It is too bad that there aren't more games in this genre, but I imagine the coding complexity and character balance takes a fair amount of playtesting. Not to mention that the games aren't a "sexy" genre and, as you guys said earlier, there really isn't much option for multiplayer.
The Disgaea and other NIS games are really the "end point" for this type of game, I think, since they let you dig as deep as you want. Level up your weapons, your items, your characters, reincarnate them and level them up again to be stronger, and so on. You can plan until you're done rather than until the game is done. The Disgaea series does tend to get a little silly with their max levels, though, and I feel like in Disgaea 1, the extra stuff felt more optional. Now the extra stuff feels more like a part of the game, and the complexity feels almost forced.
That said, I do prefer complexity for these type of games. I didn't like Advance Wars as it felt too puzzle-oriented thanks to the lack of leveling. My units were always the same shitty units and the game got more difficult by giving me fewer units and the enemy more units. There was one or two right ways to play a level, and if you deviated, that was it. One of the things I loved about the FFT games (and Tactics Ogre) was the variety of gameplay. Yes, I could create Assassins and cheese my way through it, but the enemies often had protection from my overpowered stuff and the levels were stacked against me, but never so much that I couldn't figure something out. The fact that I could take a short break, level up, and try again is one of the reasons people love RPG-elements so much.
I think this genre would do really well on iOS and Android, since the save system is straightforward and the gameplay is conducive to short bursts. In my experience it's not really about graphics as it is about smart level design and interesting character ability development.
Reposting from the movie thread because I had too many tabs open at once and posted it there instead...oops:
Does anyone remember Gemfire for the genesis? That game was amazing.
This was the SNES version but I think it was the same: http://youtu.be/jTCdEYQTkdE
Also I didn't elaborate on it because I thought I was a weirdo.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
0
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
So I'm a huge fan of old robot and mech shows out of Japan. And even though they never released any of the best ones in the US. The Super Robot Wars series was absolutely excellent. I haven't played one since the PS2, but I got hours and hours of enjoyment out of these games. Good gameplay all with the bonus of controlling your favorite robots and then learning about some that you may have never heard of before.
0
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
I have tried for years to track down a copy of Tactics Ogre: the Knights of Lodis. Apparently they only made Chinese knock offs of that game, and never actually made real cartridges.
So I'm a huge fan of old robot and mech shows out of Japan. And even though they never released any of the best ones in the US. The Super Robot Wars series was absolutely excellent. I haven't played one since the PS2, but I got hours and hours of enjoyment out of these games. Good gameplay all with the bonus of controlling your favorite robots and then learning about some that you may have never heard of before.
It's real-time and not turn based, but I was such a huge fan of Mech Commander because it incorporated some tactical game elements: you had a finite number of units, you could equip each of them individually, and the pilot for each 'mech gained experience over the course of the game.
I need to find out more about the turn based hexagonal battletech game that's either in development or recently released....
It is too bad that there aren't more games in this genre
Well, I'm working on adding one to the list. It's definitely closer to FFT and TO than to XCOM (I think, I haven't actually played XCOM), but it's hex-based. I haven't done any research on implementing multiplayer, but there's no persistent stat growth, so if I ever decide to patch it in or make it part of a later release, I bet it would work pretty well!
Characters don't gain levels, only their skill level with a class increases, and all that does is let you equip higher rank skills. So all units have the same baseline stats. I wanted to focus on strategies, skill, and unit placement rather than "higher numbers".
Each unit has a primary and secondary martial class, and a magical class that determines what skills are available, these classes can be changed outside of battle
You choose 8 skills to bring into any battle, so there's a bit of a deck-building element to it.
In-battle, units start at Level 1 and gain a level every time they take an action. At level up a unit has a choice - they can gain stats, unlock more commands, regain HP, dispel status, etc. In this regard each battle is kind of like a MOBA, where everyone starts on equal footing.
Magic and physical traps can be set, and you can manually set your path to avoid them if you think automatic pathfinding would cause you to walk through one
You can drop objects like bombs and ignite them with pyromancy
Multi-stage targeting lets you select several targets for certain attacks, letting you do things like build a wall of flame or teleport-attack more than 1 enemy
That said, I do prefer complexity for these type of games. I didn't like Advance Wars as it felt too puzzle-oriented thanks to the lack of leveling. My units were always the same shitty units and the game got more difficult by giving me fewer units and the enemy more units. There was one or two right ways to play a level, and if you deviated, that was it. One of the things I loved about the FFT games (and Tactics Ogre) was the variety of gameplay.
I was about to make this point. Advance Wars feels more like a puzzle game to me.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I have tried for years to track down a copy of Tactics Ogre: the Knights of Lodis. Apparently they only made Chinese knock offs of that game, and never actually made real cartridges.
Well damn. I played it on the GBA back in the day without even knowing it was rare. Oh silly Atlus, when will you ever make enough copies of your great games. I too wish there were more games in this genre. Also it is a real shame that the genre is not more popular because it is pretty damn perfect for gaming on the go. Even before I had a PSP I put hundreds of hours into FFT. In fact literally the only reason I bought a PSP was for the remake (which is fucking bonkers good btw, if you loved the first one you owe it to yourself to play it). Imagine my absolute pleasure then when the PSP wound up with dozens of amazing tactics games. I suppose at some point I will get around to buying the various ones available on my DSi and the Nintendo e-shop.
The balancing would be terrible. It's hard enough figuring out how the value of a knight compares to a mage without factoring in level differentials.
I haven't played beyond the demo, but I liked how Skull of the Samurai did it on XBLA -- all footmen are created equal at the start of the battle, but they can develop further on the field.
A little late, but it isn't an unsolvable problem really. Battle Nations on iOS is a strategy game that does this. It sort of went off the rails in other ways, but its matchmaking system for PvP used a points system to rank units in an attempt to mitigate pay-to-win. It gives each unit a point value for matchmaking and attempts to match you against similar players, broadening the search range as time goes on. You occasionally get bullshit matches that you are destined to lose, but the game accounts for that and so an individual loss isn't such a big deal. Each battle also is fairly short in duration, so you aren't investing a ton of time only to get stomped.
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
edited February 2013
I've always loved these kinds of games ever since playing X-Com: Terror From The Deep when I was younger. That game scarred me for life, but I did get absolutely addicted to the turn based tactical genre. I did like FF:T, but never finished it.
I consider the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown to be the greatest turn based tactical game I've ever played. It's not without its problems, but the experience is so close to exactly the experience I always want from these kinds of games.
And guys, having a full squad of troops outfitted in Archangel and Titan armor is so much more badass than anything that's come from Square. I mean, let's be serious here.
The balancing would be terrible. It's hard enough figuring out how the value of a knight compares to a mage without factoring in level differentials.
I haven't played beyond the demo, but I liked how Skull of the Samurai did it on XBLA -- all footmen are created equal at the start of the battle, but they can develop further on the field.
A little late, but it isn't an unsolvable problem really. Battle Nations on iOS is a strategy game that does this. It sort of went off the rails in other ways, but its matchmaking system for PvP used a points system to rank units in an attempt to mitigate pay-to-win. It gives each unit a point value for matchmaking and attempts to match you against similar players, broadening the search range as time goes on. You occasionally get bullshit matches that you are destined to lose, but the game accounts for that and so an individual loss isn't such a big deal. Each battle also is fairly short in duration, so you aren't investing a ton of time only to get stomped.
Ideally, as the game gets more popular, you can make the matchups more granular. I also think the weighting system is a good element to consider when balancing particular types of units. Of course, it does create some issues early on before a game hits critical mass.
Loves me some tactical games. I just finished my first run of XCOM this past weekend and am slowly chipping away at FE: A at work.
I'd like to second the guy who mentioned Jeanne d'Arc and the Metal Gear Acid games as enjoyable. I also really liked the SMT: Devil Survivor spinoffs which I haven't seen mentioned yet. Can't wait to see what they do with SMT x FE.
The balancing would be terrible. It's hard enough figuring out how the value of a knight compares to a mage without factoring in level differentials.
I haven't played beyond the demo, but I liked how Skull of the Samurai did it on XBLA -- all footmen are created equal at the start of the battle, but they can develop further on the field.
A little late, but it isn't an unsolvable problem really. Battle Nations on iOS is a strategy game that does this. It sort of went off the rails in other ways, but its matchmaking system for PvP used a points system to rank units in an attempt to mitigate pay-to-win. It gives each unit a point value for matchmaking and attempts to match you against similar players, broadening the search range as time goes on. You occasionally get bullshit matches that you are destined to lose, but the game accounts for that and so an individual loss isn't such a big deal. Each battle also is fairly short in duration, so you aren't investing a ton of time only to get stomped.
Ideally, as the game gets more popular, you can make the matchups more granular. I also think the weighting system is a good element to consider when balancing particular types of units. Of course, it does create some issues early on before a game hits critical mass.
Yeah. I like the system a lot. It is a good way to make sure that lower tier units still get some traction alongside the God-Soldiers and whatnot and reduces the sort of min-maxing inherent in tactical game mechanics as a whole.
Final Fantasy Tactics is probably my all-time favorite game, though FFVI is right there with it. When I first played Tactics on the Playstation back in 1998 or whenever it was, I was blown away by the complexity of the characters/story as well as the grid-based combat which at that time was completely new to me. The level of detail, the job system, the varied characters and involved story, the ability to explore the Deep Dungeon...wow! Everything was so amazing. Don't want to spoil the ending, but it definitely felt like the first game I played where, though I had won...I actually lost. I still am haunted by the story today and all of the characters felt so realized, from Agrias to Mustadio to Orlandu (I vetoed the use of him because he was too OP, though). I could go down memory lane with this game for pages, I think.
And sidequests to find new characters like Beowulf and Reis! Characters that you didn't need to have to beat the game but added so much.Then when I figured out how to level down and then back up to maximize stats, I spent hours just doing that for no real reason other than to create the perfect party. It was unnecessary to defeat the game, but great fun! I found an emulator version on the web where you could have a party consisting of people like Wiegraf, Gafgarion, Izlude, Olan (aka all the best people you couldn't play from the game). So it was also one of the first games I found out how to extend the replayability beyond the regular version of the game. Score!
I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate that experience again, due to the fact that my gaming innocence has long been shattered and now I have very little time to play RPG games with huge time investments (damn you, career!). But other games of this ilk that I've enjoyed over the years include:
-Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 - Not nearly as good as the original, due to it's much tamer story and lack of depth, but was still a pretty great experience on the DS
-Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Days of Ruin - Haven't played either too much, but good fun while I did
-Pokemon Conquest - an interesting taking on the SRPG with utilizing Pokemon
-Disgaea - A little too involved for me. I don't have the time to put into this sort of game now, but if I did, I could see myself losing my entire life
I'm really excited to get Fire Emblem: Awakening after playing the demo, though I don't know when I'll have the time to play it since I'm trying to beat Ocarina of Time 3DS and playing a lot of Path of Exile right now. Ahhhhh anticipation!
Smoogy-1689
3DS Friend Code: 1821-8991-4141
PAD ID: 376,540,262
For those that love FFT but haven't played War of the Lions on PSP, I highly recommend it. It's very much the same game, but with story and grammar fixes, and awesome hand-drawn cutscenes in some spots. A couple new additions too, like a Dark Knight or Onion Knight job.
Tactics Ogre: LUCT is basically one of the best games I've ever played. I can go on and on about it for hours. It also has an incredibly interesting end-game content method, one that I'd like other games to try.
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
On the other hand, if you love tactics games, stay the holy fuck away from Wild Arms XF. It's terrible. It's the worst example of designers creating battles with 1 solution and railroading you into it. It's possible to lose because you brought the wrong units, and the game doesn't tell you anything about a battle before you start it (and there's no soft reset). Damage spreads are routinely either <10 or 1-shot kills depending on enemy weakness, you can't use most skills after moving (WTF).
I know the Ogre Battle games aren't really tactics games, but since they were mentioned I want to say I would love to see a sequel to OB64. It could be nothing more than a graphics/narrative update with some mild tweaking and I would be sold on announcement. I think its pseudo-RTS/RPG mechanics are still among the best realizations of a strategy game on a console, compared to past attempts of shoehorning PC RTS games onto consoles.
Also I didn't elaborate on it because I thought I was a weirdo.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
Welcome to the club of how every innocent Tactics child was mercilessly destroyed by their treasured game.
My poor innocence...
i downloaded it for my iPad last year and still haven't finished it because of "other" games. if i don't finish this son of a gun it's going to haunt me forever. seriously I cannot think of any other game that has ever said
For those that love FFT but haven't played War of the Lions on PSP, I highly recommend it. It's very much the same game, but with story and grammar fixes, and awesome hand-drawn cutscenes in some spots. A couple new additions too, like a Dark Knight or Onion Knight job.
i think this is why i had a little trouble with the iPad version. A lot of names and things were changed so it threw my brain off a bit. But my original PSX version is lost somewhere so it's my only real option.
I've always loved these kinds of games ever since playing X-Com: Terror From The Deep when I was younger. That game scarred me for life, but I did get absolutely addicted to the turn based tactical genre. I did like FF:T, but never finished it.
I consider the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown to be the greatest turn based tactical game I've ever played. It's not without its problems, but the experience is so close to exactly the experience I always want from these kinds of games.
And guys, having a full squad of troops outfitted in Archangel and Titan armor is so much more badass than anything that's come from Square. I mean, let's be serious here.
EDIT: Seriously, you guys:
What the hell man, your assault doesn't have an alloy cannon.
For those that love FFT but haven't played War of the Lions on PSP, I highly recommend it. It's very much the same game, but with story and grammar fixes, and awesome hand-drawn cutscenes in some spots. A couple new additions too, like a Dark Knight or Onion Knight job.
My only problem with War of the Lions is how horribly it handles on psp. Everything just goes so slowly. OK I guess I have two problems, all the sound effects and music are way off.
Also I didn't elaborate on it because I thought I was a weirdo.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
I bred a group of red chocobos to win that battle. One of my less rational strategies but it worked dammit!
I was always a fan of being a monk or a squire and using the monk self-heal and the squire +spd and +atk abilities until I was invincible. Sometimes I would go in as a Lancer (still my favorite non-special job class), but if you do that you'd better be able to one-shot him or have auto-x-potion equipped.
Also I didn't elaborate on it because I thought I was a weirdo.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
I bred a group of red chocobos to win that battle. One of my less rational strategies but it worked dammit!
I figured they were talking about the battle where it's just Ramza vs. Wiegraf/Velius. The other Wiegraf battles are simple.
The fight following that is just as infuriating and that's the one I'm talking about. The solo fight can be pretty simple if you kept your gear upgraded and just made sure you had the proper immunities going in. It was getting enough damage on the transformation to get him down before his cronies destroy you that had me hung up. All proof that holy knights are cheese.
Also I didn't elaborate on it because I thought I was a weirdo.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
I bred a group of red chocobos to win that battle. One of my less rational strategies but it worked dammit!
I figured they were talking about the battle where it's just Ramza vs. Wiegraf/Velius. The other Wiegraf battles are simple.
Naw man
there is one in a warehouse
a terrible terrible warehouse.
There are a few battles in that game where you get into the fight when you leave a dot. If you saved before leaving, and don't have a backup save, you better be able to win that fight or you're in big trouble!
Three come to mind. The Ramza by himself fight is one (dragoons baby!), the one on the rooftop where you have to save an npc from the badguys (are there Ninjas there?) and there's one in the machine city when you're helping Mustadio. That fight's not too hard by itself, but I remember having a bitch of a time because I had just sent 3 members of my 'A' team off on a job and had to fight it with Ramza, Mustadio and scrubs.
I've always loved these kinds of games ever since playing X-Com: Terror From The Deep when I was younger. That game scarred me for life, but I did get absolutely addicted to the turn based tactical genre. I did like FF:T, but never finished it.
I consider the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown to be the greatest turn based tactical game I've ever played. It's not without its problems, but the experience is so close to exactly the experience I always want from these kinds of games.
And guys, having a full squad of troops outfitted in Archangel and Titan armor is so much more badass than anything that's come from Square. I mean, let's be serious here.
EDIT: Seriously, you guys:
What the hell man, your assault doesn't have an alloy cannon.
I gave my assault back his plasma rifle after he stopped getting kills.
However, that was my first playthrough, on Normal mode.
I just did a Classic playthrough where an alloy cannon would have been awesomesauce because my assault was superfast and was equipped with Ghost armor. Proximity reaction shots like mad.
I didn't build one before I finished the final mission, though.
I can't fucking beleave just forgot to not save before the fight with gafgarion. Like, I just started grinding monk. And I forgot to set a secondary job. Auto potion? What auto potion?
I really kinda hate being punished quite this much for only using a single save.
You are imagining this is a thing. However, in the annoying fights where you are stuck at one place (ie "The Weigraf Fight"), you can edit your characters' setups and such in between fights.
I can't fucking beleave just forgot to not save before the fight with gafgarion. Like, I just started grinding monk. And I forgot to set a secondary job. Auto potion? What auto potion?
I really kinda hate being punished quite this much for only using a single save.
Think of it this way - FFT is the defining game for a lot of RPG players where they learned to keep multiple saves. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you're definitely not the first person to learn it from FFT.
Posts
The Disgaea and other NIS games are really the "end point" for this type of game, I think, since they let you dig as deep as you want. Level up your weapons, your items, your characters, reincarnate them and level them up again to be stronger, and so on. You can plan until you're done rather than until the game is done. The Disgaea series does tend to get a little silly with their max levels, though, and I feel like in Disgaea 1, the extra stuff felt more optional. Now the extra stuff feels more like a part of the game, and the complexity feels almost forced.
That said, I do prefer complexity for these type of games. I didn't like Advance Wars as it felt too puzzle-oriented thanks to the lack of leveling. My units were always the same shitty units and the game got more difficult by giving me fewer units and the enemy more units. There was one or two right ways to play a level, and if you deviated, that was it. One of the things I loved about the FFT games (and Tactics Ogre) was the variety of gameplay. Yes, I could create Assassins and cheese my way through it, but the enemies often had protection from my overpowered stuff and the levels were stacked against me, but never so much that I couldn't figure something out. The fact that I could take a short break, level up, and try again is one of the reasons people love RPG-elements so much.
I think this genre would do really well on iOS and Android, since the save system is straightforward and the gameplay is conducive to short bursts. In my experience it's not really about graphics as it is about smart level design and interesting character ability development.
I'm loving up Fire Emblem right now. Fantastic game.
But the Wiegraf battle is why I never finished FFT. I've never been crushed and devastated by a game that I loved so much.
It's real-time and not turn based, but I was such a huge fan of Mech Commander because it incorporated some tactical game elements: you had a finite number of units, you could equip each of them individually, and the pilot for each 'mech gained experience over the course of the game.
I need to find out more about the turn based hexagonal battletech game that's either in development or recently released....
Welcome to the club of how every innocent Tactics child was mercilessly destroyed by their treasured game.
My poor innocence...
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Well, I'm working on adding one to the list. It's definitely closer to FFT and TO than to XCOM (I think, I haven't actually played XCOM), but it's hex-based. I haven't done any research on implementing multiplayer, but there's no persistent stat growth, so if I ever decide to patch it in or make it part of a later release, I bet it would work pretty well!
Characters don't gain levels, only their skill level with a class increases, and all that does is let you equip higher rank skills. So all units have the same baseline stats. I wanted to focus on strategies, skill, and unit placement rather than "higher numbers".
Each unit has a primary and secondary martial class, and a magical class that determines what skills are available, these classes can be changed outside of battle
You choose 8 skills to bring into any battle, so there's a bit of a deck-building element to it.
In-battle, units start at Level 1 and gain a level every time they take an action. At level up a unit has a choice - they can gain stats, unlock more commands, regain HP, dispel status, etc. In this regard each battle is kind of like a MOBA, where everyone starts on equal footing.
Magic and physical traps can be set, and you can manually set your path to avoid them if you think automatic pathfinding would cause you to walk through one
You can drop objects like bombs and ignite them with pyromancy
Multi-stage targeting lets you select several targets for certain attacks, letting you do things like build a wall of flame or teleport-attack more than 1 enemy
I was about to make this point. Advance Wars feels more like a puzzle game to me.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
@silence1186
I have it. I'd probably be willing to sell it. I actually didn't like it much - gameplay was too sluggish for me.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
PSN:Furlion
A little late, but it isn't an unsolvable problem really. Battle Nations on iOS is a strategy game that does this. It sort of went off the rails in other ways, but its matchmaking system for PvP used a points system to rank units in an attempt to mitigate pay-to-win. It gives each unit a point value for matchmaking and attempts to match you against similar players, broadening the search range as time goes on. You occasionally get bullshit matches that you are destined to lose, but the game accounts for that and so an individual loss isn't such a big deal. Each battle also is fairly short in duration, so you aren't investing a ton of time only to get stomped.
I consider the new XCOM: Enemy Unknown to be the greatest turn based tactical game I've ever played. It's not without its problems, but the experience is so close to exactly the experience I always want from these kinds of games.
And guys, having a full squad of troops outfitted in Archangel and Titan armor is so much more badass than anything that's come from Square. I mean, let's be serious here.
EDIT: Seriously, you guys:
Ideally, as the game gets more popular, you can make the matchups more granular. I also think the weighting system is a good element to consider when balancing particular types of units. Of course, it does create some issues early on before a game hits critical mass.
I'd like to second the guy who mentioned Jeanne d'Arc and the Metal Gear Acid games as enjoyable. I also really liked the SMT: Devil Survivor spinoffs which I haven't seen mentioned yet. Can't wait to see what they do with SMT x FE.
Yeah. I like the system a lot. It is a good way to make sure that lower tier units still get some traction alongside the God-Soldiers and whatnot and reduces the sort of min-maxing inherent in tactical game mechanics as a whole.
And sidequests to find new characters like Beowulf and Reis! Characters that you didn't need to have to beat the game but added so much.Then when I figured out how to level down and then back up to maximize stats, I spent hours just doing that for no real reason other than to create the perfect party. It was unnecessary to defeat the game, but great fun! I found an emulator version on the web where you could have a party consisting of people like Wiegraf, Gafgarion, Izlude, Olan (aka all the best people you couldn't play from the game). So it was also one of the first games I found out how to extend the replayability beyond the regular version of the game. Score!
I don't think I'll ever be able to recreate that experience again, due to the fact that my gaming innocence has long been shattered and now I have very little time to play RPG games with huge time investments (damn you, career!). But other games of this ilk that I've enjoyed over the years include:
-Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 - Not nearly as good as the original, due to it's much tamer story and lack of depth, but was still a pretty great experience on the DS
-Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Days of Ruin - Haven't played either too much, but good fun while I did
-Pokemon Conquest - an interesting taking on the SRPG with utilizing Pokemon
-Disgaea - A little too involved for me. I don't have the time to put into this sort of game now, but if I did, I could see myself losing my entire life
I'm really excited to get Fire Emblem: Awakening after playing the demo, though I don't know when I'll have the time to play it since I'm trying to beat Ocarina of Time 3DS and playing a lot of Path of Exile right now. Ahhhhh anticipation!
3DS Friend Code: 1821-8991-4141
PAD ID: 376,540,262
i downloaded it for my iPad last year and still haven't finished it because of "other" games. if i don't finish this son of a gun it's going to haunt me forever. seriously I cannot think of any other game that has ever said
"hey. you lost."
in such a definitive manner.
i think this is why i had a little trouble with the iPad version. A lot of names and things were changed so it threw my brain off a bit. But my original PSX version is lost somewhere so it's my only real option.
What the hell man, your assault doesn't have an alloy cannon.
My only problem with War of the Lions is how horribly it handles on psp. Everything just goes so slowly. OK I guess I have two problems, all the sound effects and music are way off.
I bred a group of red chocobos to win that battle. One of my less rational strategies but it worked dammit!
I figured they were talking about the battle where it's just Ramza vs. Wiegraf/Velius. The other Wiegraf battles are simple.
3DS Friend Code: 1821-8991-4141
PAD ID: 376,540,262
I was always a fan of being a monk or a squire and using the monk self-heal and the squire +spd and +atk abilities until I was invincible. Sometimes I would go in as a Lancer (still my favorite non-special job class), but if you do that you'd better be able to one-shot him or have auto-x-potion equipped.
The fight following that is just as infuriating and that's the one I'm talking about. The solo fight can be pretty simple if you kept your gear upgraded and just made sure you had the proper immunities going in. It was getting enough damage on the transformation to get him down before his cronies destroy you that had me hung up. All proof that holy knights are cheese.
Naw man
there is one in a warehouse
a terrible terrible warehouse.
There are a few battles in that game where you get into the fight when you leave a dot. If you saved before leaving, and don't have a backup save, you better be able to win that fight or you're in big trouble!
Three come to mind. The Ramza by himself fight is one (dragoons baby!), the one on the rooftop where you have to save an npc from the badguys (are there Ninjas there?) and there's one in the machine city when you're helping Mustadio. That fight's not too hard by itself, but I remember having a bitch of a time because I had just sent 3 members of my 'A' team off on a job and had to fight it with Ramza, Mustadio and scrubs.
I gave my assault back his plasma rifle after he stopped getting kills.
However, that was my first playthrough, on Normal mode.
I just did a Classic playthrough where an alloy cannon would have been awesomesauce because my assault was superfast and was equipped with Ghost armor. Proximity reaction shots like mad.
I didn't build one before I finished the final mission, though.
I really kinda hate being punished quite this much for only using a single save.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Think of it this way - FFT is the defining game for a lot of RPG players where they learned to keep multiple saves. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you're definitely not the first person to learn it from FFT.