Note: March of the Black Queen is going to stop being available for sale on January 29th, available on the Wii, and the Wii U.

Over the course of the last few months, there have been many requests to get a comprehensive guide of all the games in the series, what they brought to the table, their fan projects, and how exactly to even get ahold of them.

This is that guide.

If You are looking to chat more about these games or any other SRPGs, we have a Discord and Subreddit

First off, here’s a complete list (to my research) of all Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre games or fan mods, since there are more versions and games than folks usually realize.

Unofficially, the Final Fantasy Tactics Series and Vagrant Story can be loosely considered part of the same series, as they both cross-reference each other, have connectable story elements, and were implied to have been planned as one series originally.

There are few to no legit options for most of the games in the series. Thankfully, stances on emulation have changed as far as laws go, and these are very strongly in the “unable to be reasonably obtained by normal or official means” category.

Note: “Emulation” refers to PC, Phone, and Dedicated Emulation Systems, the other systems I mention occasionally have issues running things, but are my preferred methods for playing these.

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (SNES/Sega Saturn/Wii/Wii U)

Challenge (2/10 – 9/10, being a tyrant is super easy, winning over the people is hard)

Matsuno Level (10/10, Fairy Butts, Flash Gordon/Queen References, and Wars Galore!)

Story (7/10, Great story, but can be hard to piece together on just one run.)

This is the game that started it all, a combination RTS and Turn-Based RPG with map-wide battles of 3-5 unit squads. Gameplay revolves around using any means necessary to take over enemy capitals, with a heavy emphasis on attempting to end conflicts early, in order to minimize the effects of the war. You can capture cities and temples to have a place to recover health, buy items, or recruit units, but each town has certain requests for their liberators, and part of getting the best endings is keeping your units intentionally weak, since their egos will make people hate them if they trounce around the countryside over-leveled. Letting a battle drag out for several days, or sending in units that a town won’t like result in reputation loss, which is ultimately a big factor in the ending you get.

Interestingly this game was inspired by the Queen II album, which started the sort of half tradition of naming games in the series after Queen songs. I believe that certain other elements were also inspired by other music from back then, as well, given how much the Black Queen and her motivations seem to match both the general look of Pat Benetar, and the lyrics of Invincible. Just saying, it’s possible.

All of this comes together in a unique gameplay dynamic that I’ve never seen done well anywhere else.

This is one of my favorite games ever, and a fantastic example of how simple mechanics can lead to a surprisingly complex game under the surface. With a ton of different requirements for events, as well as pretty heavy item randomization, no two runs are the same. Easily one of the best examples of extreme randomization done right, in my opinion.

Note that casual runs can be both fun and easy, since one super squad can definitely take on an entire map, and every unit aside from your leader comes back to life after a battle. The challenge comes from trying to actually have a world worth living in afterwards.

Playable on: SNES, Emulator, Re-Creation Cartridge Wii, Wii U

The only legit way to get this game aside from buying a very expensive cartridge off of eBay would be to buy it on a Wii or Wii U Console (Links above). The game is $9.99, and while they did mention that older titles may be ported to the Switch, this series likely isn’t on their radar. One can hope, though.

Emulation seems stable on all platforms, including the PSP, Vita, and SNES Mini.

The Saturn version features improved animations and a better look color and resolution wise, which was then further improved on with the PSX port.

Legit Options: SNES Cartridge, Sega Saturn, Wii, Wii U (Until Jan 29, 2019)

Also Neat: Guide





Ogre Battle: MOTBQ Limited Edition (PSX)

Challenge (2/10 – 9/10, being a tyrant is super easy, winning over the people is hard)

Matsuno Level (10/10, Same as above, now with higher detail fairy butts!)

Story (7/10, Great story, but can be hard to piece together on just one run.)

A rerelease that actually has a lot more content and changes than folks may realize.

After spending a week playing both versions side by side, here’s what I found:

-Impoved AI (They cooperate instead of beelining to objectives)

-Some changed formations

-Small buffs to weaker units, like Samurai, Beastmen, and Vampires

-Slight to severe nerfs on stronger units, like the Princess and Cockatrice The latter being noticeably less accurate, but seems to always act first)

-Improved visuals across the board.

-Battle camera that moves around

-New Map commands, such as an overhead map and town function list

-In-Battle saves

-Arguably more of a downside than a feature, but the sound mutes when paused, presumably to let you know when it isn’t paused (Which could sometimes lead to losses)

-Improved music and sounds

-Clearer Translation

-Unique characters having new unique sprites as new classes (Looks Great)

-Faster map movement speeds by what feels like 30% (The fastest sometimes causes input delay if max units are deployed. The SNES fastest feels like setting 2 in this one.)

-More difficult bosses (Not sure by how much, but they felt stronger across the board)

I had seen a few complaints about the load times, however, the battle transition time is about the same, with loading text that comes up on the bottom right of the screen. Comparing the two side by side, there was next to no increase, and I kind of wonder if they really needed that loading text. Overall, I’d say that this one is by far the more pleasant version to play, in my opinion.

Playable on: PSX, Emulator

Legit Options: PSX Disc, No Digital versions available to my knowledge.



Ogre Battle: Prince of Zenobia (Neo Geo Pocket Color)

Challenge (?/10, presumably like the above.)

Matsuno Level (?/10, No References that I saw, or anything I could say seemed like him.)

Story (?/10, I’m sure it’s alright, but I don’t speak Japanese.)

Technically the first portable game of the series, this was an…odd duck. Of all things, it came out on the NGPC, and never even got an English translation. Functionally, it seems like an uglier portable version of MOTBQ, but not even fans of the series ever game it the proper translation treatment. It may be worth a novel look if you are a fluent Japanese speake.

The story is the journey of Tristan up until the events of MOTBQ.

It’s safe to skip this one, even fans of the series have rarely heard of this one.

Playable on: Emulation, NGPC, Vita, SNES Mini

Legit Options: Neo Geo Pocket Color, No Digital versions available to my knowledge.

Ogre Battle: In The Lap of The Gods, AKA Hard Type

Challenge ( 9/10, new classes mix up the mid game balance, much harder to rush.)

Matsuno Level (10/10, Fairy Butts, Flash Gordon/Queen References, and Wars Galore!)

Story (7/10, Great story, but can be hard to piece together on just one run.)

This is an excellent overhaul for the SNES version of Ogre Battle, and an awesome way to revisit the game with a lot more challenge. It incorporates a lot of OB64-esque changes, and brings an all new feeling to the game. Bear in mind that cautious play is a lot more relevant in this one.

Mod Page

Here is the change log on the author’s words:

Difficulty and rebalance mod for Ogre Battle. Overall changes include:

General Changes:

-Give the AI new and improved unit formations (ones that don’t suck!) to increase difficulty

-As the game progresses, give the AI increasingly more powerful units over the player, thus requiring some strategy to take them down.

-Greatly improve the performance of large monsters.

-Deny player access to recruiting high tier units. What this means is no longer can you use leaders to recruit high tier units, get them from neutral encounters, nor get them from the Charm item (they are immune). High tier units must be gotten through class progression. The reason for this is it was necessary to increase the difficulty later on in the game.

-Performance of str chars has been slightly improved relative to int chars, though you can still expect the backrow to out-power the front row.

-Performance of special characters has been slightly lowered.

Class Changes:

-Two new classes: Siren (upgraded form of Witch) and Diana (physical female class that can perform in either row)

-Dragoner/Dragon Master improved and changed to female (like the Ogre Battle games that followed in the series), cherubim and pixie were removed to make these (faerie now promotes into sylph and angel now promotes into seraphim, faerie and angel have been improved to have pixie and cherubim performance to start with)

-Zombie Dragon is now lower tier than Tiamat and does not require an item to promote into

-Lich is reduced to 2 attacks in back

-Princess does not give herself her leadership bonus

-Witch Stun replaced with Hex (randomly use Phantom, Petrify, or Charm)

-and more…

Item Changes:

-The following items are now unbuyable: Joker, Charm, Sunshine, Moonbeam, and permanent stat boosting items.

-Some low tier EQ can now be bought in shops.

-The crappier half of the game’s equipment has all been improved.

Playable on: Emulation, Vita, SNES Classic

Legit Options: N/A

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (SNES/PSX/Sega Saturn)

Challenge ( 9/10, Definitely one of the harder entries to the series, with perma death, and some really crafty battles.)

Matsuno Level (10/10, Awesome, darker setting, with a ton of little details scattered around, as he loves to do. Even the ground units stand on decides a lot about their options.!)

Story (9/10, Great story, with pretty awesome flow, especially considering this is a SNES game, but one character in particular tends to sort of hard steer the plot near the end. A ton of endings, and endlessly replayable just to see how differently things play out.)

So some funny trivia first of all, the only reason we have Tactics Ogre, and by extension FFT and all of it’s spinoffs, is because A- Japan didn’t like RTS games much, and B- the studio making them both figured MOTBQ would faceplant into the ground harder than a drunk on new years. So, good on ya for having zero faith in your amazing game, guys!

Anyhow, this game was made as sort of a middle ground between what MOTBQ established, and existing strategy games, like Fire Emblem. Funnily enough, it was apparently inspired by some sort of Japanese game show where folks were playing chess with people as the pieces.

At any rate, while the Chaos Frame (Reputation) system was still in place, the overall story path was a lot more binary in this one, instead deciding on paths and story beats based on decisions as well as party members. Unlike previous titles, while resurrection is possible to a limited degree, units will die for good if their health bottoms out.

It’s one of the better versions out there in terms of game adaptability, with entire scenes changing based on who you have, in some cases even unlocking side battles, or, in a couple cases, a detour in the story to save someone.

This game can be pretty difficult, especially if you are trying to play through without reloading, but is easily one of the most immersive strategy games out there, even bringing in features like the ability to manually train your units against each other, or assigning them to teams to auto train themselves.

The story is meant to be a more personal view of the war, so where MOTBQ was about the effort as a whole, you are instead playing as what would be a couple of squads from that game, being told what towns to go to when, but struggling through the events on the ground level. It’s interesting to see a series cover both angles like this, and it’s something I absolutely adore.

The AI holds up really well, and despite being fairly rudimentary at times, they tend to hold formation when it makes sense to do so, and will provide a good challenge. With the ability to train unlimitedly, you can more or less decide on the difficulty you want, though the fact that the level up bonuses aren’t conveyed clearly can lead to some confusion there. In short, when a unit levels up as a class, instead of getting skills or whatnot, they get stats that the class is known for, like a knight getting better innate defense. This means you can make really strong units over time if you train them right, or just brute force it with specialists, it’s all workable.

The Sega Saturn port comes in at a technically lower resolution, with some pillarboxing and thinner-looking graphics, but also includes some improved music, some voiceovers, and an art gallery.

Between the three releases, the music is going to sound better on the SNES or Saturn versions, while the PSX version is more stable, and fixed the save corruption bug. It’s up to you, I personally prefer the stability of the PSX version. The Saturn would be a close second because of it’s extras, with the SNES original kind of scaring me, having had my saves wiped twice before.

Please note that while the PSX version came in English, the SNES version has an English Patch, but the Saturn version does not.

Playable on: Emulation, SNES, PSX, Sega Saturn (Jp Only), SNES Mini, Vita

Legit Options: Original Cartridge or CD. No Digital versions available to my knowledge.

Tactics Ogre: Chronicle Valeria (PC and Emulator)

Challenge ( 10/10, An incredibly satisfying type of challenge, but a hefty challenge all the same.)

Matsuno Level (11/10, While he technically wasn’t a part of this mod, the fact that it incorporates the entire series, as well as his other games, causes this mod to fall into Matsuno Overload territory.)

Story (10/10, Great story, made even better by allowing far more immersive and dynamic changes to story interactions.)

Alright, so to get this out of the gate right away….no, sadly there is no English version for this mod.

Mod Page

With that being said, this thing is absolutely epic in it’s scope, bringing together all of the features from most of the series, and beyond. Things like a day/night cycle, individual reputations and tendencies for each character, deep looking advancement trees for classes, the ability to recruit certain characters different ways (Avoiding the Ravness reload hell situation, more on that later), the ability to save characters who were always dead before, the ability get characters from other games, as well as classes from other games.

Grinding is discouraged because of the reputation system, which seems to decide a lot of things, from available promotions to story choices, like in MOTBQ.

I will note that this is just covering the basics, and that this is based off of several second hand posts from users on several sites who understand the language to some degree.

As amazing as this mod is, the translation efforts that have been tried in the past have all failed, and the original author seems to have called the mod good where it is, so I wouldn’t expect anyone to have any luck making this happen. If you do love the series and know Japanese, however, this should be a rare treat.

Playable on: Emulation, SNES, Vita (SNES Mini doesn’t work)

Legit Options: N/A

Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis (GBA)

Challenge (6/10, A fair challenge, but with great rubber banding on most units to keep things fair. There’s perma death, but turns are taken by teams, and most units are fairly durable.)

Matsuno Level (3/10, It seems like he wrote the general outline for the story, but had seemongly little impact on everything else. In fact, he personally doesn’t like this game, presumably because it gave Lans options for avoiding most of the conflicts of the series. )

Story (7/10, Surprisingly good, with a consistent feeling of tension through most of the game.)

This was the series’ second foray into portable games, and despite some technical jank, it’s an absolute wonder of utter awesomeness.

So first off, go into this one expecting to see the game run a bit slower than previous titles. In fact, if emulating, I would highly recommend playing this at about 1.5 speed, this brings it to about the level of the others, without messing up the music too much.

On top of this, the music isn’t quite as good…at first. That’s the interesting thing here, they actually have some really solid tracks once you get used to the style, especially the theme that plays at Rana and most of the story battles. It’s that basic march from the first battle that tends to put some folks off. My first time booting the game up, I felt confused at the music, but over time, it wound up having some of my favorite tracks in the series.

Gameplay wise, this one actually mixes it up with the Emblem system, the closest approximation of which I can maybe call the expanded Skill system that XCOM 2 War of the Chosen added. In short, you accomplish feats in order to unlock advanced classes and stat changes. So like if a unit dodges 5 times in a row, they unlock the swordmaster, or if they hit two enemies at once with a spear, they can be a Valkyrie, while other emblems actually lock a unit out of certain things, such as the Dragonslayer badge unlocking the dragoon, but preventing them from recruiting dragons, or, in a female character’s case, getting any bonus from the Dragon Tamer class. There’s a lot of cool roleplay potential with your characters mechanically using this system.

This also means that min maxing can be really fun and easy to do, if done right. Some emblems are blocked off if there’s a level difference of 5 or more, but if your protaganist starts the game with Fist Fight (Bonus unarmed damage from finishing an opponent with your fist), they can hire a naked level 1 fairy, beat it with a single punch in training, and get a massive Strength boost from the Berserk emblem, though they can forget about ever being a caster.

Balance in general does a very good job of keeping things fair for the most part, with diminishing returns for classes doing things that they shouldn’t. This doesn’t mean they can’t do those things, in fact giving weird items to folks is encouraged (Since anyone can use anything), but it just means that a front line fighter will almost always do more damage than an archer, for example. This was likely in response to Archers becoming noticeably overpowered in LUCT, while here they specialize in having excellent accuracy over power. Usually archers end up promoting into Swordmasters with Bows, interestingly enough. It all just feels very organic, with no need for Min-Maxing. Even an underpowered team can still pull through with good strategy.

The maps in this game are awesome, the story is pretty solid and self-contained, and the flow feels excellent for dozens of playthroughs.

Don’t let this title’s technical limitations fool you, it’s a full blown entry into the series, and while it may not be as long as the others, it makes that length satisfying (hee hee, hah hah.).

Playable on: Emulation, SNES, Vita, SNES Mini, GBA

Legit Options: Original Cartridge, No Digital versions

Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Calibur (N64)

Challenge (7/10, Similar system to MOTBQ, but a lot easier to understand.)

Matsuno Level (8/10, The writing feels like pure Matsuno, and a lot of the overall design feels like him, but balance and mechanics seem like someone else, in a good way.)

Story (8/10, Fantastic story, with very organic feeling story rails, and some really solid writing.)

Oh man…where do I even start. You NEED to play this game. OK? Ok.

This takes every good piece of the series up to this point, and just refines it in a really satisfying way. I should point out that this doesn’t mean the balance is perfect by any means, but my goodness is it fun.

First off, you have a similar system to MOTBQ, with a map where you send out squads and capture cities. Unlike that one, however, you aren’t stuck losing reputation constantly because your squads can’t break into an area, because you aren’t taxing the local population here. Instead, you receive money based on how well you managed the fight, and receive some extra soldiers.

Soldiers? Yes, you now have little generic grunts that fight alongside your named characters until one of them learns enough to be promoted into a unit that actually matters, if feels really nice. In fact, you can’t hire units outside of story choices and random encounters, so this is the only way to get more human characters.

On that note, there’s a perma death mechanic for your units now, however, instead of being a deletion upon losing all HP, they essentially just hang around as a dead guy until you can get them revived….but for every battle that you let them remain in that state, there is a 30% or so chance that they will permanently become a zombie. It’s…weirdly perfect for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. But, this neatly ties in with the never ending zombie plagues this series keeps having.

Now many, myself included, probably first saw the visuals and thought “what the hell am I looking at?”…and here’s the thing: Still frames do not do this game justice.

It’s one of those rare cases where everything is so stylized that when you’re actually playing it, it’s possible and even natural to take these odd looking characters seriously. A still frame just makes them look odd, but it’s something you have to experience for yourself.

Gameplay I’d describe as a nice middle ground between MOTBQ and Knight of Lodis, with lots of interesting units, but a pretty decent overall balance, at least for the most part. There are lots of cases of enemy formations being pretty easy to deal with, and some potentially absurdly strong formations for the player to work with. At seemingly every turn, though, they throw a wrench in the works and mix things up. Maybe a sketchy opponent will keep trying to sneak in flying squads to snipe your base, or maybe a bridge will be blown out, with your strongest squads suddenly unable to help defend.

What’s interesting is that the AI seems pretty adaptive, reacting to your actions in ways that the devs clearly programmed in. One in particular that got me was a large wall of enemies protecting their town. I didn’t want to fight them head on, so I snuck my A team across the river on the other side. However, they were ambushed by a cockatrice squad, a unit that has a 50% chance to petrify several units at once, rendering them basically dead unless they happen to have a cure on them. This wiped out my A team, but another made it to the northern town they were going for, and liberated a city there to serve as a staging ground to attack their capital…..which didn’t happen, because suddenly that entire wall of units left their post in a large, organized push into our capital.

Every map has something like this, and it’s just an absolute JOY to play.

Oh, I should mention that there’s new or remixed mechanics out the ears, such as distinctions between which towns are Neutral or looking for Liberation, events on every map and at different times of day, item carry limits per squad, a new class system that unlocks based on stats and available equipment, as well as the best Training system in the series, essentially soft capping your XP gains by having you pay to allow a squad to train against different enemies, depending on where you are. On that note, there’s even more events sometimes hidden behind these, such as a difficult dragon boss suddenly yielding a useful field command.

Oh, and the events are dang good fun. I had one hell of a laugh at the fact that you could give a child a hellhound (a two-headed fire breathing wolf beast) as a pet to replace his lost puppy. I’m sure his mom is glad about that.

I could go on for a while here, just do yourself a favor and play this gem. If you are in the window to get it Legit (Wii, Wii U), it might be one of the few chances ever left to do so. In all reality, I doubt they will remember to port these to the Switch, if they ever do get around to it.

Playable on: Emulation (Project 64 Ideal), N64, Vita (Kind of, all units are weird shadow people, crashes on standby), SNES Mini (Theoretically possible, crashes after a few minutes)

Legit Options: Original Cartridge, Wii, Wii U, JP Cartridge (Surprisingly Cheap) Everdrive

Ogre Battle 64: POLC Hammer To Fall

This is a mod that is currently in development, and a bit on the early side, but it already has a few basic versions with new and improved unit types for those interested in hopping in early.

Development and Discussion Discord

Playable on: Emulation (Project 64 Ideal)

Legit Options: N/A



Tactics Ogre: LUCT (PSP, Vita)

Challenge ( 1/10-10/10, there’s little challenge to the story battles, but the side content can become very difficult.)

Matsuno Level (9/10, Same old LUCT, but with new stories and characters. They did take some MMO aspects and shove them in here, though.)

Story (9/10, Incredible story, incredible atmosphere, but same old one character steering the rudder on the final chapter, though this time there’s a little more variance there.)

Hot dang, this game is AMAZING. Like…I go on and on about the huge mod for it (more on that later), and harp on it’s flaws, but this game has had me hooked for 8 years now, and I still play it daily. There’s just so much content, so much to do, so much to see, that you may never beat it all

(funny side note, someone actually did beat it all, and almost went nuts in the process, his run is HERE.)

Alright, so what does this one bring in? Well, first of all, I feel a little context is in order. See….when the original Tactics Ogre came out, the SNES version did amazing, but the PSX version was panned by critics in the states, at first, because a delay in it’s translation led it to come out a week after FFT, leading them to mistakenly claim this was somehow a knockoff or inferior game…despite not only being it’s predecessor, but having far more in terms of content and dynamic elements. Don’t get me wrong, I love FFT, but it’s designed as a boiled down version of TO, the developers said so themselves.

Either way, I assume this remake came as a result of wanting to see the game get it’s due this time around, and my goodness did they put in the work. They implemented skills and proficiency as systems, they added finishing moves, and a ton of new spells and abilities to the game. The music and presentation are absolutely top notch for the genre, while the game flow itself is faster than most other strategy games out there (that’s even before the mod sped things up farther). There are hundreds of new battles, plus a surprisingly fun multiplayer system, which makes AI teams, similar to the now removed Training Mode.

In fact, compared to the original, a lot of the balance seems unrecognizeable on paper, with units suddenly being limited on equipment, magic being available to anyone at a cost, but free for the dedicated classes, and classes themselves being handled as one level, as opposed to units leveling themselves. While stat growth still happened as before, it happened to the entire class at once, meaning late comers were usually going to be running suckier stats.

Perma Death is still there, but units have both a timer and 3 lives to work with, meaning you can usually avoid any lives lost on anyone in most situations. Due to the now far more limited healing caps, usually units are only lost when they stray too far from the group, which is realistic, in a sense, I suppose.

At any rate, this is by far the most polished game in the series, despite a few balance issues (See the OV mod, basically Archers and Ninjas are well above the power curve.), and it’s arguably one of the most replayable games I’ve ever seen. Hell, who even needs to replay, you can just go back and take different routes through the story with the same party, you can go beyond the start of the game and even redo the intro eventually, you can go invade heaven and hell if you feel like it, I’ve had files reach 700 hours without 100% completion before. The interesting thing is, the story itself can be beaten within a few play sessions, but there’s just so much side content that it’s downright mind blowing.

This brings me to the bad parts. For some odd reason, there were many mechanics lifted or copied from other games, for better or worse. In the case of crafting and level gating, the copy of some popular MMO mechanics at the time was less than ideal. In fact, many parts of this game seem like they were meant to be played under an Ironman mode of sorts, since allowing crafting to fail seems unnecessarily mean when you can just save and reload until it works, which most people do.

There’s also a sort of grind wall past the main story, in which past level 25 or 30, depending on where you are, the game suddenly starts scaling all encounters to or above your level, meaning you can be very handily outmatched without the same equipment they have. This section of the game isn’t necessarily so bad, but without knowing where to go, it can often feel like the game suddenly blocked off side content behind a wall. Again, once you know to go through the temples to get the crafting books, this is much better, Plus those fights are fairly interesting) but I have seen a lot of players quit right then and there.

The other big thing is as far as the end game balance is concerned. While I won’t spoil it, there’s certain ranged weapon combinations that, when used while naked, allowed for one to simply delete all difficulty in the game.

In fact, for comparison, I will give you a scenario from yesterday. I had a mixed party at level 30, and forgot about the 10th floor of the Floating Ruins scaling up to 40 (50 is the max), and had gone in anyway. This party was equipped with upgraded equipment, and was pretty reasonably skilled by this point. Despite this, as soon as the first few flying enemies came in, my tanks were pushed aside, my damage dealers could do next to no damage, even with their fanciest attacks, and my casters had about an 8% success rate on spells (They were trained in all basic magic classes before becoming Warlocks.). This was my A Team. Meanwhile, I had 2 archers flying about. One had just become an archer after my last one died a few battles ago, and the other was Canopus, AKA the guy you get 2 battles into the game. While the white knight trained with heavy weapons for most of the game did 7 damage, this archer was doing 195, and could fire twice. I think you can see the disparity there.

That aside, the game still has so many options that it’s easy to overlook some balance discrepancy. In fact, I think like most of the games in this series, the creators took the RP part of SRPG very seriously when making this game, as it’s utterly fantastic for that, allowing you to boost specific things about each character until they are exactly what you want them to be.

It’s balanced for fun and roleplaying, with an occasional shift into hard mode, let’s put it that way. So…standard Matsuno fare?

OK, before this turns into a novel, let’s move on.

Playable on: Emulation, Vita (yes, this still includes the PSP)

Legit Options: PSN Store via Card or By Itself

Also Neat: Art Book, Tarot Cards, Physical Copy, Premium Edition (Note sure what’s different)



Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fate (PSP)

Challenge ( 6/10, Base Stats make the game much easier)

atsuno Level (9/10, Same as above)

Story (9/10, Same as above)

At first glance, you may think that these two releases are exactly the same. However, just like with MOTBQ Limited Edition, the other version was actually quite different.

Just so you know, Wheel of Fate is just the local name for the Japanese release of the same game.

So, let’s get into the differences:

Improved AI. They keep formation better, use buffs more often, and retreat more. That being said, they are still prone to stupid decisions, and spend an annoying amount of time wasting buffs on units that won’t get any use out of them, like Truestrike on an Archer.

10x Faster Base Stat Growth. No, that’s not a typo. I couldn’t believe at first either, but this is likely why our version often has times where weapons will do 1 damage to inappropriate opponents. As one mod author put it, “A wet rag can do damage in this version.”

Lower Crafting Rates. Presumably to match the higher stat growth (Which affects crafting success), success rates seem to be about 20% or more lower across the board, which is unreasonably frustrating, as even basic crafting components can fail, let alone more advanced projects.

Less Content. A lot of what we got in the states was DLC in Japan, such the Azelstan arc, CODA, and the Pirate’s Graveyard. There may be more, but these are the main ones.

This version is fun to play for a laugh, and a good clarification on some of the discussions that came from the JP side in terms of game balance. Overall I’d still always recommend the third version on this list.

Playable on: Emulation, Vita (yes, this still includes the PSP)

Legit Options: PSN Store via Card, but only with a JP account.

Also Neat: Art Book, Tarot Cards



Tactics Ogre: One Vision GUIDE

Challenge ( 5/10-9/10, Same as above)

Matsuno Level (10/10, Same as above, but with skills, references, and items from even more other games.)

Story (9/10, Same as above, but I find it far easier to feel the story with this.)

Now this….this is a mod I recommend obsessively, and whole-heartedly.

To put it short, since the official, abridged changelog is some 70 pages long, this mod aims to make all aspects of the game consistent and useful. Instead of options being there strictly for roleplay value, such as the Rogues’ Trap skill, they are all going to be handy.

Every single class, item, ability, skill, spell, and race has been looked over, and most have been changed. Every part has been redone to speed up the game, remove grinding, and just make the game feel more immersive, and in the moment.

In short:

Every Race has different classes, and more options

Every piece of equipment has a standardized weight for it’s type

All skills are remade for more meaningful choices on builds

Armor never becomes obsolete, having a light vest on a fast unit will be more useful than going in naked 99% of the time. (Even urgent rescue runs are easier with the Scout set, which gives +1 Move and Jump, on top of great evasion)

All gear feels appropriate, and you can tell how evasive, defensive, or offensive a unit is just by looking at their kit.

Boring in-built Buff skills got removed, making equipment and buff spells/abilities choice that much more important.

Overall gameplay is much faster, with a bigger emphasis on teamwork over solo heroics. Many new class synergies exist to promote this, such as Knights having cheaper Rampart Shadows, which a Terror Knight can detonate around enemies.

Buffs and debuffs got combined in many ways, making some of the previously weak skills a worthwhile consideration.

Levels matter less, so taking on stronger opponents (like the previous 30 v 40 example) is very possible.

Skills gain levels much faster, and most weapon proficiencies will be mastered by the time you would want to go into CODA.

No grind wall, equipment has more specializations than tiers, and all basic elemental gear is far easier to get.

Deneb and her class are easier to get, only taking 1 of each dragon, and Cyclopes now giving 3 glass pumpkins per auction, which will be lowered once it’s possible.

Steals and drops will be redone eventually.

All accessories now feel like a legitimate consideration.

All finisher side effects are guaranteed

All weapons have a secondary bonus, such as Parry on spears, or Poison on claws.

Items have been condensed into 2 levels of Field Alchemy, and do more.

Most debuffs are easier to remove

Blessing Stones/Resurrection (Now Evacuate) evacuates units instead of reviving them, Their upgraded counterpart will revive a unit while removing the user from play. There are no free revives anymore.

All classes were redone, notably archers adhere to relative historical realism, prioritizing range and harassment potential over damage, and will glance off heavy armor.

All shields provide save skill bonuses (Parry/Deflect), as well as specialized variants having secondary effects (Stun, Silence, Reflect, etc)

Crafting is now guaranteed, and is used as a sidegrade system to modify equipment.

Most weapons have multiple variants, which all have their own tiers, and usually 1-2h versions, including spears.

All units on both sides, save for bosses, will have stats in the same ballpark. In all but extreme cases, this means almost all builds will continue being viable from Chapter 1 to CODA.

Annoying things to get, such as Class marks for unique Classes, spells NPCs have, and medicines are available in easier ways now.

All characters come in with semi random stats, with talents towards particular things, this also applies to enemies. Level ups do not change base stats anymore.

Units just feel a lot more competent and alive on both sides.

Many debuffs got improved, such as Poison and Envenom working faster/longer, and Curse now being a combination of all Curse abilities.

Heavy Beast units on both sides can throw rocks.

Reagents, aside from Ninja tools became MP and TP cast abilities, and Treasure drops are their own easily sellable tab now.

Drops and Formations are on the list to be redone eventually.

Augments and Resistances are combined

Debuff Resists not block the debuff, and allow for freely removing it from someone else.

Sidearms are a combination of Thrown and Blowguns. They use the same finisher and don’t need ammo anymore.

Units can equip multiple Recruit abilities.

Racial abilities are removed from like races, so Angel Knights are the only sort of human units to get Anatomy, for example.

Light weapons, such as pistols, daggers, and shortbows retain viability through all the way to CODA as an anti-squishy weapon. They are not meant to be used against armor, but do a great job distracting healers.

Healers are noticeably more useful, having a secondary scaling aspect to their healing, being able to equip some armor, and being able to use claws with shields for poison damage and evasion.

Gunblades were introduced as a combination of a 2h sword and rifle exclusive to the Buccaneer.

Lightweight trickster units, skirmishers, dedicated walls, scouts, and debuff specialists are drastically more viable than before.

Bosses are generally tougher, as they were in the SNES/PSX versions. Taking out a leader takes a bit more thought than just sending in the archers.

Many healing abilities got reworked. For example, Knights have a Fortify/Regen Action move, but lost access to Heal. Over time, this means the unit has access to more overall healing potential than before, plus can still take a normal action, but the unit may need to back off for a minute.

Some classes have innate bonus abilities, such as Spellblades and Warlocks having a built-in item throwing ability, Swordmasters throwing a stunning rock, and ninjas having poisoned throwing daggers.

Unarmed abilities are more varied, and have different functions. I honestly don’t know what most of them do, but the animations look a lot more natural now, and I look forward to trying an Unarmed run at some point.

There are two known bugs being fixed at the moment. Namely Evacuating units for the Cressida sidequest doesn’t trigger their dialogue, so an upgraded revival item is needed. Secondly, Donnalto is a shadow for part of a single cutscene (I like to think he’s blocked by the building, and can’t be seen). Some units have “Nothing” skills, these were just the old buff skills, which are now worked into other things. Given how huge this mod is, I’m amazed this isn’t a longer list.

OK. That’s…the most basic list I could come up with. It’s a huge Mod.

Let’s just say that while it may sound harder on paper, I would argue that the mod is, in fact, easier in many cases. The long in short of it is this: The battles where you would show up and swat aside a squad that was hyped up in the story with ease are generally harder, while the ultra difficult side content that was previously impossible without knowing ahead of time is now easier. There’s a consistent general difficulty throughout, just like most of the older games, and while it is still definitely possible to leap above the power curve, it’s done through the use of higher skills and better build ideas on units, rather than levels.

I have several articles and a guide written in it, if that helps. Feel free to ask anything, and I will try to help.

Playable on: Emulation, Vita (yes, this still includes the PSP)

Legit Options: Technically none, but you will need the original game. PSN Store via Card or By Itself

If there’s anything you’d like to see expanded on, or if I missed anything, let me know!