Tactics Ogre, Part 2 - Godscale

 Previously on Tactics Ogre... Canopus played the role of Piccolo as he was forced to listen to Denim and his frowny-faced sister bicker incessantly. He then blew up the moon.

Before continuing, go check out Tactics Ogre Part 1 if you missed it. You can catch up on my struggle to defeat Miami's favorite son, Vyce.

We left off with Denim locked in a pitched, seemingly-unwinnable battle with Vyce. After several losses to the overpowered bastard, I nearly loaded an earlier save to try and gimp my way to victory by using specific also-overpowered weapons and tools. However, I was convinced that I could eke out a win as I was (if a very tedious one) and stuck with it for another attempt. Denim had to make full use of Mend Leaves and the Heal spell to survive the onslaught, while slowly whittling Vyce down with 2-damage counterattacks.

Seriously, I'm not sure why this battle was so difficult. It's astronomically harder than any other fight in the game... figures that they'd put it in a castle where it could trap unwitting players. It's FF Tactics' Velius fight all over again. In any case, I eventually, tediously whittled Vyce down to the 70 HP threshold needed for him to flee the battle.

Seeing this message was quite the relief. I suppose if you've built up Denim perfectly, victory against Vyce in a straight-up slugfest is possible. If you're simply playing the game without min/maxing, however... good luck.

Another major choice comes at this point. The choice I make seems to put me on the Neutral path, but time will tell.

Chapter 3 begins! Now to start putting the pieces of my gang back together. Denim, for one, needs to revert to Ninjaing and get his skills in order. Having to change everything up for him to barely survive the Vyce battle was annoying, for sure.

 One way to take out Vyce is to utilize the Lobber here and blast him with thrown bomb items. It's probably less tedious than heal-and-counter-for-twenty-minutes...

Lans Tartare, the Knight of Lodis. How badass is this guy?

Here's Xaebos, no relation to Paladin's Quest villain Zaygos.

Denim is going all Khal Drogo at this point, showing a degree of confidence (and mercilessness for his enemies) that we haven't previously seen.

Meanwhile, Catiua is increasingly disillusioned with Denim. Maybe she'd be happier if she stopped scowling all the time.

In other news, Cassandra is one of the best girl-names out there... and these Nybeth apprentices are pretty damn creepy.

What happened to Vyce after our battle? He's still around, causing trouble.

At this point I suffer a character death for the first time. Cistina was continuously getting owned during battles, and while it's unfortunate to lose a character, I can't say she was contributing much. Certainly not worth re-doing a battle over.

I assuage my guilt at letting a comrade die by recruiting a new comrade. This is Bauer, the latest addition to the Ninja Death Squad I'm assembling in the game. "WHERE IS THE BOMB?" he says.

Brigantys here is a recurring battleground in this game. I really like the pictures in the background of these maps. I may despise winter, but those snowy mountains are glorious.

Here's Hobyrim, one of the cooler characters in the game. He wields a two-handed katana, and...

...he's blind. Somehow, that doesn't stop him from kicking lots of ass.

Dundundudun. HOB VAN DAM!

Another decisive battle, this one with Leonar. Despite fearing a repeat of the Vyce ridiculousness, I challenge him to a one-on-one.

This...is far more fair. While Leonar outmatches Denim by a bit, it's nothing that some ingenuity and playing it safe can't overcome. Nothing like Vyce being as powerful as four Denims in the earlier fight.

AHH! JESUS!

GOOD GOD!

While our heroes are tied up battling freakish barbarians in the mountains, Lans has a pow-wow with Catiua. Here, he calls Catiua by her real name. As far as names go I prefer Versalia.

Lans drops some major bombshells at this point. Basically, Catiua isn't really Denim's sister. In fact, she's really the long-lost child of the Dynast-King, which makes her the real heir to the Iron Throne that everyone has been fighting over all this time. It seems the Dynast-King got involved with one of his wife's handmaidens, and chose to hide the child by giving her away to Denim's family. The biggest question about this high-level sex scandal: What did Obama know, and when did he know it?

To see pretty much the whole conversation between Lans and Catiua, check out a more in-depth post over at Resistance Line: Seaside Rendezvous

Denim becomes Jeff Hardy, as we can hear his thoughts.

Meanwhile, Duke Romney gets betrayed by Vyce. Has Vyce no scruples?

With one foe out of his way, Vyce turns his attention to Lans. So many shades of gray here. This game really does eschew traditional "good guys" and "bad guys". When it comes to stories like this, such clear distinctions are quite frankly becoming passe.

Lans turns the tables on Vyce and his goon squad quickly, but spares him. Doesn't matter, Vyce isn't long for this world.

Denim thinks about who started this whole war to begin with.

I get a couple of White Knight recruits at this point. The problem is, since I've never had White Knights before (much less levelled any), they're both at Level 3 (and thus entirely useless - most of my main force is level 17ish). This is one problem with the new class system. If someone joins of a class you don't have, they're pretty much screwed for a while. It takes a number of battles to get someone caught up in levels (Hobyrim STILL isn't battle-usable yet, many fights after I got him) and during those battles they have to hang back, taking up a spot that could be going to an up-to-date character. This wouldn't be an issue if characters leveled up just a bit faster.

Dark Knights, and lots of them. Like in the original version of the game, Dark Knights vary in classes but look mostly the same regardless. This makes them particularly dangerous - you never know what they'll whip out at you. No matter their class, they tend to come equipped with the abilities of a number of classes regardless.

This guy really likes torture. If he lived during the time of the Bush Administration, he wouldn't be hurting for a job.

Dude!

Meanwhile... Vyce is finally executed. He has made so many foes that he has nowhere left to run. Not sure if he regrets his actions against Denim at the last moment, but it appears that way.

Here's a side-area, one of several in the game. I'll check it out before the endgame, but not just yet.

Here's an example of the skill lineup I'm going for with my Ninja Death Squad. Katana skill, Anatomy, and Strengthen are vital damage-increasers. The majority of our foes are human, so Anatomy is my enemy-specific offensive talent of choice. Counterattack is also important for ending battles quickly, and Double Attack is absolutely devastating. Then there's Ninjitsu, which I'm not entirely sold on. I gave each of my ninjas their own elemental summon (and the Augment skill to go with it), but for the most part they're doing pretty meager damage with these summons. Usually 1-1-1, but sometimes higher. Did 25-25-25 on an enemy earlier, but that's the upper limit. We'll see if these spells improve as they're used more. I'm not one to grind Augment skills up, but it might turn out to be necessary. If I can't get some use out of them, those two skill slots occupied by Ninjitsu and Augment will be going to other things.

Oh snap! I believe this battle may be avoidable, if Denim shows up by himself. However, I'm in full-on "destroy everybody" mode at this point in the game.

Here's my favorite of the Ninjitsu summons, Fire Snake.

At this point, Denim finally finds his dad. Unfortunately, he's got little time left.

Via flashback, he confirms that Catiua isn't Denim's sister.

He leaves Denim with some words, and that is that.

 Denim's portrait changes for this one shot. To see more of this pivotal scene, check out Father to Son.

Volcano areas are interesting in this game. Walking space is limited.

Perhaps the final choice of the game comes during this part. I chose to go on offense.

Meanwhile Brantyn finds himself in a weird, blurry land. I wonder if this will be anything like the magical Heavenesque faerie land from True Blood, complete with scantily-clad women prancing around and Suikoden-esque music. I remember the first time I saw that scene. My "WTF is going on" reaction quickly gave way to "this music is really good" and "boobs", which were common thoughts while watching that show.

And here's the next goal. I'm nearing the end, but there are quite a few battles yet to go. This concludes the progression of this post, but the game will be concluded in post three. For now, let's end with an overdue glance at The Warren Report.

Not only does this section of the menu have massive amounts of information on characters, plot developments, places, and your own statistics... best of all, it has a soundtrack screen. Given that this game has some pretty amazing music, this screen could turn your PSP into a veritable iPod of Tactics Ogre musical goodness.

Here's Mannaflora, the lady that the king had an affair with. Why he'd do that is beyond m- whoa, nicccccce.

Speaking of nice, Deneb has always been the sassy redhead of the Ogre Battle series, and it's no different in this game.

 HNNG, SUCH A WOMAN

Here's the last branch of my story tree. The fact that this game lets you jump back to various points in time to make different decisions gives it an insane amount of replayability. I'm not sure when I'll consider the game "finished", even after I beat the final boss.

Going to leave off with this. I mentioned the game having amazing music... well, here's a sample. It's triumphant, to say the least.

To see the conclusion of this game, check out Tactics Ogre, Part 3.

Finally, for a far more in-depth look at this game, check out Brayniac's blog series in progress over at Resistance Line.