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Episode 8: Tactics Ogre Reborn
270 Plays2 years ago
Poly's first tactics game, and Kj's first Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre game. Come see what the opinion was!
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:01
Speaker
All right, well, hello, everybody. Welcome to episode eight of Turd Base Tangents. I am your co-host, Polly Moonay, with the wonderful KJ2294. That's me.
00:00:15
Speaker
We are both RPG enthusiast streamers and came up with the idea of starting this podcast of basically it is an RPG book club where we play a game off stream and go through it together and try to beat it and then we get on stream to review it.
00:00:35
Speaker
and go over the entire game in its entirety, the ups, the good, bad, and the ugly of everything. So, uh, and yeah, we, we started this in goodness, June, June. Yeah, June. Yeah. We started it in June. And so this is, this is episode eight, uh, and we've reviewed six games so far. This will be the seventh and then we are no five games so far. And this will be the sixth.
00:00:59
Speaker
And then we had two podcasts that were different. So like a year-end one and one where we were talking about Square Enix games. So, but yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. I don't think you did like an overview, but I don't know if you mentioned the
Overview of Tactics Ogre Reborn
00:01:16
Speaker
game. So today we'll be covering Tactics Ogre Reborn. We were supposed to have played a Ogre battle slash Tactics Ogre game prior to this.
00:01:27
Speaker
And the series seemed pretty interesting. The remake was coming out of... It's a complete remake of... Tactics Ogre and Let Us Cling Together, I believe the name is. The full title of it is called. Which originally came out on the SNES, and then was ported to the PS1, and then remade for the PSP, and then finally remade for the Switch.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of had a journey. It has a journey. And earlier, if you caught the intro sequence, I was actually playing the tactics ogre soundtrack from the PlayStation version of the game, which I thought was very interesting because a lot of the songs and stuff like that are the same in this version, except for they've just been like, upscaled and remastered and stuff like that to for for
00:02:23
Speaker
newer technology and to sound a little bit better and stuff like that. So I thought that was really interesting. Like even the intro music was the same. And I was like, Oh, this is, this is, this is awesome that they kept it so, so close to it. So, um, and I think that's pretty common. Like I've found that that's common among live alive did that to remakes. Yeah. Live alive did that. I know with final fantasy 10, they did that as well. Like basically they, they just had more real music instead of, uh,
00:02:53
Speaker
instead of like the just synthetic.
00:02:57
Speaker
Music that they had that they made previously and like this is our second one where we've done it where it's technically like a remaster slash remake of an older game so we did live alive as well and so it's really interesting because a lot of like my notes and stuff like that I kind of I kind of compared a little bit to to that just because of the way they like they upscaled it
00:03:24
Speaker
But they kept a lot of the charm of the game, it looks like, making me want to actually go and own the original for at least for PlayStation. I don't know if the Super Nintendo one ever came out in North America, did it?
00:03:36
Speaker
Um, yeah. Oh, did. Okay.
Trivia: Game Titles and Sponsorship
00:03:39
Speaker
So I just never knew it existed. I knew the PlayStation one because my brother rented it one time. So I recognized a few of the characters rights and stuff like that from those days. But also, I feel like I'm gonna steal your thunder because you usually have the fun facts and stuff. But I actually have a fun fact to start us off.
00:03:58
Speaker
Oh, the first two tactics or ogre battle slash tactics, ogre games. Their titles are actually named after queen songs. So March of the Black Queen and Let Us Clean Together are both references to queen songs. So there's your fun fact of the day.
00:04:18
Speaker
that is so cool i didn't know that okay that's clever i like that i like that they throw in like little things like that that reference uh okay that's cool i like that i like that i have no idea i've been holding onto that for like
00:04:33
Speaker
a month and a half. And you're like, Oh, my goodness. I can't say anything because it has to be for the podcast. Here's what happened after playing the game. And I got mostly the way through it. And I was just like, I need to play all of this. Like I need I need this entire series. And so I started looking them up. And then that's when I got that like fun fact. And I have I have a couple of more things about like more game specific afterwards. But I'll
00:05:02
Speaker
I'll hold those for like- So you're gonna be pulling the star ocean in the exact- I have a bunch of random things for like, basically future games, like sort of, or I shouldn't say future games, I should say like the other games in the series, so.
00:05:18
Speaker
Honestly, since you kind of mentioned what they are, which we're going to mention them a little bit later. I'm going to let KJ do that because KJ found all this out. It makes me want to play them too. No, it does. It's awesome. Yeah. But yeah, KJ, I think you got a physical copy, right?
00:05:36
Speaker
Um, yeah, I have to grab it. Yeah. If you want to grab it, I'll tackle it. So for me, KJ bought it. Um, I, I got it gifted to me by Square Enix. It was a sponsorship. So I streamed a few times the game on stream before Christmas. There we go. Uh, so I only have a digital copy of it, but
00:05:56
Speaker
Going through this game, I kind of think I want to own maybe the PlayStation 1 version, even though it is kind of expensive, or even just that version at some point and just never open it and keep it sealed. But Square Enix very generalously gave me a copy, and so I played it a few times on stream,
00:06:13
Speaker
And it was also part of the reason why we picked this for podcast game because KJ was like, oh, you already got it. Why don't we make this a podcast game so you could stream it a few times, but you're playing it off stream. And I said, yeah, that sounds great because it's great because I got it from Square Enix and now we're getting to review it, which I think, you know, adds a little bit to it. So hopefully hopefully they're cool with that. But I don't see anything saying that they're not. So we're good.
00:06:42
Speaker
I was so worried you weren't going to like it. I was just like, especially because I hadn't I was holding on to it until I was holding on to it until you tried had said whether or not you wanted to play it. And I'm just like, I have it. I'm going to play this game eventually.
00:06:58
Speaker
But I don't know how you're going to feel about it. So I was just like, is this going to be one of those games that I just end up forcing my way through? Kind of like I'm doing with Fire Emblem, where I'm like, it's not a podcast game, but I'm playing it off stream. I want to get through it. Like, is it going to be like that or is it going to be a situation of like, we're actually going to plan on the podcast? And sure enough, you did like it. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. Like, this is everything I could have asked for.
00:07:23
Speaker
And for me, a lot of the days now, it's like, okay, is this going to be a stream game or a podcast game? Because I'm like, I have time for, for, for those. I don't have any time for anything else and stuff. So like, I'm like, I'm the same way. So like when I played it the first time, uh, KJ was in my stream, it was just kind of like waiting to hear my opinion. And I, that first stream, I just, I was like, all right, I'm in, I'm in, this is fun. Like it was, it was fun. Like right at the get go right out there, right out the gate gate there.
00:07:52
Speaker
Not gecko gate Right out the gate. It was actually quite fun. So I was like, all right. Yeah, let's go for it I I could see myself pushing through it But I also gave myself a little bit of like reminder of like hey, you've never never beaten a tactics game You have never gotten that far in a tactics game before Give yourself a bit of a break if you struggle or if you can't beat it it's not the end of the world like I had that in the back of my mind the entire playthrough and
00:08:17
Speaker
And KJ was really supportive about it being like, yeah, just get as far as you can. Just have fun with it, ultimately. And I was like, OK, yeah, great. Because this is way outside my realm of games I play. However now, now,
00:08:36
Speaker
The floodgates have now opened because there are a ton of tactics games that I still need to play and be. And like, I just like podcast a whole new world of opportunity because yeah, yeah, there are. I haven't touched.
00:08:53
Speaker
I didn't think I was going to enjoy it as much as I did. And I didn't think I'd enjoy the play style as much as I would. So now it's a whole new world for me. And now I'm looking at it like, dang, I want to play another tactics game. Like I'm eager now.
00:09:09
Speaker
And there looks like there's so many that I've never heard of before, because it was a genre of games I just never looked at. And something I was extra excited about, and I know KJ echoes this, is that we were both really excited that a lot of you guys played with us.
Gameplay Mechanics and Choices
00:09:26
Speaker
Yes. No Girl played the Garrett game at the same time. Pea Stone did. Thunder Drummer was playing it. We played it.
00:09:35
Speaker
And Mooney played it uh like so many people were playing this game uh some because we were playing it uh but some of them just kind of ended up lining up because they wanted to play it at the same time and so it was really great because we all got to like chat about it until Polly makes a decision that leads her far away from everyone else and then i'm just sitting here like hey i'm all alone
00:10:03
Speaker
OK, so that is OK. So just like a lot of games, like a lot of you know, like a lot of games have their own sort of like. I don't know, special traits to them, right, like with the Star Wars and games, you can count on the fact that you're going to have like private actions with characters that are going to depend on like the endings are going to depend on and you're going to have like missable characters and stuff like that. Right. The this game has
00:10:32
Speaker
basically decisions that you're going to be making over the course of like every chapter that's going to affect how you're gonna get to the end. So one of the things, so I'll start by saying like a lot of the decisions don't really change the ending, but they change how you get to the end. And like who will be there at the end, right? But like the core ending, there's like kind of like three core endings, I think we
00:10:59
Speaker
We both got the same one. Different characters. We went very, very different routes, but ended up at the same point. Yeah, because there's one like big decision that you make that kind of determines what happens. And so on a pot, like the good thing is I saw Mooney play through it. And she actually did the opposite of what we did and got one of the other endings. So I can speak on that one, too, which is going to be pretty exciting.
00:11:26
Speaker
Perfect. I watched part of the VOD, but I didn't get to see the full ending. So I was kind of hoping that you would have been so mad if you got this ending. OK, yeah, I kind of figured because how it started off where you sent me the clip, I was just like, what? And I was like, all right, I'm glad I didn't go. I'm glad I stumbled in and made the right.
00:11:51
Speaker
right answers or whatever to get through it because I'm like, okay, this is just weird. But to start it off before we get too deep into the storyline of gameplay, because I know we're going to tangent off a lot about the storyline of gameplay, especially because despite both playing it at the same time, we went different routes, had different characters and had different experiences, but
00:12:12
Speaker
Somehow made it completely different like completely different and somehow both came to the same ending and we're like, okay All right, this is great Um, but one thing I wanted to talk a little bit about which we always like to start off with with is like the art style and uh soundtrack um and uh Yeah, i'm gonna do you want to talk about the soundtrack or the art star either? I
00:12:38
Speaker
This is a tough one for me, only because, like, I feel like I was destined to enjoy this because it's so similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, right? Like, everybody knows, like, the Tactics Ogre, the creators of Tactics Ogre ended up splitting off and making Final Fantasy Tactics, I believe. I believe that was the order. Yeah, I think so, yeah. And so, like,
00:13:02
Speaker
I was playing through this game and just the art style, the like.
00:13:09
Speaker
everything was very Final Fantasy Tactics, like the original Final Fantasy Tactics. So I could see the comparisons. So I feel like I didn't really, it was unfair almost in that context. I feel like I didn't really have a, cause it felt so similar to Final Fantasy Tactics that I was just like, oh, I like this. Like I didn't have any need to be critical of like,
00:13:35
Speaker
the soundtrack or the art, like the soundtrack, I guess, was a little it was definitely a little different. But like the art style, very, very similar, even like the class, like a lot of a lot of the gameplay aspect. Oh, are they? OK, like I have no experience with Final Fantasy Tactics whatsoever, so I have no idea. The class system is similar ish. The class system in tactics is better, in my opinion. But yeah, I could definitely see a lot of the ties and inspiration there.
00:14:03
Speaker
Um, in regards to the voice, I think the voice acting was solid. I think they did a very good job with the voice acting. Um, I was happy that it was voice acted because it's a very wordy game. Very, very wordy game. So I'm glad voice acted, which was like,
00:14:20
Speaker
perfect yeah that was a battle like little bits where they were like summoning something wasn't but that was fine because you were speed through that anyway because you wanted to get through the attack to the next one anyway at least i was i was like skipping like the little dialogue of like their oh heavenly father now just do the move you can't skip the oh that hurts you're skipping the dialogue of the characters like doing their specials oh no
00:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, well, no, not their specials. The specials were cool. I'm talking about like that magic. And like when you get it over and over again, you're like, okay, I don't need to read this anymore. Like I wouldn't, I would let it go the first time. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. That's a cool move name or whatever. Like, oh, I'm going to end this. I'm like, yeah, you are. And, but then when you hear that, when you see that over and over and over, you're like, yeah, I'm done. I'm good now.
00:15:10
Speaker
But I will say fun fact, which I didn't realize until I looked it up showing my friend. So I was trying to get my friend interested in playing this game. And I'm like, Oh yeah. I was like, I recognize denim's voice actor.
00:15:25
Speaker
But I couldn't place it and it was driving me nuts until I looked it up and then I laughed really hard. Because for those of you who know Genshin Impact, Denim's voice actor is the one who does Ito, which is basically this big himbo type character who's kind of dumb, but also kind of witty.
00:15:47
Speaker
very opposite of denim like very very very opposite of denim uh because it's max who does the voices and stuff like that and he's done a lot of like anime he's done a lot of video game um voices and stuff like that you know yeah it is you know and so i i looked at and i i laughed really hard because they're complete opposite characters almost entirely opposite
00:16:10
Speaker
But this voice actor does it so well that they have such a range. The fact that they could do completely opposite characters and make you believe that they are that character personified is incredible. And I really like Denim's voice actor the whole time. I like the voice. I like the passion in his voice at certain points in the game. Like he really sold the main character for me.
00:16:31
Speaker
I really, I really felt for Denim and going through all this stuff. I believed I was him. Like when he was making his decisions and stuff like that, you know, like besides where I went off, but you completely did something incredible.
00:16:48
Speaker
Before we get into this decision, I knew KJ would not go down this route. I knew it, so I wanted to be different. That's the only difference of Denim. But even when Denim's going through and talking about it, the way he references it, what he goes through and stuff like that, I'm just like, this is really interesting. I really feel for this character. I really feel for him. I really feel for his plight. He's really trying yada, yada, yada.
00:17:16
Speaker
don't don't act come i do it see this is what's gonna happen he's gonna come at me and the whole reason i went that route is well there's two reasons i was gonna say there's actually two reasons for it's not entirely because he went the other way um that's the thing so
00:17:33
Speaker
I got to that part, and I was just like, I was, like, floored. I was so pissed. And Peach was like, don't be moral. Just do it. And I was like, no, fuck that. Like, I have morals. Fuck that. I put myself in the character's shoes too. And I was like, oh, there's no chance I'm not playing this as I would, like, as me. Like,
00:17:56
Speaker
If it was me, I would have gone your same route. Um, but there's two reasons why I did it. But yeah, so the voice acting was great. The music was really, really good. Like I, I realized there wasn't like a super ton of variety, but it was fine because the music was enjoyable enough. I loved hearing it over and over and over again with the battle. Sometimes they changed it depending on the seriousness of the battle or if you were fighting like some sort of
00:18:21
Speaker
a more centralized character than just general battles and stuff like that like they did and there was a lot of like emotional parts or stuff and they changed the music like it the music really tied you into the game and then the art style was beautiful to me and i have no recollection or like no concept of final fantasy tactics at all because i've never played it before
00:18:41
Speaker
And so I love the way they drew the characters. I love the like watercolor slash pencil-y kind of details of the faces and stuff. And it was just a really unique style and like the pixel sprites were really charming and really like
00:18:58
Speaker
uh you know softer in some places but it was like it was just really nice and like all the little character designs were great like you get a winged character right at the start and i thought they did those characters really cool um and so
00:19:14
Speaker
I found like the art and the music and the voice acting all tied in together very well. I can't pick out a flaw of any of it. All the voices were great. I kept picking out voices I recognized like right away.
00:19:34
Speaker
Right away, I recognized Adam Cosdale's voice because I've met Ignis's voice actor in real life. So I've met him and now because I've met him, I can pinpoint his voice in everything he does. Because it's like in my head and he's talked to me and we've had lots of conversations and we got drugged together and it was exciting.
00:20:00
Speaker
And and funny enough it was like he was there Libertas from I know you don't know Final Fantasy 15 But I was from the movie and then like the king from Final Fantasy 15 was there and I was so drunk I kept calling the voice actor king your majesty. Oh, no He kept playing the role because he thought it was hilarious. Oh my goodness as you were and then Ignace's voice actor Adam would just jump at being like
00:20:26
Speaker
You must address the royalty better than that. Bow down on your knees. And I was like, Oh, my goodness. I'm drunk. I'm not getting back up if you get me down there. And it was just great people. Now I hear his voice everywhere. He's in the game. He plays one of the White Knights that you meet right off the right at the start. He is it starts with G. Gilda's what Gilda's Gilda's. That's it. Yeah. So he plays Gilda's.
00:20:55
Speaker
Another one of my MVPs. Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was pretty OP. Oh my God. There's a lot of, there's a lot of really good characters in this game. So I kept recognizing a lot of the voices and stuff like that. So it was like, this is great. And, uh, they had, they had quite a late, and then they had like, uh, Jean on Emery who comes in later, uh, who is Biggs, uh, from Final Fantasy seven remake. Okay. Uh, he was the swords master. Hoburim.
00:21:23
Speaker
Oh, nice. Okay. Yep. He was Hoburum. Another clutch character for me. I got stupid excited when I heard that voice. I was like, Oh, cause it's all the ball here. I remember being asleep and you sending me a bunch of messages about that character. And I was like, Oh yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
because I play Final Fantasy 12 and Balthier is like one of the only memorable characters for 12 for me and so uh he he was there um and I was super excited he was in the remake too so like I kept like pinpointing these voices and stuff like that I had to look them up so like all in all like I can't I can't even point out a single like little thing where I would say like a lot of the sound effects were good the music tied in the voice acting was good the
00:22:07
Speaker
art style was great. Like all of it's all of it was done really, really well. So like, yeah, no, I mean, I can't say I like pinpoint any voices in game in game, but I was like, Oh, this is good. Like this is solid. Like I was I was like, okay. And I think one thing that's really that's really tough. And I actually found this in some other games that I've been playing recently. The voice acting can definitely like break engagement.
00:22:32
Speaker
like in the game like and break the immersion and like that didn't happen with this game like I was yeah a lot of times like I feel like with the OST and something that I didn't even really notice because I get absorbed into tactics games as it is and like
00:22:48
Speaker
This game, it never did anything to just break me out of that. So there were a couple of times, because I had also played this one. I had a couple weeks off vacation. And I was just playing this game until 3, 4 in the morning. And I was like, oh, shit. I need to go see.
00:23:03
Speaker
Like, but it was, yeah. And see your updates in our, like, private podcast chat and, like, be all in black all the time because you were further ahead than I was. And I was just like, oh, this is at 3 a.m., this is at 4 a.m., this is at 2.30 a.m. It wasn't that bad. Okay, it was not that bad. It was like 2 a.m., there's a couple at 2 a.m. There were some in the middle of the day.
00:23:31
Speaker
Like, I tried to be good about it. It was great, though. OK, there is definitely one at like, yeah, like 2 a.m. Yeah. OK. Yeah, I told you, I told you. Yeah, KJ just recharges. He doesn't sleep. I love I love that there's two of the first messages. Vice is an asshole. And then you respond in all caps. Vice is an asshole.
00:23:59
Speaker
It was funny because it's like I didn't. We both got to it and I'm just like, oh, my God, I'm still disappointed that I think we should start talking about gameplay and like, OK, yeah, let's honestly, we can't really like say there is like, like you said, it emerged us. The voice acting was great. Pulled us in. Music was great. Pulled us in like all of it pulled us in. So like I think we've talked enough about that. Let's just just dive right into the core of this game. Yeah, so.
00:24:28
Speaker
Gameplay was really interesting. I they had the element system. And I really enjoyed the element system. I think like there was it was really interesting because like with the elements, you had like weaknesses, but it didn't feel like it mattered a whole bunch to me. Like it mattered, but not like it was like, oh, you might do extra 20 damage.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah, like it wasn't anything like super, super crazy, but I still tried to follow the element system. And the class system was very limited. That is one thing. So Final Fantasy Tactics, you can like make your characters whatever class, whereas like in this game,
00:25:13
Speaker
you can't do that. Like you have to have like, certain characters can only be certain classes. And that was kind of, I did feel like that severely limited me.
00:25:25
Speaker
Um, like random units that I would just get. I couldn't, even if they weren't story units, like I wasn't really thinking about changing story units classes. It was, or a ton. It was more so like, cause both games have the system where you can like go to the store and recruit people. And I was like, Oh, I can recruit people and then I can change them to like, whatever class. And there was still some limits, which was unfortunate.
00:25:50
Speaker
You also have to get their marks or something. You have to get a special item to be able to do it. You couldn't just do it. Yep. Which also was a little bit of a pain, but it is what it is. Especially for the fun classes later on where you actually wanted to make those classes and you're like, I don't have any of this thing. Where do I get this thing? And sometimes you'd get them only in battles or something. You can't buy them.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah. Certain ones you could only get if you fought a certain character or if you did a certain battle. So it also severely limited you to get the more fun classes later on and really pigeon-held you into having to recruit the story characters to get those classes or to really recruit who you were fighting against.
00:26:39
Speaker
I found like I found like I was more focused on trying to like get certain things because I knew I probably wouldn't get like like abilities to like change those characters for a while yet. So that was that was actually really interesting. So you you brought up a good point with the recruitment aspect.
00:26:59
Speaker
I found that to be really, really cool because you could recruit in battle, right? Like it was a skill to be able to recruit characters and different classes have different, so like, for example, some characters are like, their class will have recruit humans. Some characters, they will, like, Beastmaster could recruit beasts and dragons. Like, and I thought that, or no, was it beasts and dragons? Yeah, it was beasts and dragons. Yeah, it was beasts and dragons, yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so it was really cool because it was like, oh, you're allowing me to recruit these characters. And you could like in the menus, you could check their loyalty to their specific party. And I ended up looking this part up afterwards. The more you use recruit, if it fails on a character, they're less they're even less likely if you try again to join you.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah. So if you want to keep trying because then you just like end up be wasting your turn. Yeah. I learned that the hard way with dragons very much the hard way with dragons. It's it's funny because the dragons are like very finicky. I think a lot of the beasts are like very finicky. A lot of them where I was trying really hard to get like one of everything because I was very into this game. And so
00:28:20
Speaker
and I thought the record like you said the recruiting part was fun so you have the ability where you can recruit people and different ones and stuff while I
00:28:29
Speaker
I had, you had said there was something about dragons, that if I got all the dragons or something like that, that I might have access to a character or something. And I was like, I perked up and I'm like, okay, recruit all the dragons is what KJ was telling me. That was not what KJ was telling me. But it was like, that's what KJ say, recruit all the dragons. And I kept doing these side missions in forests to fight dragons, to try to recruit them. I ended up with
00:28:59
Speaker
Every damn dragon in the game, except one because I didn't realize it was a dragon and I'm still mad about it because I would have ended up with that that character had I gotten that and I was just too angry to like get out and then try to do it when I realized it was a dragon. I didn't realize hydras were dragons. Oh, I thought it was a beast. Now hydras are dragons. Yeah.
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was a beast. Uh, cause it just look like, I know it had like, like dragon E kind of like multiple heads, but I was like Hydra kind of like a beast sort of thing. And I was like, I thought it was a beast. And I always kept trying to get the beast master to recruit it with beast.
00:29:42
Speaker
Now I didn't do it. But I never succeeded. So it's like, okay. And then this character never even like appeared or anything like that. So I was like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, whatever. I'm just going to move on with my life. But yeah, dragons for a pain in the butt, because you had to look at their like, and it was kind of the opposite. So if they said they were really loyal, that meant they were really loyal to
00:30:10
Speaker
like, their party, wasn't it? Because I found, like, if I wanted a dragon, I had to get the ones where they were cowering. Yes. That's still what, like, they had a thing where it's like, this unit cowers at your approach. Yep. Those ones, I could recruit that dragon. Any of the other ones, it was a pain in the butt. Did you ever... So you can also sell the beasts and everything. Did you ever sell any of them?
00:30:39
Speaker
I sold a bunch of Griffins, yeah. Okay. I sold one and I felt so bad. I was like, damn. Until you taught me that money hack, I was recruiting Griffins and selling them off because they sold for like $85,000. The thing is, I didn't learn about the money thing until I was like,
00:30:57
Speaker
I was in the end dungeon and I was just like, well, the money thing, I'm not using that. I already captured a bunch of beasts and sold them. I'm an asshole. This sucks. But yeah, the money hack was wild.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, so and honestly, I didn't feel bad exploiting it because it was a mechanic in the game. It wasn't like we cheated or anything. It was just they messed up and there's an item that you can buy that you can then just like you can buy it for lower than what it sells for.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's you craft it. And then you craft it. And then when you go to sell it, it's worth more than the stuff you use to craft it. So you just, you could just keep going and kind of an endless cycle like that. And it's good at the very end of the game. I did that just for the fact because it was really, really hard for me. And I hadn't ever done those kind of like,
00:31:55
Speaker
any kind of that before and so I was really happy that I had like a hundred of every healing item I needed and a hundred of every revive and and hundreds of like MP recharge things and stuff like that because I really needed it in the end and in the end of the game I had very little left
00:32:15
Speaker
Like you mean you've never had a tactics game boss rush before they put you to the gauntlet they put you through the gauntlet
00:32:28
Speaker
But I'm glad that you taught me that little bit because I was like, I was literally by, I was recruiting griffins and I was like, I've got an army of griffins and then selling them all off and making my money at the kitchen. It's like, Hey, do you know about the money thing? And I'm like, you know what? Just tell me because I'm going to need money and I'm tired of like having to go into these battles, recruiting these griffins and then selling them off.
00:32:50
Speaker
because I found that Griffins and my dragons sold for the must. But because dragons were such a pain to recruit, I found Griffins easier to recruit. Really? Because, yeah, I was recruiting any of them, to be honest.
00:33:03
Speaker
I think because I had two people who were beastmasters and I would just go on either side of the griffith and then just recruit. So I found griffith's a little bit easier. I found octopus is really difficult. I had no problem. I guess I just didn't have a problem recruiting, I don't know.
00:33:26
Speaker
Maybe my Beastmaster, who was Ki by the way, Ki was my Beastmaster. I love that you made the Beastmaster Ki, that was pretty funny. Maybe my Beastmaster was just like really good at recruiting because I never had any problems. Yeah, and see, I struggled with the dragons and then I struggled with the octopus. I never, okay, you know, so there was a unit in the game.
00:33:49
Speaker
That's like this little flying dragon thing, but it was considered a familiar fairy fae thing. It was like this little draggy guy. He kind of flew. He was usually a rogue, uh, all often with Pixies. Often with the Pixies. Uh, there's like the thing I never got one of those. I didn't know how to recruit them. I tried to do it through the fae thing, but I don't think that was a fae. I don't know. I never got it. But, uh, but yeah, so I didn't have.
00:34:20
Speaker
I didn't have any of those. I don't think I recruited any of those. Yeah, so I never got that. I got a pixie and I thought pixies were a little goated, especially because they could do good magic. They could heal and they could use range weapons like bows and crossbows and stuff like that. They're basically like cannabis.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, they're basically like the wing guy you get cannabis right at the beginning, except for that they can heal. They can also heal. Cannabis could... No, he could use magic, he couldn't heal. He could use magic, but he couldn't heal. He could use magic, he couldn't heal, right. So she was basically him, but could heal, so I would have both of them at my party for a while, because I thought that was really handy.
00:35:05
Speaker
Um, but the cool thing about this game with the characters and stuff is when you recruited them, even from a different, like, so you get in the battle and you would recruit one, you could name it whatever you wanted after, which is great. Cause proper, like proper units, like story units.
00:35:22
Speaker
The only ones you couldn't name were story units. Yeah, and that's because their names got said a lot. So it made sense Like actually spoken out loud said and so KJ and I were like naming Party members who we recruited or we picked up where we could change their names to people in our communities and we both were saving each other for like a really good unit and then it
00:35:50
Speaker
Yup, I never ended up finding a unit that was Polly. I never did because by the time I had gotten to a point where I could have, I replaced most of my
00:36:07
Speaker
I've replaced most of my units with like story proper units because it was just like the story proper units were just too good. Like I think a lot of the end maps, I think I had like 12.
00:36:26
Speaker
I think I got a 12, like there were a lot of the end maps. There's like 12 characters. Um, and my, my best classes were Valkyrie and warrior. So like, I basically, so I got two in, in my route, I got two different Valkyries and then I had already, I had no girl was a Valkyrie also. And then,
00:36:55
Speaker
Denim was, I think I had Denim as a warrior for like the entire game. I think Denim was a warrior. I didn't change Denim at all. I thought I was the only one. No, I didn't change Denim and Peach was also a warrior. So I had Peach in there too. And the only time I like, at the end of the game, I swapped out some characters.
00:37:21
Speaker
Oh, at the end of the game. So meat was one of my healers. But there was a point where I was like, OK, I don't I have the White Knights. Now I don't need a healer. And then I had to swap. I needed another healer at the end game. So I ended up putting each back in the party for the final fight because I needed somebody to cure the most ridiculous fucking status ability that I've ever experienced in a game before not being able to revive characters.
00:37:51
Speaker
Like, oh, my goodness, that was so stupid. But I heard me screaming at the TV when I got to that part. That was that was that was an experience. But yeah, no, I for the most part ended up going with like story units, which I don't think you got some of the story. So there was a there were like four sisters. Right. Mm hmm. Did you I got two of them.
00:38:18
Speaker
You got the healer and you got the Valkyrie that was in red, right? Like Syria.
00:38:25
Speaker
No, I got the healer and the one that was a witch. Oh, you got Sherry. Yeah, I got Sherry. I didn't get Sherry, because you had to do extra stuff to get Sherry, I believe. Yes, you did. It's a pain in the butt. I'll explain it later. You did a bunch of extra, get all these extra characters. I didn't get Sherry. Honestly, I accidentally got Sherry, fun fact. Oh, OK. Accidentally, and I'll explain it a little bit later when we get into that. So I got the two values in the giveaway. But you could get all four? Could you get all four?
00:38:54
Speaker
You can get all four in the chaos route. Oh, okay. Because in your route, you can't get Sestina.
00:39:04
Speaker
Sestina's the one, you don't get Sestina. Oh, she's one of the sisters. Which is a good trade off, to be honest. Yeah, Rapice is a Valkyrie, she was OP. But Sestina, I gave Sestina these like, there's different items you can equip on characters, right? And so I found these like winged boots that basically let the person become a flying unit.
00:39:28
Speaker
Oh, that's handy. So I basically I would start maps with Canopus and Sestina flying to high ground and just like magic like and just like or like scouting and everything it was oh it was so good like
00:39:42
Speaker
That was such a good setup. And then I turned the other sister into a dragoon so that I could deal with all of the different, all the different beasts and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gragoons had one purpose, to kill the beasts and the dragons as fast as you can because they had the most health. Yep. And they were so clutch. And it was my dragoon.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was one of those games where like all the beasts Or no, he destroys all the beasts all the beasts cower before him. Okay. Okay. I see what you did there Hey, you're you're significant other was a warrior was a ninja warrior For me going stabbing everybody in the back For me, yeah
00:40:40
Speaker
No, Ki was my warrior. He was a warrior. But I ended up very similar to you. By the end, I had, because I had gone and recruited so many story characters, I ended up with, I think, I don't think I ended up with a, besides Ki because he was a warrior, him and Denim being the two warriors, I always had them go on like opposite sides.
00:41:04
Speaker
And and then like pincer people all the time Which was great because it's like they attack you then you had that pincer where they would like counter Oh, so or when you attack them and you had the pincer they both attack which is okay
00:41:18
Speaker
I stopped using the pincer attack because I felt like it was just kind of a waste and I couldn't like set people up well enough to use it. So I was just like, nah, it'll be fine. But I did, you triggered a memory of, I did actually have a ninja. My ninja was Shuriken. Shuriken was my ninja and like came in so clutch when I started using the two weapon, like the double attack.
00:41:45
Speaker
Because in most of these games, the ninja class can attack twice. So once I gave him two weapons and started attacking twice, he was kind of OP. So that was very clutch. And yeah, I went the route of more support skills and more support skills.
00:42:05
Speaker
and more solo offensive skills. So anything that relied on other characters or buffed other characters or anything like that, it was like, nah, I'm using the support skills to support that character. And everyone's just fending for themselves. They're on their own until people needed to be healed or revived. And then I would do that. But other than that, people were on their own.
00:42:28
Speaker
Okay, interesting. I was very much playing it safe kind of thing. And I was trying to like plan out where I could like pincer people. And then like, I know Jay or Sharekin wanted me to name them after the ninja, but I only found a female one. So that's why Peach ended up being the ninja. But I love that the ninja, as you progressed, got the double attack.
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was so good. So handy. So handy. And later I got a story character who could do the same thing, but was like had double the attack of a ninja. Oh, what made them super strong. And I'll tell you, you're going to be like so bad because it ends up being who it is. Oh, dude. Oh, I know who it is.
00:43:17
Speaker
You're thinking of a different one, but anyway, it was basically where we both universally said, fuck this character. Oh, oh my goodness. I, okay. I want to get into the story.
00:43:31
Speaker
I do want to get into the story. I think we talked about like the battle system and kind of the way it's a classic tactics game where you have like the little squares on the map and everything and like if you were at higher ground attacking lower ground that you do more damage and stuff like that.
00:43:49
Speaker
Like KJ mentioned with the elements, while there was an order of which ones were better, it was such a marginal difference. I found myself by the end not really caring. I would just do the move that had the most damage to the character. So like, for example, Sherry was Earth, so I put a Earth attack all on her, and it did more damage than any of the other elements. I found if you were already that element, you would do more damage. So I kept that tradition up.
00:44:16
Speaker
You did get like almost the Pokemon stab, like same type of attack bonus type thing. Yeah, it was like a marginal, but like, but if you paired it up with, also pairing it up with their element, I found it was a little bit more of a difference and stuff like that. So, and it was really silly. Okay, so...
00:44:44
Speaker
how do we want to do this? Because I think there's like, there's a, we can, we can attack, we can approach this in many different ways. We can talk about like each chapter or like, here's how I foresee this happening, right? Maybe we should talk about each chapter and then like,
00:45:01
Speaker
I'll talk about all the extra characters I got after we get to where it's the end sequence. How about that? Okay, that's fine. Okay. Because I can't remember where I got and what chapter of which character and I think when we get to where we're about to talk about the end that I'll talk about the other characters I got.
00:45:17
Speaker
I just want to say the difference in what happens is so ridiculous. So there's three routes, right? There's the chaos route, there's the neutral route, and there's the lawful route. Polly took the lawful route, which you would think is like
00:45:33
Speaker
the better thing in the sense of like, you would think lawful being more moral, right? But actually, so the end of, you have a big decision the end of each chapter, right? And that determines like which route you're gonna be on in the first two chapters and then you kind of get thrown to the wolves, right? And I'm trying to think now the end of chapter three, I'm trying to remember
00:46:00
Speaker
what the end of chapter three decision is, but in chapter one- Oh, that's the one that changes the ending. Is it? I thought that happened in chapter four. Oh, no, you're right. That is towards the end of chapter four. What the hell happened to the end of chapter three? I'm gonna have to load up the game. But yeah, so chapter one, you basically get to this point- Yeah, I forget what happened at the end of chapter three. At the end of chapter one, so like, you're at a point where the
00:46:28
Speaker
You're like resistant fighters. This is how the game starts its office, that you start off with your main character, Denim, and his sister, Katua, and their horrible friend, Vice. I like this one. Pretty much. Pretty much, yeah. As like these resistant fighters. So they're trying to, you know,
00:46:51
Speaker
Save their they're trying to figure out a way to save their Duke because their Duke has been kidnapped and They they they are kind of like losing they're basically kind on the precipice of like losing the war sort of idea And so that's that's how you start off the game and that's your main character. I
00:47:10
Speaker
uh denim and his sister and this guy vice guy and then you start like meeting up with it so you this is where okay this pic just pissed me off you get both a good guy and bad guy with the exact same name
00:47:28
Speaker
And they call this out right at the start of the game that you run into this guy Lancelot. And Vice is like, I know you, you killed all our people, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, excuse me? Like, who are you? I have no idea what you're talking about. And Vice is like, and he's like, I picture Vice having this like tiny little dagger being like, I'm gonna fight you. And it's like, like, you know, you're like looking at a kitten hissing and you're like, yeah, okay, kitten hissing. Like, you're really gonna.
00:47:56
Speaker
You're really going to attack me. That's how I pictured Lancelot dealing with vice. So you run into these guys and that's where Canopus, one of our each of our favorite characters come into play. He's got wings and stuff like that. And a couple of these other holy knights and white knights are with him. And they're actually like talking about being like mercenaries and they've left their own country and they have
00:48:21
Speaker
no idea what you're talking about. Well, you find out that there's another Lancelot and he's a Dark Knight. And that's the one Vice hates and who's killed a lot of people. And you're like, why do they have to have the same damn name? And so here's where I'm going to drop a little bit of like, holy shit knowledge, right? So Lancelot, the Dark Knight, the Game Boy Advance game is all about his past.
00:48:52
Speaker
Lancelot the White Knight, the SNES game, Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen, is all about the war that he was involved in and how he got to where he is.
00:49:05
Speaker
And then, um, tactics over or not over battle 64, I believe is or I know it happens simultaneously. And I think it's happening back in the White Knights like land. I can't remember the exact names now because I'm like so far removed from the game at this point. I think it's Sotius or something like that. Zenobia Zenobia. Yeah, I believe it's Zenobia.
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah, so that's taking place I believe that's taking place there Despite them having the same name they were both very different characters so I mean after the first initial little bit or whatever and You you you could very much tell the difference the sprites look very different from each other The characters mannerisms are very different and the voice actors are very different
00:49:58
Speaker
So you you understand it's just it threw me off right at the start that they were named the same and like when they talk about Lancelot I had to like think for a second I'm like, oh you're talking about the dark night if they're doing so bad and if they were doing something good there Oh, you're talking about the good night. Okay, I understand And so you have these people come and they're like trying to be hired or whatever and so they help you
00:50:19
Speaker
rescue your duke and this is how the game starts so you're like a resistance you meet up with these mercenaries leaving fleeing their country or leaving their country or exiled from their country and they're like they're kind of the kind of OP
00:50:36
Speaker
at least for your current level. And they're they help you rescue your Duke who's basically like your governing party of your, I guess, quote unquote country. This is how the gate starts. And it gets you to make a decision.
00:50:55
Speaker
really early on, which I find chapter one goes by really quickly because it's like it's basically teaching you the game, teaching you the mechanics, teaching you all the little things, giving you some story to keep you interested, but like teaching you a bunch of stuff, which is it's basically like world building. It's
00:51:13
Speaker
And letting you get used to things which I really appreciated being a big noob in this kind of stuff I was very happy with the handheld holding and oh, I'm gonna shoot this character Why did I just shoot my character in the back? Oh, no, there's friendly fire Fire was definitely fun to work around I did that so much
00:51:35
Speaker
I first started this game. I shot no magic. I shot them with arrows in the back. I I at one point knocked denim down and I was like, Holly, oh, no.
00:51:48
Speaker
right at the start. I was learning. And then I realized I would probably pay attention to the little directional things. It tells you who you can and can hit at that angle. And if I started to learn, if I moved my characters around, they wouldn't hit each other. Like we started to learn. It was great.
00:52:08
Speaker
I definitely made Ki die a lot, but he never perma-died. I just got a back for all the really shitty tier lists. That's all. There you go. Yeah, none of my characters perma-died. I don't think you lost anybody either, did you? Nope. Nope. Not even at the end, which I'm pretty proud of. I definitely had characters downed at the end, but they didn't die.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah, yes, I had, I ended up at the end with like two down characters. They didn't die yet.
00:52:42
Speaker
Yeah, so I never ended up with a permanent death one. And if I did, I restarted the battle because I was like, OK, I think I could do this differently. And there were there was a good thing reason why I had done that because I ended up with plot characters that way a couple of times. Oh, OK. And no girl gave me the idea. I didn't think this game went this far. I didn't realize some of the battles where you were like,
00:53:06
Speaker
instructed to kill somebody and somebody was in the way as like a guest character, if you just didn't kill them, it would change the outcome of the battle, which I thought was really interesting. And I didn't know it was that in depth until no girl had made a mention. Cause I was like, apparently I could get this character on this route. And she's like, maybe just don't kill her. And I was like, okay, I'll try that. And then ever since then, like she didn't spoil anything for me, but it was enough of a tip that I'm like,
00:53:34
Speaker
Oh, and it changed my whole perspective of this game. So there's so many times where I just purposely weren't killing people to see if I could recruit them. We were team chaos. We killed almost everybody. Yeah. KJ, except for KJ getting on team chaos and like,
00:53:53
Speaker
doing the more morally right thing to get on there, still murdered everybody in his path. What the hell? They were all attacking us. I did what I had to do for the Fedora fam. We were there. We made sure that we weren't... We made sure that we were good. Nobody died.
00:54:11
Speaker
Except for the people that were attacking us. Holly Unity just wanted more members. We just wanted more members. We wanted to recruit everybody. Yeah, see that? Everybody was welcome. I really wish you would have gotten the other ending just because that mindset would have been so funny.
00:54:30
Speaker
I'm gonna let you talk about the end of chapter one and this is a little bit of spoiler if you want to know how to go the different routes so if you if you don't want to know how to go to different routes turn down the volume a little bit but I'm gonna let KJ take it away because he went
00:54:49
Speaker
He went a certain way. I went a certain way. And he was so mad at me for going this way. But it was kind of funny because it's way against what I would have actually done. So at the end of chapter one, you're basically commanding officer is like,
00:55:08
Speaker
hey, the Duke wants you to slaughter some of our people that we just rescued, basically, and blame it on the other people. That way we can get everybody to buy in and rally everyone around us.
00:55:31
Speaker
And so there are two options. You can either say, oh yeah, sure, I'll do it. Or you can be like, no, fuck that. We're not doing that. Like these are our people.
00:55:41
Speaker
So, me being me, I'm like, fuck that, we're doing the moral thing, like, I'm not gonna kill our people, let's square up, like, you wanna say let's kill these people, fuck that, I'll kill you instead, and then everything will be all right. Well, that's not how, that's not what ends up happening. And immediately by saying you're not gonna side with them,
00:56:05
Speaker
you lose vice so vice immediately becomes like fuck that we need to kill them um we have to win this war and then um raubness who is there another character she actually ends up getting attacked and dies
00:56:24
Speaker
So she immediately gets locked out of your party. Like you can't get her. This is why KJ hates Vice. Vice killed her on him. So I was like hyped about getting this character and then she dies. And I'm just like, you got to be fucking kidding me. So I had to then fight.
00:56:42
Speaker
to escape that area, and then from then on out, the rest of the game, your party is on the run, pretty much. You're effectively a fugitive, and you're now in the middle of all this war, and you don't have a side. And the Duke spun everything so that
00:57:03
Speaker
he made it seem like you were responsible for the, like you were responsible for the atrocities that happened at that area, like at that battle. So it ends up being like, you're basically fighting an uphill battle and everybody's like, oh, like there's a bounty on you. People are trying to, people are trying to kill you in that front. There are some terrible.
Moral Decisions and Story Routes
00:57:24
Speaker
I recruited one of his bounty hunters. That guy is the fucking worst.
00:57:30
Speaker
But yeah, and you do end up recruiting some characters that are like, they come around because they realize like, hey, you did the right thing, but oh my goodness, that was wild. And that was basically like chapter one into chapter two. I won't talk about the chapter two decision. I don't know if our chapter two decisions were the same because I think chapter two was a bit different. So yeah, let's hear about what happens when you do the other thing.
00:57:59
Speaker
So I went into this. I did do what KJ did because that was my instinct. So when I first played this game, my decision at the end of chapter one was I'm not killing innocent people. Are you insane? And I went against it. And that ends up being the chaos because you're not being law abiding. So, you know, it's kind of like a commanding officer telling you to do something. You're supposed to do it. That's the law.
00:58:25
Speaker
Uh, but chaos route is like, you're, you're deviating from that and thinking for yourself. So I did the same thing. And when vice turned around and shot and killed ravenous, I was like, no, you were the cool one. I wanted you. You were like really cool. What the heck? And I got part, the funny thing is, is I got partway through chapter two before changing my mind.
00:58:47
Speaker
And going through the running like running away having all these bounty hunters come after you and stuff like that I felt like I was separated from the plot which you kind of are just like trying to exist in a world that hates you anyway and and like the governing powers are all you know squabbling and doing their thing or whatever and you're kind of just kind of running away and
00:59:10
Speaker
and trying to keep stay alive and trying to like clear your name and be like, Hey, I didn't do this thing. And vice is a great a jerk in that route. And so it's like, okay, yeah. And and the reason why he the worst is he explains why he doesn't like you. And the reason why he doesn't like you is because he tried to
00:59:30
Speaker
He tried to give your sister an apple and she gave it to you and this was the big, like, how dare you give my affection away to your brother kind of thing? I'm like, really, Vice? Really? This is why you hate me because my sister wanted to feed me instead of taking your apple of love and affection and you're pissed off at this. Okay, you were a child.
00:59:58
Speaker
Like you were a child. So I was like, okay. So I, when I got partway through that route, I was like, KJ is definitely going this route because it's like morally we both aligned on that. But it was also, I was kind of getting a little bit bored of kind of always just running for my life. And I'm like, I kind of want to see what happens the other way. I want to know if I'm more involved in the, like the actual story of politics.
01:00:23
Speaker
So, so instead of not killing the innocent people, I followed orders like a good soldier. I followed orders like a good soldier and carried out my commanding officer's wishes. Vice still turns on you, only this time Vice is like, Hey, you slaughtered a bunch of people. Uh, I'm not cool with that. And I'm like, you know what? I, I.
01:00:51
Speaker
You do you you're not you're not exactly wrong in this um and at the start um vices pint to our it's pint vices trying to tell the world that you did what you did.
01:01:07
Speaker
But it's also your command and officer. So it's your name and the commanding officers that are spun around that slaughter these people. Vice is trying to make this while you are abiding by the Duke and you're trying to combat that thing. So you still get blamed for it.
01:01:23
Speaker
either path you do. It's just my path. You were more involved with the politics and you got to see kind of like you were more in with the like what the Duke was doing and stuff and more engaging with that.
01:01:40
Speaker
And having to like strategically save towns and like save people and stuff like that. You slowly start to uncover through my route, rather than being chased by bounty hunters, you start to uncover that
01:01:56
Speaker
Your mission is to get rid of your governing party because it'll save hundreds of thousands of lives. So my route ended up being the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. So while you did a horrible awful thing and the game likes to provide you of that,
01:02:13
Speaker
It slowly beats that denim is like, yes, I know I'm living with this heavy heart, but I got to do the right thing. I need to say a thing. And he starts to understand that he has to get rid of the Duke. He has to, you know, vice isn't entirely wrong. He kept being like that with vice. Like, you're not wrong. I understand what I did was wrong. Katya was just kind of like my brother. And like, you're like, OK, you're just going to stick with me no matter what. And and certain characters like Ravnus are so appalled you did this.
01:02:42
Speaker
She gets into a battle with you. But if you don't kill her, she takes off. And then she starts to understand being like, are you just a genius because you're saving hundreds of thousands of people while a few people did die. She's like, you're you're spending your whole life making up for it. And she's just like,
01:03:01
Speaker
okay you know a soldier sometimes has to get their hands dirty and that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing but the outcome ends up being a thing so it was an interesting like very opposite storylines you could go very opposite like way of thinking and it kind of aligned a little bit with just our world in general of like you know soldiers are told to do what they do and
01:03:26
Speaker
kill who they kill is that on them or is that on their commanding officers or is that on the governing parties calling all the shots and who do you blame in this hierarchy and yada yada yada and can you necessarily desert in kj's route technically he deserted so they blamed everything on him and so he was running around for his life and trying to survive in my route they blame they still were trying to blame it on me but they were also like hey you followed orders
01:03:52
Speaker
And the decision at the end of chapter two for me was basically my commanding officer going, I'm going to take the fall for this because I made you do it. I made you do it. I need to sacrifice my life because it's my fault you did this thing. Interesting. You are going to avenge the people. You are going to lead them the right way. And while that's not going to clear your conscience, at least the people will get what they deserve.
01:04:20
Speaker
So he's like the commanding officer kills the Duke and then gets you to kill him. So then you become a hero. Huh? And this is like. Yeah. I see you. Hold on. Hold on. Did you end up on the lawful route still? Or did you end up on the neutral? It still said the L.
01:04:44
Speaker
Really? Yeah, it was it was I don't know what the I don't know what the neutral could have been because your route It like made sense because you you were like i'm not going to kill the i'm going to go against my governing party Which makes sense, but it also like you guys you have to fight bounty hunters all that stuff And then eventually you you work your way through it in mind though It was weird like yeah It still ends up being like you're at the end at least for me at the end of disc two
01:05:10
Speaker
my commanding officer kills the duke and then goes to you and it's like
01:05:17
Speaker
I'm going to sacrifice my life because it's my fault you did that thing. I'm the one to blame for the slaughter. Did you have a decision to do that or did he just say that? Yes. Yeah. You had a decision. You had a decision whether you killed the Duke or he'd killed the Duke. And I said, I should kill the Duke because it's wrong for what he did. I want to save hundreds of thousand lives and make up for what I did. And because of that, the commander officer was like, I'm going to do it and take the flaw up because you're doing the right thing.
01:05:47
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. It's, it's, I wonder if I would have said, no, I won't kill him. If that would have put me on the neutral because that would have shown that I didn't have, I didn't have the people's best interest in heart. Like, Oh no, I wasn't going to kill the Duke. No, I was killing the Duke. Like my decision at that point was like, nah, I did this horrible thing. I I'm trying really hard to save the people. This guy's got to go. If he goes, thousands of people live. Okay. I'm going to get rid of him. Interesting. Yeah.
01:06:17
Speaker
It's really funny because so my, like the chaos route ends up. I didn't get to where, I didn't get to the end of the chapter two. So I have no idea from then on your route. So the chaos route, the way it ends up, you end up getting to meet up with the commanding officer and he gives you an opportunity to join him again.
01:06:44
Speaker
If you join him, then it's him and Vice. And he's like, oh, join us, like, come back and do the right thing. And I was like, fuck that. I'm not joining you. And then you have to fight him. And then you kill him. If you don't kill him and you join him, you end back up on the neutral route. If you do kill him, you stay on the chaos route. I fucking killed him. And at the end, he was basically like, you're doing the right thing.
01:07:13
Speaker
And see, I think the biggest thing, like, I think we end up down, like we end up at the same point, even though we've gone two very different ways, unless you would have taken the neutral. Cause it sounds like the neutral would have been, you would have been siding with these awful people in the end and they would have changed.
01:07:32
Speaker
I still don't think so. I think that the end result is truly based on the chapter four decision, I think. But yeah, in general, I think what it really comes down to is
01:07:59
Speaker
The decision that you made in chapter one makes Vice a more interesting character because he then has this like... He has a reason to be mad at you instead of a big petty. Yeah, he has this flaw and he can like, it really puts him in a spot where
01:08:21
Speaker
It's like, Oh, he really grows up in my route. So like he, he goes in this resistance says, Hey, you did this wrong thing. Um, but then as he grows, he kind of sees, Oh, okay. I get it. This person needs to go.
01:08:38
Speaker
You got to get in close to get rid of this person so that the rest of the people he sort of sees your point He still does a little jab at you being like ha ha I didn't do that thing But he grows a lot and he stops being so like aggressive He stops being like i'm gonna fight everybody like he he he learns a lot in my route So it was hard to like I I didn't like him because I knew your route of him So I was just like advice is kind of me
01:09:05
Speaker
But he grew on me because like I said he he grows up too. So it's like you denim and vice actually kind of like go through this huge like like growing up becoming men men becoming warriors or whatever kind of people and like really understanding what it means to be a man of the people and what it means to put the people before yourself and why while like the blood of innocents are on his hands that's the hands of a lot of soldiers and a lot of people
01:09:35
Speaker
and that what can you do still like that to make things better. And I thought that was really interesting with Vice's that he has the thing. Whereas in your route, it's like it's such a petty reason he hates you. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. And then he's just a jerk the whole time that he's like, okay. He's such a skinny person.
01:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, he such as he doesn't grow. He doesn't improve. He doesn't change from his like, I'm a fight you and being very aggressive and angry and all that sort of stuff. And then, you know, so it's very interesting at how much vice changes as a character. And in my route, he's recruitable because in my route, he ends up getting fucking the guillotine.
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which makes sense because he, you know, he did a horrible thing and kept doing horrible things. Whereas denim did this thing as commanding officer did, and then spends his whole time making up for it to do all these good things. So it's like, you could kind of be like a denim the whole time. It's just like, you know, like,
01:10:39
Speaker
I still have a heavy heart. Am I doing the thing? You know, and he's encouraged by people of like, just keep doing like, do don't live for yourself, live for the people, like do it for them. And he's like, OK. And where as in your route, like Vice doesn't learn shit. Yeah, it gets worse. Keeps doing horrible things. Eventually they betray him because he's just a horrible person. And it's going to eventually get betrayed. Like, and they end up seeing him.
01:11:07
Speaker
And so I thought it was really interesting in my route because he kind of has this bit of a rivalry with you, but he understands you in the end. And then when he joins you, he's like, you did what I couldn't. And I'm gonna be mad at you for being able to do that because it proves that how weak I was at the time. I was weak.
01:11:34
Speaker
And I didn't think of the grander scheme. And then Denim and Metz being like, I didn't realize the grander outcome either. I thought following orders was the way to go as a soldier. I realize that's wrong. That's not going to change the world. But these governing parties need to go because they're not thinking about the people. And he's like, yeah, it's always about the people. So both of you like a lie being like, follow the people. And it's like, it's such a bonding moment that I'm like, all right, Vice, you could be my party now.
01:12:01
Speaker
See, no, I totally still wouldn't have kept him. And he's the one who has the abilities like ninjas where he could do the double attack. Yeah, he's a double the strength. He's a good unit. So strong. I was like, also, he could like huck things across the battlefield, which I had him with all my healing items so that he could just like huck them at people while in the middle of battle. It was so satisfying. I was like, Vice, you just groan on me. Wow.
01:12:31
Speaker
So our decision at the end of the game ends up in the same result, because the Duke dies in years too, right? Yeah. And the commanding officer does too, like Lenard? We kill the commanding officer, the knights of Lotus turn on everybody else. Okay. Okay. Similar, similar concept to what I have. Exactly. We end up kind of in the same direction by chapter three, more or less. Chapter three, you're still kind of...
01:13:00
Speaker
putting everything together. The end of my chapter three, I killed Oz and Ozma.
Character Recruitment and Challenges
01:13:09
Speaker
Okay. Those are the two that I was trying to see if I could recruit them. And you can recruit both of them, I'm pretty sure. Can you do Oz? Actually, I don't know if you can recruit Oz, but I know you had Ozma.
01:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, I had Ozma. Ozma is a lawful route only. So I did a bunch of reading afterwards. And I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, because I tried to get Oz. I tried every way and it was not you had to I had to kill Oz and Ozma. There was no not killing them. And yeah, for yours there because that might have been the hardest fight in the game. That fight was so difficult.
01:13:48
Speaker
Oof, yeah. Well, Ozma's coded and like a little bit cheap with that charm. She never used charm again. She never used that against you. I know. But she used it against me when I was trying to recruit her. She did such ridiculous damage. Yeah, she's very strong. Did you get the necromancer? No, I don't think I could get that one person. I think you could. I think the necromancer.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think the necromancer was, uh, was recruitable, but I think it was like, you had to go through the palace of the dead and stuff like that. Oh, I didn't do any of that. I didn't need the palace of the dead either. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we both had this option of getting that character. We both just didn't do that side bit. I was already so far behind you, even though I was still doing, I did some side stuff and I got some side characters too long.
01:14:42
Speaker
because it was like I had to do four different separate things and then you got to the palace and then apparently it was floors so there was like more of it and I'm just like it sounds like too much work so I like avoided that there's a there's a guy with his griffins you could get to apparently and I never got him either for similar reasons I didn't get like any of those characters I if they weren't presented to me mostly in
01:15:07
Speaker
in story, I was like, Oh, no. And yeah, so it was Oz and Osmo, and then like, 10 Templars. Yeah, it was like the first time you fought Templars too. So you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was not the first time I but it was the first time you had like two strong units with all the Templars. Isn't it? It's the first time I had two strong units with the Templars. Yes, but like,
01:15:29
Speaker
They were, chapter three was like the chapter of Templars. Every battle I was in. Every battle had Templars. Yeah, mine right too. Okay. I wasn't sure. Like about halfway through chapter three, it was just Templar battle after Templar battle. But for me, I think when I fought Oz and Ozma, it was one of the first Templar battles I had, but maybe I'm
01:15:50
Speaker
Okay, I just remember being it's stupid hard, but it was also I was I had to keep I had to keep Oz or so It wasn't Oz and Osmo. I thought it was Oz and the other guy
01:16:03
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, see, it was Oz and Ozma. And that was that was a struggle. And that was the end of chapter three. Whereas for Ozma and me, Ozma is in a different battle. And it's because of so there's a there's a party member you got to. But because you did that battle and killed them, they never had the connection. So because you have to fight Oz and Ozma for like earlier, before you do you get like, did you have Hobern before them or after?
01:16:33
Speaker
Before. Oh, did you did have them? Yeah. Homerooms before. I wonder why you can't get Osmah on your route if you got Hoboroom. I think he was early. Because you have to kill. You have to kill Osmah in our route.
01:16:46
Speaker
Oh, maybe that's it. No, there's no saving her like you. There's no saving in the castle in the end of chapter three. That's that is in stone where it's the it's Oz and the other guy for me and the other guy still flees, but Osmond eyes. OK, yes, the other guy of the Dark Knights there, whatever he ends up surviving in the end. He was one of the guys who survives.
01:17:13
Speaker
okay yeah no that was that battle was a pain in the ass because that one was the one where they they were the stairs and stuff like that right oh yeah yeah it was it was the same thing it was like there was all these templars and those two things oh my god that stair battle okay so it sounds like the same fight just with
01:17:30
Speaker
different. Interesting to me because in order to get Osmah the whole story of Osmah and she's she ends up being like a really interesting character to me like a little bit crazy but not as crazy as her twin. And it's Hoburim that you get in chapter three the swords master.
01:17:49
Speaker
swords master. Yeah, he's a blind swords master. You find out that he and Osmah have some sort of history. And she keeps being like, Oh, for him, is that you? And he's like, No, I'm just a blind guy. And she's like, No, it's you. And he's like, No, I'm blind guy. And you're like, What? Why are you not like, admitting this? So they all try to like swarm and kill him. And then you save him. And if you make sure he doesn't die, he joins your party.
01:18:13
Speaker
And so I didn't realize this because I just kept him at my party because he was really strong. But apparently I wouldn't have gotten Osmah if I didn't have his loyalty maxed out.
01:18:22
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Okay. So because he was loyal to me and his maxed out loyalty, you get an option in your fight with Osmah to tell her you're Hoburim. You are who she thinks you are. Oh, that's pretty cool. If you don't, I think it ends up that you kill her. But because I chose, yes, I'm Hoburim. She's like, Oh my God, I thought you were dead. Like I thought you were, they told me you were dead. Like,
01:18:50
Speaker
I don't know what to believe anymore and her whole world starts to come apart. You make it so that you don't kill her. And then it's found out that this is really messed up. But the brother of Hoburum, so he didn't like how his parents were running things and killed them.
01:19:09
Speaker
and then blamed it on Hoberam and then Hoberam got tortured and his eyes yanked out for killing his parents and the leaders of their thing and Osmo was betrothed to marry Hoberam and she was told he was dead for his crimes about killing his parents
01:19:29
Speaker
reality was he wasn't, and he escapes and survives, but he ends up being a thing. It's so messed up. And then they interact and Osman's like, I think, and Hobern's like, I don't blame you.
01:19:45
Speaker
And it's like, I don't blame you for what you did. They told you lies. They have been lying to you your whole life. They're the reasons I'm blind. They're the reasons this war is getting worse. Then, then, then. And Ozma's like, I will never leave your side again. And it's really sweet and touching because they reunited after all those years. And she's like, all right, I'm joining your party. And Denim's like, but do I have a say? She's like, you don't got to say. OK. I'm the one with over a like.
01:20:15
Speaker
I didn't realize. And I guess it's because I didn't really dive into his backstory. So his brother is one of the Dark Knights.
01:20:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yep, and their parents were like running like running a city or like a country or whatever and His brother did not like the way hoberim was like running our parents were running things So he he murders them and then blames it on hoberim. So they like torture him They tried to get him to admit that he did it. They took his eyes out. It was horrifying That you learn this on the law road because of hoberim's loyalty to you. He tells you all of this
01:20:52
Speaker
I think he was loyal. All of my characters had maxed out loyalty because I did things that they appreciated and like. Yeah, Hobart, literally you just kept them in the party and you thought you were like, hey, you're making use of a blind man. I'm happy with you. Like he was just like, and you're fighting the dark nights, which he wanted his revenge on. He's like, I have one purpose in this life. Revenge on these, these people. And then, and then I was like, I'm not going to pray.
01:21:18
Speaker
You got your business, but we have the same goal. Let's work together." And he's like, cool. And then when you end up with Asma, and she's like, I want the whole story. What the hell happened? He tells you and Asma, and Denim's just like,
01:21:30
Speaker
Oh, they gotta go. Oh, I want to kill him even more. And Hoburum's like, oh, we agree. And Osmond's like, oh, I want the finishing blow. And they all align together, realizing just how horrible these people are. And it's just so awful what Hoburum went through. But then Osmond's like, I will never leave your side again.
01:21:48
Speaker
very sweet. I was like teary-eyed like she's like oh she so she gets uncrazy and then she ends up being like your fiercest loyal ally because you saved her true love and like she like just was like all over that and i'm like oh you're so strong she had whip moves that could hit targets from far away it was beautiful and she hit hard yeah she's doing like 600 to a thousand damage each hit
01:22:17
Speaker
It was incredible. That's wild. But her whole story and Hobart's story was just very messed up but also very touching that they found each other again. And then he's like, are you sure you still want to be with a man who's blind? And she's like, oh, shut up. She's like, oh, shut up. This had nothing to do with the reason why I loved you and why we were going to get married and blah, blah, blah. So it was just very sweet. Wow.
01:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, so that was one of the more like on my route only interesting plot lines. I think one of the other ones was like ravenous. So, you know, she doesn't like you. She flees the battle and then you then everybody's like, because she has mixed blood, everybody feels like she's not a Wallister or a Golgastan, which is so she keeps getting like chased all the time and attacked by people. And so you save her again.
01:23:13
Speaker
And so you go through, you save her again. And then the final time where you can recruit her, after all that she's been through, she realizes the route you would have taken had you done that, and you would have been fighting for your life and unable to, like,
01:23:32
Speaker
like get to do more for the people than what you end up doing and she she basically takes your route and then realizes hey you know i get why you did what you did i really want to contribute i really want to help with this and you're like okay yeah join me and then she joins you um if you if you save her the third time um okay
01:23:53
Speaker
But yeah, so I went through and I got as many side characters as I could through Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. It seems like there are more lawful route characters. I think there's more, yeah. I'm looking at the Guide right now and it seems like there's more lawful than there is.
01:24:12
Speaker
And it's funny because plot wise you get more plot in my route than your route because you're just trying to survive so and you don't get access to a lot of these characters because you're not in the Like you're not in the political sort of sense of things. You're just kind of fleeing for your life So you get kind of running in with the other fleeing kind of characters and stuff
01:24:34
Speaker
So yeah, it felt like it felt like there was less characters on your route. And then there was also like less of the over-encompassing plot, um, of everything in your route too. So it was, it was very strangely. It's almost like, yeah, but we, we lead to the same point, which is really interesting. So one of the bounty hunters that KJ really hates in my route, he's not going around trying to kill me.
01:25:00
Speaker
Nope, he's actually trying to get one of the dark knights and he gets kind of like cornered off and one of the things so you could choose to save him or not save him uh, and I saved him and he ended up being a really strong unit for me too because he was a berserker and uh, So he got like the berserker mode and so yeah zapan. That's it. Uh, zapan and uh, he's kind of funny because they definitely played him over with like the dwarf
01:25:28
Speaker
Scottish kind of like Viking that's it more like Norway like my Norway Viking kind of like voice and appearance and stuff like that with him and I found it really interesting because like him and denim had this like kind of like he's like um he's like I'm I'm gonna just defeat the bar and then I'm like
01:25:49
Speaker
Why are you making this a challenge? It's a challenge and I want to fight everybody. It's really funny. He was the worst. But I ended up having him a lot in my party because he was of my first berserker. I didn't use berserker like the berserker class at all. Funny enough. You didn't use berserker at all. I didn't use the berserker class at all. And I liked it because it could hit multiple squares.
01:26:13
Speaker
So I found that really handy when you were like it like when you had like a gathering of like enemies you just send the berserker in with his berserker mode activated and he goes wack wack wack wack. I always used to like power him up and then hit people at like a six square radius. Oh you just kill everybody and it was so satisfying.
Player Strategies and Class Preferences
01:26:32
Speaker
See I really didn't I don't know I didn't like like I said my
01:26:37
Speaker
The, the class that I really vibed with was Valkyrie. And so like, I had those Valkyries and they all had different magic and like different, they were all different, like had different usefulness. So I just like overran people with Valkyries. By chapter three, I got, uh, Syria and I had Sestina and like, they were just so fucking good.
01:27:03
Speaker
Valkyries were really powerful. I didn't even change Ravnus. So Ravnus could have been a white knight, but I thought she was a white knight. Well with me, because she could use the magic attack, her spirit surge that I put her on
01:27:21
Speaker
Um, especially at level three, when you can get it like the max level, uh, did crazy damage and I just left her as being both a healer and magic damage user, as well as a Valkyrie. Even though her stats went up a little bit, I just, I just found it mesh better for what I wanted her to do. Cause I used her a lot less for healing and a lot more for doing magic from far away and attacking from further away.
01:27:47
Speaker
and I found that a lot more useful because I didn't use a whole lot of mages. I found I didn't really rely on the mage class so I still need a few people with a little bit magic. I had one dedicated mage.
01:28:01
Speaker
But then, other than that, I had almost all of my characters had magic in some way, shape, or form. Whether it was the ninja sword magic or whether it was actual magic, everybody had some sort of magic. And yeah, it just worked out really well.
01:28:21
Speaker
Yeah. And like Shane was my mage for like the longest time. But for me, I always like, because it was like a little area effect or whatever, I sometimes was hitting my own party members. And then I found the magic damage and didn't pale in comparison to like my warriors attacking and things like that. So for some reason, I just was like, eh, I straight away. And like you said, I had, I had Ravnus as my Valkyrie.
01:28:46
Speaker
I had the two white knights in my party. So I got both of them. So I got the guy with the G and the one with the M. It was like, I got both of them as well, but I only use Gilda's.
01:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, I put one of them with a spear and I put the other one with a great sword. Okay. Um, so they, they attacked a little differently, which was very handy in the final fights and the end fights and stuff I had to do, but yeah, so they were too. And then I had ravenous as my Valkyrie. Um, but I also use like a berserker. I used a warrior. I had a really mixed balance by the end. I had vice who was just a great double attacker. Um,
01:29:31
Speaker
I had, uh, I had Katua in the end, uh, with the princess class. Cause I was just fucking extreme, but I ended up not needing a healer until like, I ended up throwing the healer into like the last couple of fights. The princess path was so busted, like so blessed because she could heal. She could do magic.
01:29:50
Speaker
Yup. And she saved my ass against undead because it was, there was so long I didn't run into any undeads that as soon as I started running into them, I didn't have anything to exercise. I was, I got rid of almost everything, but she had a skill that she could exercise things and I was like, okay, cool. We're good. I don't have to worry about this. Like, just please get rid of all of these undead.
01:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I had Skye, so Skye, I had a Skye character, and I ended up turning her into a witch to try to recruit golems and stuff like that. She did pretty good, and I would throw her in when I was doing any big boss fights and stuff like that because her magic really helped with the units far away and everything.
01:30:35
Speaker
until I got Sherry accidentally. Sherry was a complete accident. I'm like, oh, so I let her live in her fight. So I got her down to critical health and she didn't die. She knocked me off the map, the little jerk, but. Oh, yeah. See, I rushed her. That map was that was one of the easiest late game maps. I just rushed her and she lived. I just didn't go get her.
01:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, so she teleports, she goes away. And this was a complete accident. And then looking at how specific it had to be, I'm like, how did I get this care? It has to be raining. Yes, it has to be raining in a certain, and you have to then go to a certain area.
01:31:13
Speaker
So I was backtracking to do a side thing and it hit that town on the way. And all of a sudden it triggered it because it was raining and I didn't do anything to make it rain. I hadn't done any weather thing. I just ended up stumbling into her and I'm like, what? Okay, I got it. And then when I beat the game, I actually looked up and I was like, Oh my God, that scene would have never triggered if it wasn't raining. I was like, how?
01:31:42
Speaker
I'm really interested because like she was the only sister I didn't get. And she was the witch. Yeah. Well, and that was like her sisters were OP. Like one of them, she was, she had a, one of the sister with the, the cleric was broken. And I had her at my party, like, uh, like the two Valkyries were super clutch. Like they were some of my best units. I wish I had the Valkyries. I think, I think I probably would have forego one of the white nights if I had like the Valkyries, but
01:32:10
Speaker
I had already like used other characters. So like my Valkyries were Ravnus and then my two ones that I hired, which were Cain and Cat, but I didn't end up leveling them up at a certain point because I just was having so much fun with like the story characters and stuff. And then I even got the Buccaneer class, which is only one character. Didn't get that class either.
01:32:33
Speaker
Um, and it's a whole side story and it's the only pirate character. And this is a funny thing. He's what the games named after. Huh? So in chapter three, chapter four, you're able to do these side quests to get this pirate guy. And he's like a low Wolf and he doesn't want to work with you, blah, blah, blah. But you want to go track, check out basically treasure Island or less is what it is. Yeah.
01:33:03
Speaker
So you have to do a bunch of side quests to do that and then in the final like bit You don't have to do the whole treasure island thing But you get to a certain level and he comes in and he ends up joining you because he's like, okay You're being really persistent fine. I'll join you kind of idea. Yeah, but it's really interesting because zappin the the the bounty header type character turns to if it goes in battle is like wait
01:33:31
Speaker
aren't you the ogre reborn? And he's like, no, no, no, no, you're totally he's like, you're dressed all in red. You look like a pirate. Like you are definitely the ogre reborn who slaughtered all those people at sea. And he's like,
01:33:50
Speaker
And he's like stop revealing this so he literally calls him the ogre reborn Because he was considered like this tired. He did some pretty awful stuff too Stuff but like I haven't looked into too much of his backstory because it's not super revealed and But he was a lot of work to get him and then they're matching that in battle. I'm like, hey, they said the game name
01:34:15
Speaker
It's like, and I said, he screenshots of it. I'm like, look, they said the game. Yeah. I do. I do remember you, I do remember you sending that. Yeah. But apparently it had to do with like, and he was only, so I found out that he was only added in the PSP version of the game. He was not in the super Nintendo or the PlayStation version. Okay. So when they did it for PSP, they added this extra character and that's why they called it reborn.
01:34:44
Speaker
like Tactics Ogre Reborn or whatever in this case because it's referencing this new character that only came in in the PSP version. Apparently he has a huge history and stuff like that too and he was like, you know, this crazy pirate and killed a lot of people and blah, blah, blah.
01:35:00
Speaker
But he had an interesting combo where he could use like swords and guns at the same time. He was like the gun class. He was one of the gun classes. There's two of them. And then once you got the second one, you could make more.
01:35:19
Speaker
Wait, did you get both classes? I did. And then I accidentally remember when I was like, okay, I'm going to go do the end of the game. I'm like, I got stuck in another side quest and you're like, Polly, please beat this game. And you were so upset. That was the side cause because I thought I could just go two different routes. So I just went up above. I didn't realize it was a side quest thing. And then I'm like,
01:35:44
Speaker
And then he's like, hey, I make guns. And I was like, oh cool, I'm going to save this guy. And then he's like, I'm going to join you. Let me save you. Yeah. He makes a shotgun. It's great. And then he gives you a bunch of marks where you can then make your own of that class, which is the facilier or facilier or whatever class.
01:36:05
Speaker
And yeah, so I ended up with the buccaneer and him. I ended up only really using my pirate boy because I don't know, I didn't need, I didn't see the need of using both gun characters because they're both range mostly. And while my pirate guy could hit people up front and you could switch them to a double attack as well. He was also one of the only classes I could do double where you'd give them to melee and he taxed twice. I kind of liked him with the gun because he looked cool. He's just like.
01:36:33
Speaker
handgun where you could never get another one of that. You could not make it and you could not get a better version of it. And I'm like, okay, this gun's OP. And I liked it. You had so many characters that I didn't even know existed.
01:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, but it also sounds like a lot like besides like Azelstan, his name is Azelstan by the way. Besides him, like a lot of the characters you couldn't get that I got. Like I got Ravnus, you couldn't get Ravnus. I couldn't get Ravnus. I couldn't get Ozma. You couldn't get Ozma. You couldn't get Ozma. I could have gotten Sherry, I just didn't.
01:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. And that one, honestly, I almost didn't either because it was an accident. So there was a to be raining at the town at the time I walked by it. There was a night and a wizard that I got to get. Oh, there was a night and a wizard that
01:37:37
Speaker
I did end up getting, but they weren't very good. I didn't really use them, but I used Sestina. Sestina was definitely a character that I used. Yeah. But we're going to take a little pause because this is very sweet.
01:37:57
Speaker
All right, we're live. Um, yeah, sorry about that. We had to take a break, but we are back. Um, we're back. So we finished talking about our characters, the pan as we stand, all the fun side characters that poor KJ didn't get. Hey, I got Sistina, Sistina and her sister, like those Valkyries were OP. They carried me.
01:38:15
Speaker
like no idea who they are because i never got them in mind yo i just got all the double attack characters that's all it's funny aslistan uh asma and vice all did double attacks
01:38:28
Speaker
That's ridiculous. Even if I could have gotten Vice, there was no way I was recruiting him. If Vice tried to have a change of heart, I'd have been like, nah, get out of here. I sent you a screenshot being like, do I decline him? When he wanted to join me, I said, KJ, the screenshot of it. I'm like, should I decline it? KJ's like, oh, hell no, I would not. Then I responded with, in my route, they cut his head off and I was happy about it.
01:38:58
Speaker
And of mine, it's like, he's like, I, you know, like we're going to be, we do this together. And, uh, yeah, so I ended up recruiting him. It's a good thing I did because in the end, he was the only one who could use like single like swords that weren't fancy swords. So like, he could, he was my only sword wielder because I had denim with hammers.
01:39:27
Speaker
And looking back, I should have made Denim a freaking sword user, but I made him with hammers, and I was hitting hard really early on. So Vice was my only sword user, so I needed him in the last sequence. I was glad I was starting to get used to having him at my party. And then Ozma, even though she could double attack, I preferred her with a whip.
01:39:47
Speaker
because she could hit longer, like further away. And that means they couldn't hit her because she was a little she's a little squishy if she was getting it, but she did crazy damage. So she was a little bit like weaker in defense. And I think that was to make her so that she wasn't like completely invincible because she was a little too powerful. But yeah, but he did get hung. My apologies. I mixed up. I mixed up the execution. Yeah, he got home. It's still he still got executed.
01:40:16
Speaker
It was it was still not. Yeah, he's still he still got executed in yours anyway. Yeah, exactly. Either way, he died. So one of the very, very, I think, controversial points of this game, like.
01:40:38
Speaker
was the middle of chapter four. So I don't want to spoil exactly like I think we should spoil like the plot twist, but you end up in a point where you're talking to your sister as denim and your decisions determine.
Impact of Player Decisions on Endings
01:40:59
Speaker
A, if you recruit her permanently and B, if she even survives.
01:41:06
Speaker
So, um, depending on what happens, that actually, like that determines, that also determines the end, like your end, uh, your ending as well. And we can talk about that a little bit after this, cause I think that's kind of like the big major point after that. Um, we'll talk about the endings at like the very end. But if you don't answer her questions appropriately, she like,
01:41:34
Speaker
ends up pulling out a knife and killing herself. And it was like, whoa, that was just so unexpected. And that changes the entire dynamic of after you do the game.
01:41:50
Speaker
had no idea that happened. KJ said I was coming up to the point where it would decide the end of the game and I showed him what I did. And he's like, oh, you're on my route. And I was like, oh, cool. He's like, and you're like, Moody did something different. Here's the clip. And I was like, and his reaction was my reaction. We both like she crazy.
01:42:18
Speaker
There were a lot of things in her past that kind of determined what happened and like why she reacted that way.
01:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, which I I guess if you like put everything together she kind of had a bit of like some Major like like I don't want to reveal the plot like you said that those are fun bits for people to go because there's a whole story behind why who she is what she goes through what denim goes through like it it is it is such an immersive plot line and it's so thick with content including the side characters with with what I got like
01:42:55
Speaker
Like I explained the Hoburim and Ozma situation that KJ never got to see where like the poor guy was tortured and exiled and like they were to be married and then they sync up together. And she's like, I'm going to stay by you no matter what. He's like, even though I'm blind, she's like, that never mattered. And it's just this beautiful romantic story. And you're like, what? I don't know how I feel about that. Ozma put me through hell. So Ozma's really mean in your head, apparently. Ozma put me through hell.
01:43:27
Speaker
Uh, yeah, yeah. Ozma put poor KJ through hell. And then for me, I'm like, oh, look at this beautiful love story. They're both crazy together. It's Hoparoom and Ozma. Hoparoom and Ozma have a love history.
01:43:42
Speaker
And I'm like, I was equally confused by this because you like, it's such a hard thing to like a cover. And I lucked into it because Hoburum was max loyalty with me. And that's what you need him to be in order for him to give her a, uh, in order for you to choose an option when you get into the battle with her. Um, and so Hoburum, I kept in the party cause he was just super swords masters were so strong in this game. I had no girl in my party.
01:44:12
Speaker
Like and then hope a room I had two swords masters in my party an old girl and hope a room were like my OPs But until I got osmo and then so he was in that party and this whole time She kept trying to like figure out like oh you're hope a room. He's like, no, I'm just a blind guy. She's like
01:44:29
Speaker
blind guy. He's like, no, I'm just a blind soldier. And then you get to this battle. And if his loyalty is max with you, he feels he can trust you and reveal his side. And he gives you an option whether he says, no, I'm just a blind swordsman again. Or he says, yes, I'm Hoberam. Once you say yes, I'm Hoberam, she just
01:44:51
Speaker
like falls apart she's just her whole world shatters she's like you're said to be dead blah blah blah blah blah you go through the battle you don't kill her you kill everything else you you keep her alive and then you get a like a cut scene between them where hoberim lets you know because he's like hey denim i trust you i trust everything you're doing uh i feel comfortable revealing this and i need to tell this to osmond she's like yes please tell me the truth and like you find out that they're
01:45:19
Speaker
They were engaged to be married and then Hoberam's brother who was a dark knight killed their parents because they had a disagreement. Okay, the disagreement was like something really arbitrary, like slightly difference in ruling. So Hoberam's brother who was a dark knight was just like, I'm gonna off my parents because I don't like their decisions and then blames it on Hoberam because Hoberam wouldn't go along with it. And Hoberam gets tortured and his eyes ripped out.
01:45:49
Speaker
And then literally like cast out to live in his shame, more or less. And everybody was told he died. And then Osman thought he was dead. And so she just kind of kept following orders like a good soldier until she found out they were lying to her and that her husband-to-be is not actually dead. And he's actually not a bad guy either.
01:46:14
Speaker
feel like you got so much more story. And yeah, I think the side characters there's more. After you beat the game, there's like the coda thing where you can like go back and like, do extra stuff.
Post-Game Content and Final Battle
01:46:28
Speaker
And like you can and that's how you that's actually how you recruit like Lance a lot and Warren and characters like that. Like you go back and do the coda route thing. Um,
01:46:40
Speaker
I'm probably not going to do it because there's too many games to play and revisiting something is really tough for me. But I think it's just like,
01:46:53
Speaker
It's so wild that you can do all of these different things and get so much out of it. The story is so expansive with these side characters, too. Some of them actually connect to the main plot line. Zepan didn't really have a side story, which makes sense because he's just a bounty hunter, right?
01:47:14
Speaker
But like Ravnus did and you kind of grow with her Osmo did Hoberham did but you you only get it if you get through that and it's crazy that they like locked you out of it because in the end the only reason Hoberham trusts you is because he says loyalty with you is high, but maybe it's because
01:47:37
Speaker
Like, in your route, were you like, even though you were running from people, were you still like, I'm going to kill the Dark Knights? Or did that not actually really happen in your route? Because in my route, it was like, oh, we need to feed this resistance because we have to defeat the Dark Knights and defeat Bachram and yada yada. Yeah, eventually it turned into like, OK, the Dark Knights are pulling the strings like. Yeah, that's that's effectively like I think at the end that that was the entire thing.
01:48:07
Speaker
But like, it's really interesting because, so if we talk about the end, I don't wanna, so I don't wanna talk about the like final boss rush because I think that's something that people should just experience. Experience, yeah. Yeah, I think that's something people should just experience. And you didn't like, you didn't really like spoil it. You just helped me get through it a little bit easier because you knew I was gonna be stuck there for a long time. It can be more of a grind if you let it be.
01:48:37
Speaker
but I still got to experience it. And I honestly believe anybody playing this game, you gotta experience that. Like, even if you're like me who never play, or like I played a tactics game, I guess halfway through and gave up Fire Emblem Fates, he, he. And then, bad, apparently I picked the, I picked the Final Fantasy II of the Fire Emblem world.
01:48:56
Speaker
And so I consider Tactics Ogre Reborn my first true tactics game that I played at Beat. It was really cool to go through that end sequence of fights and stuff like that. I really liked it. I really liked the experience of it, even though it was kind of hard for me and everything. I think people need to experience that.
01:49:21
Speaker
And so yeah, which leads us into the final
01:49:32
Speaker
with the bullshit move that I got screwed over in round one of I think everybody did because it's because it's never used I don't know if it's ever used like like neither one of us went and got the necromancer character apparently there was a necromancer character neither one of us got it so I don't know if they're they had no clue
01:49:53
Speaker
But stopping people from being able to heal is complete yes. I can attest, I was screaming at my TV because I could not revive my characters. I was so angry.
01:50:09
Speaker
I tried that fight twice and was like, I'm gonna do this a different day. And then at like one in the morning, I'm like, couldn't fall asleep and Peach just passed out. And I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do this. And I just kept, I set everything up and I played it and I ended up doing it. And I was like, all right, I'm happy, we're good.
01:50:29
Speaker
like i was like we're good i beat the game let's go and i don't know the ending was really interesting the ending that i got was really interesting because i because so if uh
01:50:42
Speaker
If the sister stays alive, you get one ending. You're basically guaranteed that ending if the sister stays alive. If you lose her in battle, or if she dies from story, you get a different route. You get a different ending. Oh, so she perma dies in the end fight. If you use her in the end fight, she perma dies. You get the other ending too. Yeah.
01:51:04
Speaker
Regardless, it doesn't matter if you recruit her and she perma dies, you also get this ending. You also get the back because she can only denim can't. Right. And I'm the only character that can't die. So you can catch what can die. OK, so interesting. OK, if you I guess I'll start. I'll talk about the ending where I'll talk about the other two and you could talk with the one that we got.
01:51:27
Speaker
Um talk about how you experienced the boss fight a few times because I I feel really proud of myself on how I did it But I want to I want to I want to hear how you did it so the first time I didn't equip the broken sword that they give you and I each time I got to the second fight Right like each time I because it's a two-part fight. So The first time I got there and I didn't I had like absolutely no
01:51:56
Speaker
I had absolutely no shot of beating it, but I didn't experience the... I didn't experience the...
01:52:09
Speaker
the move that stopped you from being able to heal. So I was able to heal the first time. Oh, okay. So you never got that the first round. Exactly. But I only did like a thousand damage or something like that. And then he killed Denim and I was in a rough spot. And then the second time I got him to
01:52:30
Speaker
I got them like a little under 2000, but I couldn't revive people and so I lost. And that was when I was like, oh, okay. That's rough. Yeah. And I realized in the second fight when I couldn't revive, I realized, oh, there's an ability. There has to be. And then I started looking through and I was like, oh, okay, that's what it is. And then the third time I was able to go in and it was still a freaking struggle.
01:52:58
Speaker
I was, I did everything that I could to like avoid all the different things, but I was able to do it and pretty comfortably, it was just like, it was a war of attrition for sure. Like, I- It's kind of long, like- It was a long fight. He's like, you can get it through, but it's a long fight. Yeah, he has almost 5,000 HP. It was, it was rough. Which is ridiculous. Cause you like, don't you, you hardly get into like enemies with 2,000 HP and they're like, we're going to make it with five. Yeah.
01:53:28
Speaker
2000 to like 2500 are probably like the highest before that. Yeah. And those are like the dragons and griffins basically. Yeah. For me, the end fight. Okay. I think I know talking to KJ and P stone and other members who did the set fight. I had a little bit of RNG because I think because of the side characters I went and grabbed.
01:53:50
Speaker
So Osmo was really really strong and she had an ability that one of her strongest moves that hit the enemy for like a thousand damage
01:54:02
Speaker
potentially could charm them. And I think I just lucked out with Charm working with her or she has a higher to charm stat than other characters have ever had. Because I had Slamma in my party and he was my terror knight. But I found like in the beginning, I was putting people to sleep all the time and so excited. And then Peastone calls me out in our Discord chat, I was being like, I never put the people to sleep. What are you talking about? And then suddenly,
01:54:30
Speaker
never again so i ended up yeeting slamma out of my party sorry slamma and because i never could like put people to sleep or paralyze them or charm them anymore so i was getting really frustrated but with osmah it just kept working almost every time she hit somebody with that really big uber move it was still one you had to get up to 60 so it was like a 60 finisher move with her whip
01:54:56
Speaker
so you know how with like your weapons you could get like finisher moves also thought this was cool you could get like finisher moves if you leveled up your weapons to a certain level which was awesome which is so fucking cool and it depending on which weapons you level up you get different finisher moves
01:55:11
Speaker
Um, so for Osmo, she starts off with like a bunch of finisher moves because you get her at such a high level and with whips. But if you switch her to the dual blade, so she could double a pack attack, she has none and you have to level that up. So I just kept her on whips because she had her big finisher moves. And so my first round of the fight, I, oh my God, it was bad. Uh, he, he taught me from resurrecting like halfway through the first round.
01:55:41
Speaker
I had no ability to get rid of it. I didn't have anything equipped because I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't tell you about it because I didn't want to spoil that surprise. No, it's it's good that you did it because it helped me learn kind of the combat of things. Right. And then in that first phase, it was a real struggle and he kept killing off like my good characters and stuff. I ended up in second phase with only four people.
01:56:10
Speaker
Everybody else was permanent Wow, that's rough. It was rough except Osmo almost soloed him So Every okay. I don't know RNG magic, but every time he tried to do his big move Asma blocked it and resisted it and it did no damage and I was like I
01:56:37
Speaker
What move does this? I still need to look into it because she kept going resist and it did nothing. Resist. It did nothing. Like he goes up and attacks her and she goes deflect. I want you to know.
01:56:52
Speaker
I want you to know that final fight literally looked like, like my units were scattered. Like you would just like open a puzzle and just drop the pieces on the floor and just let them like be all over the place. So everybody went down. I couldn't keep anyone. I had to basically keep characters within like three to four squares of each other. That way he could only hit one or two characters.
01:57:23
Speaker
And like, yeah, so for, for the end sequence, he downs everybody. And unfortunately I learned a lesson this fight. If denim permanently, that's never happened to me.
01:57:38
Speaker
So she and denim were like the last two Katya perma died and then oh one of my white nights perma died So then those were my fire. Oh, no ravenous ravenous perma died so that I had denim and osmo and so denim
01:57:56
Speaker
went down and i could not revive anymore because he had that stupid move and i didn't have any way to get rid of that move it carried on to the second phase which i thought was bs i was so mad at it and so my last sequence of that fight was denim and he kept
01:58:15
Speaker
Because he couldn't hit Ozma, he stopped focusing on her and went after Denim, knocked him down. And then Ozma kept like doing her big, I kept having her do her big moves and stuff like that. He was down to 1500 health with just Ozma. She was the only one who hit him. And then Denim perma died and it was game over. And I was so
01:58:39
Speaker
I was mad. I flipped. I jumped up. I was so mad. I threw my couch cushion off to the side. I was like, are you kidding me? I would have won. I would have won. Everybody would have been dead, but like I would have won because Osmo just kept resisting his attacks and was not going down. Did that happen the second time you fought her? No. Okay. It was just RNG. Yeah. So it was RNG. I just had really good luck for phase one.
01:59:07
Speaker
or phase two, sorry. So then I restarted and I was like, I was messaging KJ. I was like, okay, this was really hard. I think I need a tip. KJ went to bed because he had an early morning stream the next day. And so this was like Friday night at like midnight. And Anna was going to bed on me too, being like, I'm going to bed. And I was like, okay, I hope I don't scream too loud. And then it was just like, oh, it's fine. Keep going for it. So I had a situation where our podcast was supposed to be Sunday.
01:59:35
Speaker
Saturday, I was at my friends all day. And so I only had that time. And I'm like, I'm going to try it again. Let's try it again. I think I can figure this out. So I equipped the anti-revives
01:59:50
Speaker
Deflex spell on two characters. I could put it on two because I put in my healer. I put in my healer and I had Kachua, so I had two of them just in case. And then I switched my party order. So I put all my squishy characters in front and all my tanks in the back. So when he spawned first phase, all the squishy characters were in front and all the tanks were in the back.
02:00:15
Speaker
So one thing that I did, I ended up making so because it wasn't just like front and back, like there was a map to it. So I actually ended up mapping it out. And then I actually looked up a map to make sure that I mapped it out correctly. And I did. But like, there was a map to like the placement of the characters. It wasn't that it was just like,
02:00:36
Speaker
directly translated. Um, Oh yeah. So like, I guess, I guess where I put them, like, yeah, it wasn't like a perfect, but a lot more of the squishy characters were out front. Like the year was, was within range, but I didn't realize that. So I didn't look at anything. Like I wanted to try it again on my own. And then I was like, okay, then I'll watch a YouTube video and see what it makes sense. Cause I was messaging you and I figured if I wasn't sure if you were just busy and you just hadn't responded or if you actually went to bed. So can I try next?
02:01:05
Speaker
I remember like 25 messages. The funny thing is, is KJ woke up to like 50... It wasn't that bad. It was like 25 DM's. It was like 25 messages. And like halfway through those 25, I made the realization, oh my God, it's like 1 AM and you're in bed because you have a morning street the next day. That's why.
02:01:24
Speaker
but like i tried the second one because i was like i'll try it on my own so i i rearranged my characters a little bit i wasn't sure if i was going to do anything but suddenly somehow i lucked out with they had katua or they had like the healer and her up front so i was able to kill them like that you can't heal your people anymore and you can't do area magic against me anymore perfect done um and then i lucked out with ozma charming
02:01:54
Speaker
two of the two of the warrior like that character on their side. I didn't have that option. So those two went around and killed everybody and behind for me while I focused on the threat. Phase one, I ended up with not a single downed character. Everybody had decent health. Everybody was still up. Nobody was down. Nobody was permitted. So that was phase one and I felt so great. Phase two, because I remembered
02:02:21
Speaker
He knocked out everybody except for Denim and Ozma in my first phase two last time. And I kept saying he'd do it, but it was like quadrants. So like he would do his area attack and it would be like this section or this section. And I'm like, okay, if I keep everybody in the circle where they're all spread out,
02:02:39
Speaker
He can't kill everybody. That's exactly what I did, except they were everybody was scattered across the map. Because he has an ability where he can teleport. So because he can teleport, I was like, OK, whoever he ends up teleporting near, I basically set it up so that I had somebody that could heal in each part of the map. And they were the designated healer for that part of the map. And then everybody else was just doing damage in some way, shape, or form.
02:03:08
Speaker
to that character to him like that. And then like, if I need to revive people, I revive them. But like, it ended up working out. I had a dragon that I actually named after our dog. And so like, he was pretty clutch. Canopus was clutch. Hobrim was clutch.
02:03:27
Speaker
Gildas was pretty clutch in terms of dealing damage and obviously Denim. And even the Dragoons, once they got there, the two Valkyrie sisters, when they got their specials. But it was such a war of attrition for me just because I just had to get people specials and do damage.
02:03:51
Speaker
And to be fair, the earlier part of the game, like the earlier round wasn't a huge deal for me just because what I did was because I placed everybody perfectly in terms of like the squishy characters in front, I immediately like got those characters sort of out of the way. And then all you have to do is get the main boss to like three fourths of his help.
02:04:18
Speaker
Yeah. So I just kind of rushed him and he kept doing that stupid move where it attacks management or whatever. He did it so much in my second route. I was so ticked. I was so lucky that Ozma to charm people and was going around killing because he wouldn't let me attack him. I ended up having to do everybody else. Oh, wow. I think we're three people.
02:04:41
Speaker
He kept putting up ruined management. Like it was such shitty RNG the second time for his phase one. He just kept putting ruined management on. And I was like, come on, I can't do shit
Player Reflections and Game Outcomes
02:04:51
Speaker
to you. So it was frustrating. So like I had to kill almost all of them. And it was great that I had that charm because it gave me that little bit of an edge. Otherwise I think he would have downed at least a couple of characters.
02:05:01
Speaker
Um, and in the second phase I kept everybody in the circle and he kept teleporting to the healer spot and I was getting so tickled. So I ended up like bringing people in a little bit closer and then hitting him with far off magic. So that's where ravenous is magic from afar helped. I ended up having Sherry in the party at that point and she was doing like her big earth, but singular spell, not the area effect, but the singular one.
02:05:30
Speaker
against him and doing like 150 damage every time she hit him. So and I use the items you got in just before fighting the emboss you get these heal all MP items. Oh, I save those. I saved those for the next because I still had I also still I did that in the second phase, not the first phase. Okay.
02:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, so the second phase is when I healed everybody's like MP to max with the ones who had it. Ozma had one. Sherry had one. I put one on Ravnus. And then I had a couple characters who had them. Oh, like Vice had one so he could chuck it at somebody. Not that he was going to use it, but he could throw it at one of my like mages.
02:06:10
Speaker
Oh, Katja, I had one too. He kept teleporting in the corner, so I started to get a patient. I took Ozma and I sent her down. Everybody else was building up their MP and being able to be doing their super attacks. Ozma goes down there.
02:06:26
Speaker
And I start pummeling him with her big moves and then he got real pissed and he kills her and no RNG protection this time. I was like, OK, but it was one character. So like I took my healer who he kept teleporting to and moving up and reviving her. And because Vice had the special sword, he got that one revive. Oh, yep. See, Denim had. So he brought back up Denim for me one round.
02:06:54
Speaker
But I was just patient and I just let him when he teleported one character I let those characters hit him when he teleported the next I let those characters but I didn't try to close in Yeah, except for with that osmo bit and I and finally I ended up beating it and only to care the mage and my like share the sisters Sherry and the Were the only ones down but they were not permanent and they were only just down and I ended it with Everybody alive
02:07:24
Speaker
And so I got every eight because they were all plot characters. My ending was two hours long.
02:07:32
Speaker
What the fuck? Mine was like maybe a half hour. Almost like an hour, like almost two hours long because of all the side characters I got. And they all got endings. And they all got depth in story endings. And I was like, almost two hours for getting on. Like I said, mine was like a half hour because it's like, it goes through. Well, I think I'm exaggerating. I think it ended up being, I beat the game. Like when I went to bed, it was like 3 a.m. I beat it at like one.
02:08:02
Speaker
30 ish so I think when I made it when I played it
02:08:06
Speaker
Yeah. So I think it was about, I would think it was more like an hour and a half, but it's just because I had all the side characters and they did endings for all of them. And I was like really listening into the stories. Cause I thought like they all wrapped up pretty cool, but like, yeah. So do you want to, do you want to talk about, Oh, maybe I should talk about the ending and then you talk about the one Mooney got. Cause I don't know anything. There's two different ones actually. So, okay. Okay. Nevermind.
02:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, there's two different... So there's three? There's three total, yeah. So one of them is really hard to get. It's one of those things where you can't have anyone die. There's a hidden value and you also have to let Kachua die. So if she dies and you meet this requirement,
02:08:56
Speaker
Denim becomes the leader, and they're thanking him, but then you find out that Lotus is sending 200,000 troops to come invade, and I guess that's how it ends.
02:09:14
Speaker
So he just leaves it up in the air that Lotus is about to come and they're like, hey, you did a great job, but Lotus is coming to wipe you off the map. Sorry, bye. Because you don't have a ruler. I mean, technically he steps, Denim steps into the role of Lord.
02:09:32
Speaker
But in the other path that Kachua dies, what ends up happening is. So is it which one was Mooneys? Is this one Mooneys? Mooneys is she got this one. What happens is there is grumblings about an assassination attempt coming. But no one can actually get the chance to stop it.
02:09:56
Speaker
and the assassination happens, but then it cuts to a black screen and you don't know if Denim's dead or alive. You assume that he's dead, but they don't confirm anything. So that's what happens in the- No, that's bullshit.
02:10:11
Speaker
I knew you were gonna get that ending. I knew you were gonna get that ending. No, that's bullshit. I refuse to accept that as an ending. No, my boy goes through hell. My boy goes through hell. No. I wish you got that ending. I'm sorry, buddy. I don't like your ending. I wish you got that ending, because you, I was, when I saw that was the ending, I was like, please let Polly get this ending, because she is gonna be outraged. And if that is the first ending, you get it. I would've checked the controller, but like, fuck this game.
02:10:41
Speaker
That'll make for such good content, but you got the other ending. Especially since I did all the side stuff. So like I did like these side characters because I had the option to be able to do it because you weren't able to on your route. So like I was able to do extra side stuff or whatever. So I did all this like a crowd talking about what happens if you 100% the game, what's the ending? And I'm like, I got very close to it. Like I think I only on my route, I only missed two. Uh, then I think the necromancer or no, three, the necromancer, the griffin.
02:11:11
Speaker
I think you got the list. I think you missed another one, too. And Deb, the main there's another there's another law. Was there another one? OK, so yeah, but like so I only I only end up missing four. So I got really, really close. So like the fact that my ending was an hour and a half after all of that, after all of it, it was piss off enough that one of my side characters I worked really hard off hard on getting.
02:11:39
Speaker
They went and killed him off in my ending. Or they killed him off in just the normal ending of that character. Like, he will die in all three endings. Wait, who? Fucking Azelstan!
02:11:55
Speaker
Four optional battles again. My pirate guy, Cannon Lee, kicks the bucket. And I was like, I hate this game. And so like, I would have been so bad. I would have been so mad if I got the ending where Denim also did. I would have been like, this game is shit. This is getting a two out of 10. I hate it. I'm never coming back to this.
02:12:21
Speaker
Like I'd be so furious. I'm kind of glad I didn't get Moody's ethics. Sorry. I knew that you would be upset by it because I don't want to say what game, but there was another game that the main character has optional endings that the main character dies and you were outraged about it.
02:12:40
Speaker
So I knew that you would not be happy about that ending. Yes, because you go through the whole game attached to your main character. It's bullshit when they take that away. Like it's maddening. It's just it's not like.
02:12:58
Speaker
an anticlimactic ending. It's like everything's so epic and then it just falls flat because you just get assassinated. And the worst part is they don't even tell you if the action... They leave it up to interpretation, which is something I hate in a lot of situations. Leaving it up to interpretation is...
02:13:16
Speaker
Is to say with the Lancelot thing Remember what's a lot like we okay. So oh my god this this ripped my heart too and I said like KJ was live on stream and I was Throwing images at him and his DMS big like did you see this scene? I'm so upset and it's basically like because okay, you knew Lancelot was kidnapped but your party didn't and
02:13:42
Speaker
denim didn't know nobody knew what happened to him you knew and like because you're seeing the whole story you knew he was kidnapped but you didn't think and then they give you the scene where you where you see Lancelot and he's a broken man because he's been tortured and he can't talk and he can't move and he can't do anything
02:14:00
Speaker
And you're like, what the hell? And it talked about if only he was saved. I was like, I never got an option to save him. I was so mad. That's because they introduced like the go back in time feature. And I find that after you can save him.
02:14:19
Speaker
or you can do maps to, uh, I almost did that before this podcast, but this week has been like really bullshit. So like, I didn't end up getting to play any gaming, but I would have tried to get that thing because when you beat the game, you get a save state and then you, you, you go back before you do like the whole gauntlet, you get your level cap extends again, and then you get the ability to travel through. And apparently there's three or four more characters through that that you can get.
02:14:49
Speaker
Um, one of them being Warren. Yep. And then Lancelot's one of them. Lancelot. And then there's another, there's one other character. Yeah. There's one other person. It's because you go into time because now you know what happened to Lancelot. You could go back into time and rescue him. And I was like, I need to rescue him. I will do that someday. I mark my words. I'm going to do that someday. I'm not going to, I'm not going to replay it. I'm more interested in the other games personally.
02:15:19
Speaker
But apparently, according to the information about it, it's technically not canon because you're time-traveling in the end. Yeah, exactly. It's just an extra thing because people were just like, what you did to Lancelot is bullshit. Like, absolute, especially because we get, Oh, Hoburim and Ozma get a very sweet ending at the end. They get to be happily ever after, which they went through similar bullshit. And you don't give that. And then Lancelot's scene is he's just,
02:15:47
Speaker
like still not with him. He just was reaching out to the snow and I'm like, he's still in there. He had his time to shine. He was the hero of a previous game.
02:16:05
Speaker
He had his time to shine. Oh, my goodness. There's so our joint ending that we got was was I think it's the canon ending basically is that, you know, Katja gets on the throne, you know, peace be with you. And then Denham's like, I'm going to I'm I'm going to do my own thing because he's he's been serving country. She's now on the throne, whatever. He decides that he is going to go visit Lancelot's hometown.
02:16:33
Speaker
Like our home country and that's what he wants to do and then gonna set out to Zenobia
02:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, he was gonna go to Zenobia and see it. And then all your party members who were canon plot characters all get endings. So everyone that you got gets an ending. You get to see what happens to them. All the sisters, apparently there's a better ending with the sisters if you get all four, but you can only do it in KJ's route. Oh, I should go back and get the fourth one. Sherry, yeah, apparently there's- I don't wanna beat the game again. No, screw that, I'm not doing that.
02:17:07
Speaker
There's an extra scene with Sherry if you got her, all four of them together. Ravnus ends up having a really happy ending. Vice kind of is just like mad you left. He's like, my rival is leaving.
02:17:25
Speaker
Why are you leaving me, Denim? Excuse me, sir. And then they're like... Vice is the worst. Like, Vice is a ruler of, like, a little city kind of thing. Like, he's a keeper of one of the castles. And they're like, are you gonna do anything? And he's just like... And he stares at a window and he starts to look like he's gonna climb out the window and follow you. Oh my goodness, Vice. You are like a puppy dog. You will never leave my side.
02:17:52
Speaker
Um, can have, oh, oh, zap, zap, zap. So he never, he didn't get this character. He ate at this character. I thought his ending was hilarious. The fact that Zapan was a, was a staple. Zapan and, and, uh, Vites being a staple, staples in your party are just like mind blowing to me. Cause I hated both of those characters.
02:18:12
Speaker
With a pattern. Zepan is like, he's like, I don't know what to do now. I don't want to do bounty hunting anymore. I'm getting old. And Denim's like, this is why you're at this castle, because you're going to help protect it. And he's like, you're giving me a castle? And he starts getting really emotional. And Denim's like, are you crying? Like, are you crying right now? And then he's like, excuse me. He grabs you, lifts you up in the air. He says, you want to say that again? And like holds you over the edge.
02:18:42
Speaker
And it's like, you want to do it? So he puts them down and they have a laugh or whatever. And I'm just like, were you going to eat dead? Like, excuse me. But yeah, and then Hoberam and Asma have this really touching one. They actually go back to where Hoberam's parents, whatever castle they owned, they go back. They're from Lotus.
02:19:11
Speaker
Uh, yeah, Lotus, they go back to there and they go to back to one of the, like the castles or whatever to rule or whatever and take care of it, stuff like that. And they're just kind of like sitting there and like, it's kind of hinted that maybe they're going to be starting a family, but it's not like super revealed. And it's just really sweet and touching. You're like, yay, a romantic ending. Cause there's like none of that in this game.
02:19:35
Speaker
I was so happy there was this love plot somewhere. Except for one of the sisters because I only got two in mine. The Olivia was like, she's going to follow Denim. She's like, I can't, I can't leave him behind. I'm too attached to him. I don't remember what happens with the sisters. Sherry's just like picking on her, being like, oh, you're going to follow Denim. And she's like, stop. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, I don't remember. I'm not going to lie. I don't remember what happens with the, like,
02:20:04
Speaker
with a lot of the side characters only because the biggest thing in the end of the game that I remember is the fact that there are still dark nights and they're going back to Lotus.
Desire for a Sequel and Game Rating
02:20:19
Speaker
And it's like, this is the last game in the series. Yeah. And it just literally has that, like,
02:20:27
Speaker
And you're like, I've screamed at the TV that they were still alive. Cause I knew like Lancelot, you never kill him, right? Yeah. You never kill Lancelot. You never fight him. Well, you fight him once and he does, he runs away. But I mean, like you never fight him to kill him. You, you, you get all his little minions except for one, one other guy. No, three people. There's three total. Yeah. That's that's where counting Lancelot. Yeah.
02:20:52
Speaker
Yeah. And then you killed all the other ones. And you're like, Oh, hell no. Like I want to go after the weird thing. And it's not in the optional content of the game. Nope. It's not. And there's no other game. Yeah.
02:21:08
Speaker
The other games happen either, like I said earlier, Ogre Battle 64 happens at the same time as this game. Square? You're listening. Finish this story! Damn it Square! Finish! I want to kill Lancelot! Square, give me a DLC. If we play a DLC game, you'll get to use Lancelot. No, I want to kill him.
02:21:37
Speaker
Listen, square, square, square gave me this game to sponsor and now I'm throwing it back in your court square. Please continue this game. Even if it's DLC, let me kill evil Lancelot and let the cannon be. I save good Lancelot and we're, we're good. We're good. Oh, and a denim and Olivia could get together too. That'd be nice. Denim deserves the denim deserves a love for all he's been through.
02:22:09
Speaker
But yeah, so that was that was definitely I was I was happy they showed that because I was curious. But now I'm just like, you left me on a cliffhanger like I want to. But because they remade this game and still left that in, I wonder if they were seeing how people would receive this game to maybe continue it.
02:22:29
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I don't think this game sold super, super well. So I don't know. I think the numbers were down. That's so sad. A bit, but yeah. We post this everywhere and encourage people to go up by the game. It's a good game. It's a very good game. The story is great. I can't help but look at it and say, like,
02:22:58
Speaker
I've been trying not to compare games. I've been doing a good job of that. But like looking at this versus Final Fantasy tactics and like just kind of going back and forth. And yeah, they're just it's it's definitely.
02:23:15
Speaker
There's a lot of parallels, but at the same time, I think Final Fantasy Tactics allows a bit more freedom in terms of like gameplay. Honestly, it gets me hyped to play Final Fantasy Tactics someday because if that's why the same team and it's very similar to this, but a little bit more freedom, that actually gets me really, really hyped. That might be a game that I throw on stream.
02:23:38
Speaker
like out of my own like not let it like you guys don't have to put it on the backlog I'll just play it because I feel like with this one like coming into this with like I'm just I'm just gonna wipe Fire Emblem fates off the map of... Don't even think about that game.
02:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is like my first real tactics game played all the way through it I somehow lucked out and beat the end Got some additional characters. I put like over 90 hours in this game
02:24:09
Speaker
Just collecting all the side characters and honestly it was a little bit more than that because I got halfway through your route or so I got halfway through chapter two of your route and then went back to my save and Went my way and then went all the way through so that was about ten hours there so like I would say easily a hundred hours in this game and I still even want to do like the little optional things of getting the extra
02:24:31
Speaker
characters after the game and someday and everything at some point because I'm like I had a really good time with it and honestly like it makes me a little sad to hear that sales didn't do super great maybe because it wasn't as like big titled RPG tactics RPG as some of them are maybe but
02:24:54
Speaker
Honestly, going into this with an incredibly fresh perspective and not playing Final Fantasy Tactics and not having Fire Emblem, any good Fire Emblem games anyway, to compare it to, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I thought the mechanics were done really well. There were maybe tiny little things that I wish were a little different, and I hate that it ends on a cliffhanger because I just want to know.
02:25:18
Speaker
Um, but, and I'm very happy I didn't get Moonee's, uh, ending because I was very outraged.
Comparison with Other RPGs and Genre Exploration
02:25:25
Speaker
And I do not like my main, my main character dies in games. It makes me very angry. But I, it doesn't mean I won't still enjoy the game. It's just like, I will be crying at the end of the game being like, why did you do this to me?
02:25:40
Speaker
Though I got pretty teary-eyed partway through, like at the Ozma story, Ravenous coming around, like things like that. Even like when Katya was like crying to you and holding you and stuff like that, in her desperate need, after knowing everything she's been through, I was getting kind of teary-eyed at that point too. So like this game really made me emotional.
02:26:02
Speaker
But with everything like that, I'm going through with just an incredibly fresh perspective. I'm like, this is just a really good game. It's got so much plot and so much character development and so many fun mechanics. I'm looking at this going like, I want to own the PlayStation version of this game just to have in my collection. I like it so much.
02:26:24
Speaker
Maybe even the Super Nintendo games someday. Super Nintendo ones are more expensive than the PlayStation ones. Oh yeah, I'm gonna cry. My wallet will cry, but maybe someday I'll win the lottery and I can afford it, okay? Yeah, I was just looking. I don't see anything about like any...
02:26:41
Speaker
any other games or anything like that. I couldn't find anything. So yeah, it seems like, I mean, I know that story wise, the Game Boy Advance game is like a side game. So I don't think they necessarily count it as part of the main series.
02:26:57
Speaker
Okay, and then it starts with the SNES one, which is the March of Black Queen, and then technically tax over 64 or ogre battle 64 is the sixth sixth game and then this one is the seventh one. So which one do you get to play as like the good lights a lot my boy, ogre battle.
02:27:19
Speaker
March of black queen. So the very the oh I would love to play back one someday. Yeah, ogre battle 64 I'll try to play that someday, but I really did like mean answer our lights a lot Well, let's not actually that's happening at the same time as this game So that's the GBA one is the is the oh GBA one. Okay, that's the one I'll probably skip so ogre battle 64 would be really interesting to do then and the super Nintendo one I
02:27:48
Speaker
Oh, you're gonna play ogre back? Oh, yeah. Okay, I bought it. I do plan on playing that. That's oh, sweet. You did get it. That's awesome. And then the GBA one like it seems like it's just gonna be really interesting. I was I was having some conversations about it. I mean, yeah, I probably still play it just because again, like as much as I hate that character, he was an interesting character too. Well, it'll weasel its way into the podcast.
02:28:17
Speaker
Honestly, the Super Nintendo one, I'd be down even if we could both get a copy of the March of the Black Cleen. That would be really fun to connect with this podcast in general. Because it's a prequel, right? It's like where you stream Valkyrie profile and then we did the
02:28:37
Speaker
Bow group profile to which equals equal. Yeah, it was really cool to have that. Good. That's a good point. So what would you give your overall for you overall rating of this new rating in this game? This game was good. Tactics was like. Story wise, it was great. Gameplay was very good. The like job class system definitely could have been better.
02:29:11
Speaker
Eight and a half? Eight and a half at a time? Probably eight and a half at a time. Yeah, I think like- And that's with you going in with like your knowledge of like Final Fantasy Tactics and other tactic games too and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think this story
02:29:28
Speaker
And you have to figure too, this is before having any of the previous knowledge, this story is fantastic. I think this story, this game really shines with the story. And I think it just, it absolutely
02:29:51
Speaker
It's a must play for honestly anybody that loves Final Fantasy Tactics should play this game in my opinion like okay, I think that there's there's a lot of parallels you can draw and Anybody who played this game should play Final Fantasy. It's it's it's definitely like you can see where they are similar and I think it like really is
02:30:14
Speaker
that is something that really shines through and it's like, oh, if you love tactics, if you love Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll love this game. If you love this game, you'll love Final Fantasy Tactics as well. And yeah, I think overall, yeah, it's only like eight and a half.
02:30:31
Speaker
Eight and a half to be where I would probably land on. Final Fantasy Tactics might be an on stream game for me. I know I know you should definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I knew you really wanted to see me play that game. I need to talk to you whether I should do the original tactics or I think it's War of the Lions or something. Or the line is just a better version. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I think it's literally like that. Does it matter which one I play or should I do the War of the Lions? Play the War of the Lions one. The War of the Lions is just like I said, it's just a better version.
02:31:02
Speaker
Okay, perfect. Alright, so my overall rating of this game might, I think for me, like I don't have Final Fantasy Tactics to compare it to or anything like that, where things might be better or worse, or like Fire Emblem or anything like that. So like I'm going in with a completely blank slate.
02:31:21
Speaker
I agree with KJ that I think people should play this game. The story is absolutely phenomenal. The mechanics were really well done. I found myself excited to play every time. Like every time I got a chance to play this game, I played this game.
02:31:37
Speaker
And Tactics Ochre Reborn kept me hooked. I love the characters. I love the voice acting. I love so much about it that honestly, this might beat out Live Alive for me out of the podcast games now. And I think this is my favorite pod.
02:31:53
Speaker
I think this is my favorite podcast game we've played. I think this is a 9.5 out of 10 for me. I literally, the .5 lower for me is just the fact that there are a few little mechanical things and then kind of leaving me on a cliffhanger and having me have nothing of that is a little bit rough, especially because like, I mean, there's games that do that, but then they give you more.
02:32:20
Speaker
It's like a novel leaving off on a cliffbanger and then just never continuing the novel series. So, but I realized that they had lost the team and the team went off to do, or they moved the team to Final Fantasy Tactics and yada yada. I really hope that they do revisit this someday because I think it's absolutely phenomenal. Like the characters are great. Everything is great about this. It's so hard to find a flaw. I thought about it. I kept writing down, I was between a nine and a nine and a half.
02:32:47
Speaker
But the reason I'm giving it the nine and a half, which is I think a half over Live Alive for me, is because Live Alive had a few parts of it that I could very noticeably be like the prehistoric one was a little bit rough and the visual novel one was a little bit rough.
02:33:02
Speaker
With this game, there's really nothing that was rough. You could choose to do side stuff or you could choose to not do side stuff and build up other units and recruit and do whatever you want. You didn't need to get the extra plot characters and still beat the game, as KJ proved, that in his route, he didn't get the option to get some of these really cool side characters. So he built up his team and everything and he managed to beat it.
02:33:29
Speaker
And everything fine so to me it's like you can play this game different ways you can Preface different units all the units are really good like I mean I'm sure there's there's like better classes or better management of the classes or maybe making a few of them a little bit more like achievable or something, but at the end of the day like I I Thoroughly enjoyed this game. I've sunk off
02:33:53
Speaker
100 hours into it. I'm even excited someday to do some of the optional content, which doesn't like I don't generally like super go on to that unless I really love the game. Like Star Ocean 6, like I might play through it just to kind of get the Raymond thing.
02:34:09
Speaker
But Star Ocean 2, for example, I really played through that game multiple times because I liked the differences of things and the different endings were a little bit more unique to me, where I realize now Star Ocean 6, kind of the endings at the end of the game weren't as unique as Star Ocean 2. So it doesn't drive me as much.
02:34:27
Speaker
But this game, like having the extra content where I could go and save Lancelot and go and do, you know, get the, these other characters or do this thing. I was like, you know what? I might actually do this. And it's intrigued me enough that I want to play all the other ogre games. I actually want to go out and I want to play the other ogre games. So like to me, if a game makes me want to play all the others, that's a nine at least for me. And then maybe nine, but like, I think I'm leaning on nine by five.
02:34:55
Speaker
That might change if I play Final Fantasy Tactics and I see the improvements it could have made and maybe it'll drop a little. But for now, I love this fucking game. It's amazing. I'm so hooked into Tactics now. Let's hope all the rest of Tactics game I play is not a pressure disappointment. We did it. We got her. We got her.
02:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, y'all tricked me y'all got me to play this masterpiece of a game to trick me onto your tactics I need poly a tactics fan. I I can I can rest easy tonight The funny thing is he dangled this carrot and then I saw and Square Enix having a hand in this I saw they had a CD key so I told him I was like, okay, I
02:35:44
Speaker
I'm going to apply for it and I'm going to talk about being complete noob to tactics game in my application. And if I get the CD key, I'll give it a try, a couple streams of it, and then we'll see if we're going to make it the podcast. He's like, yeah, that's fair. Let's do it. Like you try it, try it first. I don't, I don't want you to hate going through the podcast. We can pick something else.
02:36:07
Speaker
So I applied basically just going on about like, I haven't played tactics game before. I think it'd be really cool if my community saw me play a new one, our tactics game, and bring love to this thing, da da da. So they gave it to me, and I was really shocked. And so I told them, and then I did the couple of streams. And then literally at the end of the first stream, I was just like, KJ, we're doing it. We're going. We're going. At the end of the first, I didn't even need the second stream, even though I did, I think, two? Yeah, I did two tactics over streams.
02:36:36
Speaker
Even though I did two of them, that was because I did one on Christmas Eve. That was fun. But I didn't need another play session. I was like, now I'm in. I'm in. The story's interesting. Mechanics are kind of cool. I'll get used to this. I'm in. KJ has brought me over to the tech. Now I just want to play another tactic. We did it, y'all.
02:37:07
Speaker
We can kind of wrap this up then, I think. Yeah, let's announce the next game that we're doing. And then we could do a, like, that's the end wrap up and then talk to Chad a little bit and go from there.
Announcement of Next Game: Phantasy Star 4
02:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, no. Do you want to announce it's going to be on your channel next? Sure. What are we playing next, KJ? Yes. So first of all, thank you, everybody, for joining us for this episode of
02:37:33
Speaker
turn-based tangents. Next episode we are going to be it's gonna be live like end of February and we're gonna be playing fantasy star 4 which is a game that a lot of people speak highly of. The best way I can explain what I've heard is it's
02:37:59
Speaker
If you take the Sega Genesis library and you compare it to the SNES library, it's like the chrono trigger or like Final Fantasy VI of the Genesis library in terms of RPGs. I'm so excited about some of those games.
02:38:14
Speaker
It's come very, very highly recommended. So we're going to be playing it through the Sega Genesis Collection because it is on that and that's available on the Switch, on Steam. I think it's available on PlayStation as well as Xbox. So I think it's available on everything. Yeah, I think it's on everything. But we're going to be doing the Switch one. Yeah.
02:38:38
Speaker
Um, and yeah, we'll be, it's, it's a pretty short game. It's about 20 hours. So that'll be very, very interesting. Um, it's a game that you don't have to play in a specific order from what I've heard. So I think there might be like some small little Easter egg type things.
02:38:56
Speaker
But you don't have to play them in order. So very, very excited for that.
Conclusion and Audience Appreciation
02:39:01
Speaker
But with that said, we can now wrap up. This was another episode of turn-based tangents. Thank you all for joining us. And yeah. Thank you for being here.