I am, as I have time, working steadily through Tactics Ogre. So seeing this particular article — a piece on its direct predecessor, Ogre Battle — come up in the posting queue was a happy coincidence. I never could get into the core Ogre games, and I even find Tactics much less accessible and gleefully breakable than its Final Fantasy descendent, but this particular elegy fills me with a desire to give The March of the Black Queen another go. Stupid compelling retrospectives!
In other news, the latest subscriber bonus book is stuffed into envelopes and about ready to mail out; all I’m waiting on is for the labels to finish printing. I was hoping to mail them Monday, but that’s a postal holiday. And Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be in New York to look at some extra-dimensional game system or something. But hold on just a few days longer and you’ll have it in your hands.
The press proof for GameSpite Quarterly 7 has also arrived, but I’m not going to worry about that until next weekend, or maybe the weekend after. It’s a while yet until February 1, after all. However, I can say with confidence that it looks damn good.
I resent every last Tactics Ogre game for not being an Ogre Battle game instead. If there’s any game that deserves to be an entire genre instead of a one-hit wonder, this is it.
That said, MOTBQ is badly flawed. It’s strangely laggy for a SNES game and there isn’t any ‘flow’ to the gameplay – either nothing is happening or you’re juggling chainsaws. The under-appreciated N64 sequel is a better game, in spite of Matsuno’s absence, due to a general overhaul and deeper(and much less cumbersome) strategies. The only downside is the story takes up more time without being any more interesting.
Ogre Battle 64 is the more forgiving and understandable game and most people recommend playing that one before MOTBQ. 64 is still insanely opaque and filled with stupid, stupid design decisions, but I had a lot of fun with it. I don’t think I’ve ever hated and loved a game in such equal and vociferous proportions before.
This game dominated my SNES experience during the latter half of my college days. The game definitely has some “guide, dang it!” trappings, but behind those aspects is a pretty great game. I would love to see a port for the DS.
I’m heartened to see that my go-to reference site for MOTBQ, in all of its Geocities-style goodness, has been preserved: http://geocities.ws/xesmeraude/blackmantle.html . Of special note is the Stage by Stage Walkthrough section: a clean and well laid out walkthrough split across five Word docs (nothing OpenOffice can’t handle). Definitely worth a look if you’re considering giving this game a try.
D-d-damn!! That description makes this sound like the most amazing game ever! Turn-based strategy in an open-ish world with an event and ending influencing multi-dimensional reputation+alignment system? I must play this!
I already have a love-hate relationship with the turn-based strategy genre. Surely infuriatingly obtuse gameplay mechanics won’t scuttle this no-doubt perfect gem of a game!
Wow, this writeup is getting me hyped for Tactics Ogre. I know it’s not really the same thing, but a tactical RPG will be a lot easier for me to get into than a psuedo RTS. I’ll definetely have to play this one sometime in the future though.
Personally i’m hoping that the entire Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre franchise gets 3DS overhauls.
Honestly a DS version of Ogre Battle will fix one of the biggest problems with playing through the game: not being able to suspend the game during one of the brutal 3 – 4 hour battles. I know the wii allows you to suspend the game, but even that’s not the same.