games were comprised entirely of Rout and Defend maps I think they would be a lot more fun and show off the strengths of the game mechanics and classes way more.

Edited Friday at 06:20 PM by Zapp Branniglenn

[Samz707]

5 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Honestly, I played quite a few, and none of them do it quite like Fire Emblem. There are Fire Emblems I'm not crazy for, but even they seem more appetizing than a game that stresses grinding over strategy which is what I see out of the big names like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea. Stella Deus: Gate of Eternity has really awesome mechanics regarding flanking and positional team attacks, but every interaction is scaled primarily on level and you're expected to grind to keep up. Stella Glow sort of works as an incredibly basic Stella Deus (no relation), but it has a pacing problem where the game has to cycle through each enemy's turn and show them ending their turn when they have no targets in range. Takes forever to play the biggest maps.

As far as games that are capital F Fine. Banner Saga I remember mostly liking for its Oregon Trail narrative choices. I don't remember having an opinion on its grid combat. Possibly because I only played the first one. There was this year's Dream Tactics which completely opened my mind on the concept of a deck builder SRPG. You're given a lot of information to work with and an outrageous level of freedom to experiment with its mechanics. But the game's presentation elements (graphics, music, story) are all thoroughly underwhelming so it's just the raw gameplay that carries the game. I heap a lot of praise on XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within, but honestly it's exhausting that every map is Fog of War. You're going to have a lot of frustrating turns where you unveil multiple enemy squads at once, and the first shot they get off destroys your full body cover. I never feel like my strategy is key to my success or defeat; only my patience and use of explosives.

Shining Force is also Fine. Not being able to see the turn order is one thing, but said order being re-randomized each turn is downright obnoxious and kills the potential for strategy. And like Stella Glow it has to show you every enemy ending their turn when they have nothing to do. Banner of the Maid nails a lot of Fire Emblem mechanics really well, but also a lot of Fire Emblem pitfalls. Including the worst Protect the Green Unit chapter I've ever seen. Makes Zephiel's room look like a fortress because at least the enemies don't spawn inside of it. Valkyria Chronicles works some of the time. But like XCOM it's all Fog of War and you don't know what's out there until you've committed that unit's turn and spent their non-refundable AP. This may be a bizarre theory, but if those games were comprised entirely of Rout and Defend maps I think they would be a lot more fun and show off the strengths of the game mechanics and classes way more.

NGL the fact Aliens dont get a free turn when you spot them is a BIG part of why I prefer old Xcom compared to new.

 

The fact everything is massively simplified doesn't help.

Edited Friday at 11:47 PM by Samz707

[SnowFire]

You actually finished Stella Glow?  Impressive.  The maps just start taking forever and ever later on in that game.  Alas.

Two indie-ish recommendations that are both on Switch..

* Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is an indie Final Fantasy Tactics-alike made by a tiny team of like 2 people.  That said, it's quite good, if you can look past the budget issues.  As something closer to FFT than FE, expect a smaller party but where characters have more detailed skillsets, and death not being quite as punishing.  It's a lot of fun.

* Brigandine: Legend of Runersia is a kind of strategy / tactics hybrid...  but the strategy layer is fairly vestigial, this is definitely a game more about the tactical battles.  It's less indie than Fell Seal, but it's still a bit low budget compared to your FE Engage / Three Houses extravaganzas of visuals & music.  You both build heroes as well as leveling up summoned monsters in your quest to Peacefully Liberate the rest of the continent from their foul oppressors in favor of Your Team's special and correct ideology, and there's some replayability since you can play as any of the 6 nations who have their own draw of heroes.

[Pengaius]

I'm not suuper versed in wider srpgs but the two oddest in my repertoire would be 

Rondo of Swords an ATLUS published DS game that features limited voice acting. The primary gimmick being that movement and attacking happen simultaneously which means you can move through a row of enemies to attack like 5 people at once. Characters don't die when killed but will suffer a stat penalty or the next map if they get K.O'ed. Also Cotton from the Cute 'em ' up series of the same name is a playable character if that means anything to anyone.

Digimon Survive is an odd mix between a real actual Visual Novel and an SRPG, with a bit of creature collection on the side. Sadly it doesn't actually do either style particularly well but that's kind of Digimon games in a nutshell. It's on Steam but you might be better off trying to get a secondhand copy for Switch Xbox or PS4.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Oh! And how could I forget Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle? Forget the Capital F Fine games I mentioned earlier, this is a winner. So much of what's possible in its battle system hinges on how creative you get with your Movement action. Dashing into enemies, team jumping into vantage points, getting a flanking angle on enemies, but also remaining near enough to your other teammates so that they can build their own combo off what you're doing. Don't let XCOM's cover system fool you, this battle system wants you to aggressively trample enemies, not turtle up. It's honestly a little daunting planning out your turn, because it feels like you need to plan out all nine of your party's actions before you can begin moving anyone. But a perfectly executed turn feels so rewarding. My biggest issue with the game is the party restrictions. You only have three characters at a time, and that first slot is always Mario. They also demand you have at least on Rabbid filling the remaining two slots, so it stunts the team building potential a fair bit.

It's sequel, Sparks of Hope shakes things up a lot, maybe even overcorrects. Sparks of Hope allows freedom of movement until that character attacks, which makes leap frogging your team around in one turn even easier so as not to demand so much planning. Building combos is definitely more accessible this way. Being able to make a party of any three characters from the get go is great, but everyone is down to having one weapon now. To ensure that everyone has no overlap in weapons, but it takes a fair bit of fiddling in the skill trees and equipping Sparks until you've landed on some really effective party compositions. As far as I'm concerned it's another home run.

These are two of my favorite Switch games, and if you're into this genre you owe it to yourself to try them out. Especially since they're Ubisoft games and are going on sale for dirt cheap constantly on the eshop.

[vanguard333]

The non-Fire Emblem tactics games that I've played are Triangle Strategy and Valkyria Chronicles 1 and 4. You mentioned Triangle Strategy, so I'll just talk about Valkyria Chronicles.

They are fun games and I would recommend them. I'd probably recommend playing VC1 first, but VC4 can be played without having played VC1; I know this because I started with VC4 and then played the remaster of VC1. Both of them are also available on the Switch.

One thing I really like about them is that experience points are awarded to the player after combat and are then spent to level up characters outside of combat, and the experience points are tied to the character classes, not the individual units. This means that you can choose the units you think will be best suited for the mission without having to worry about units ending up under-levelled or over-levelled. I understand why Fire Emblem doesn't do this, but I really appreciate it in these games.

Another thing I really enjoy is that you can save at any point. I get why so many tactics games don't like the player being able to save in the middle of a battle; they don't want players to rely on saving & reloading if the battle doesn't go the way they intended, but I don't think that's enough reason to deny all players the ability to save the game.

[Robert Stewart]

I've played a few. Here are my somewhat incoherent thoughts on each of them:

Shining Force 1:

I thought it was fine. I did not like not being able to see the turn order. I also felt that bosses in general were too strong. But I otherwise liked it. I especially found the magic system in the game to be quite satisfying to use.

Der Langrisser:

I enjoyed it even though it's quite an easy game due to exploitable AI. but the 4-tier branching class structure and multiple story paths make it quite fun to replay. I also really like how summons worked. From a presentation standpoint, I quite like how battles are presented. Seeing the little guys go at each other or get massacred by a laser beam is quite endearing.

The Langrisser 1+2 remake:

This game feels quite cheap. The presentation looks like they were trying to rip off FE Heroes, which is kinda funny since Langrisser Mobile doesn't look anything like FEH. The changes to how battles look in particular are a huge downgrade from the originals. I'm also a bit iffy on the story flowchart letting you rewind and play alternate routes with all your units already powered up.

I didn't get around to play the Langrisser 2 part of the game, but I played around half of the Langrisser 1 part. The remake added a branching story - this sorta takes away a bit of the uniqueness of L1, but it does give it some extra replay value I guess. The extra routes aren't exactly integrated super well into the story, but then again neither were the routes that Der Langrisser added to L2. I more or less liked the Imperial routes, but I got burnt out before I played the rest, so idk how those are.

I would definitely say that the game's full price is not worth it, but it might be worth checking out if it's on sale. I wouldn't pay more than $20 or so for it.

Triangle Strategy:

I liked the base gameplay more or less, but it felt a bit grindy to me in some places. I also was not a huge fan of some characters being locked to NG+.

On the story:

Spoiler

I really didn't like that the game had a golden ending. I feel like having one really undermines the idea of choosing which faction or ideal to side with.

That aside, I thought the game was fine more or less.

 

It's been a minute since I played most of these games, so my memory of each of them is kinda hazy.

Edit: I've also played and enjoyed Tearring Saga, Berwick Saga, and both Vestaria Saga games. But I'm not sure how much you can really consider those games to be "non-FE" given their history and pretty similar gameplay.

Edited 6 hours ago by Robert Stewart