The Tactics Ogre remake is so much more than a by-the-numbers strategy game. As with any great art, it runs on feelings.
It’s the dead of night and my soldiers are hunkered down between two mausoleums, bottlenecking the enemy necromancer’s forces into a single-file charge. The plan works for the first few turns, with undead troops falling before my line’s spears and swords, until one of the skeletons breaks through and brings its bony mitts down on one of my brave spearwomen. An ominous countdown appears above her prone body. This was how long I have to finish the battle before she bleeds out, dying with no hope of revival.
At this moment, I have to change my plan; I can no longer exhaust the necromancer’s army in drips. I charge my troops up the map, into the thick of her forces. With steel, sweat, and sinew, we turn the battle and end the necromancer’s sorry life with only one turn to spare. This is the magic of Tactics Ogre, so effectively and lovingly rendered in Tactics Ogre Reborn for Nintendo Switch.
Tactics Ogre is almost as old as I am, released back in 1995 (the game, not me). Yet its emphasis on player actions, and their permadeath-laden consequences, is just as powerful today as it was in the mid 90s.
You take on the role of a young, partisan leader called Denam in a battle to liberate his people from the yoke of oppression.
