As a huge fan of the Final Fantasy tactics games, I'm always on the lookout for similar games. I just finished Jeanne D'arc on PS5 and I believe this one here is a hidden gem.

Great story, good mechanics and lovely classic visuals. Anyone here finished this too? Any suggestions on what to play next?

I'm trying to decide how the actions menu for the units in the game I'm developing should work, and I would appreciate knowing which option you would prefer.

-In the Super Robot Wars style, there are dedicated buttons for "Move" and "Undo movement". Ending movement brings up the actions menu directly, but you have to press "Undo movement" to try moving to different cells. One advantage is that you can keep the movement and use other units, then return to execute the unit action.

-In the Shining Force style, "Movement mode" is activated when you select the unit. You can try all the available positions in this mode, but you have to click on the unit again to bring up the actions menu. Pressing the back button without committing to an action will return you to movement mode, and pressing the back button again will deselect the unit. Deselecting the unit without executing an action or selecting "Wait" will return the unit to its initial position.

Picked a house, grabbed a sword,
Thought I would be a tactical lord.
Romanced the milf, then she got slain,
What the fuck was the point of this dating campaign?!

We had pixel Fire Emblem, 3D ones, tank ones, real-time ones, slashers... honestly, I kind of want to talk about the tank ones. From the very beginning, the Fire Emblem series did not really click with me, and right now I cannot even tell you why. Something about it just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was because Super Smash Bros gave way too much attention to this specific franchise, and it pissed me off that Persona or Final Fantasy did not get the same treatment.

Weirdly enough, I got introduced to Fire Emblem through Advance Wars. Playing it on a plane on a single console with my buddy was an absolute blast. When I found out there was a similar game, but with knights and dragons, I instantly got hyped to play it. At that time, Engage was just about to drop on the Switch, but I decided it would be cool to check out the previous entry first.
Three Houses is considered one of the best and most iconic games in the series just because I said so, and because I literally have not played any other entries, lol. It is also the perfect entry point for beginners because I am a beginner myself, and I think it is a great place to start. Or simply for people who love Heroes of Might and Magic III, but ran out of mods to play.

Right at the start, we pick our character gender, which does not really change much. If you pick the girl, you will have to romance sweaty dudes, but whatever. Unless, of course, you go for that yellow archer guy from the cover art. I will drop the pic below. I completely forgot his name, and I am too lazy to look it up, but just know he is cool, and picking him was the right call.

Back in the day, I only played as the male gigachad, and it was fine. While in Persona games I usually built entire harems, here one milf Manuela was more than enough for the whole playthrough. Anyway, that is beside the point. This specific entry introduced dating sim mechanics into a purely tactical, story-driven game, which I am pretty sure was not a thing in the older titles. It is definitely a secondary feature, but chatting or even hooking up with the teammates you almost got killed in the last fight against cultists or bandits is actually pretty fun.

The best part about this franchise is that if you lose one of your goons in battle, like a bandit shanks them, a priest smacks them, or a dragon absolutely obliterates them... that fighter is permanently cut from the game. Along with all their dialogues, side quests, legendary weapons, and even important story bits. This gives you a serious adrenaline rush because, unlike chess where you just lose a piece, you are not exactly going on dates with a rook or drinking tea with a bishop, so you do not really feel bad when they die.

Early on, you get to choose one of three houses where you will be teaching a bunch of talentless peasants how to fight, leveling up their skills, changing their combat styles, and helping them pass exams for new classes. This way, some absolute degenerate with a stick can eventually become a paladin or ride a wyvern. As for the houses, we have the blue ones with some blonde guy, which is way too vanilla for me. Then, there are the red ones with a chick I disliked from the very beginning. And finally, the yellow ones with your awesome roommate, who drops great jokes and is just a top-tier dude, like I mentioned before. You will spend the entire game leading this house, building bonds with your specific teammates, and experiencing your unique story branch. Because of this, you actually need to beat the game at least three times, once for each house, just to fully grasp the story. Ironically, I started playing this right after finishing Nier Automata, so I hope you understand how hard that specific aspect hit me.
Later on, if your teammate kicks the bucket, you will eventually unlock the ability to recruit warriors or even students from other houses. You can level up their social links with each other, and that actually affects how they perform on the battlefield.

The story takes a while to get going, but that actually works in its favor. With every passing in-game month, the vibe gets significantly darker. In the first few hours, your teenage students will be laughing about how they easily clapped five bandits. But six hours later, they will be forced to fight actual monsters that are somehow thicker than that giant turtle in Final Fantasy XV. The only issue is that sometimes the game dumps a massive amount of lore on you. At first, I even thought about sitting down and playing the original GBA titles (I know there were games before the GBA era, I just wanted to brag that I recently bought a Game Boy Advance).

The game also has an open monastery where you can fish, grow vegetables, mess around, or even visit the bathhouse. But honestly, why the hell would you do any of that when you can just go on a student mission and get some super cool legendary weapon? If I wanted that kind of slice-of-life gameplay, I would go play Stardew Valley or Fantasy Life. Why do I need this in a turn-based tactical dating sim? Anyway, on these side missions, you get a chunk of lore, which is sometimes genuinely interesting, along with new enemies, locations, or even a massive plot twist connected to the main story. I would tell you what it is, but I assume at least someone is going to read this review, and I am not that much of an asshole. By the way, these missions are time-sensitive. You can easily miss an event where you defend a town from pirates or fight a giant worm in the desert. The funny part is that if your students die during this time, other missions might literally never spawn. You will permanently miss out on some overpowered weapon just because you let your favorite archer get killed.

I could definitely talk about other aspects of the game in detail, but I already covered all the main things I wanted to say. It is a very atmospheric and slow-paced tactical game that gives you exactly as much as you need. And if you feel like it is giving you too much, like all that fishing and farming nonsense, you can safely skip those parts entirely. That is honestly a massive plus for the game, because I sure as hell cannot skip that stupid Batmobile in Arkham Knight.

Even if you are a complete noob at tactical games, you should still put the difficulty on Hard. Unfortunately, I overestimated how hard the game would be, which is not surprising considering the other tactical games I reviewed before this, so I picked Normal. After realizing I was easily wiping the floor with absolutely everyone without even grinding or having a full squad, I went to check some forums. It turns out I was not the only one dealing with this issue. I have no idea why they designed it this way, but I hope that if you actually go play this pretty decent game after reading my review, which I highly doubt you will, then please do not repeat my mistakes.

As for the people who have already played it: I was thinking about dropping a generic question like the ones I use in my other reviews. But honestly, I want to ask you guys about the other entries in the series, especially the GBA and 3DS ones. I know they are all great, but I want to hear about your specific favorites. Maybe one day I will do a review on one of those, too.

After Unicorn Overlord I have been playing some Fire Emblem games I missed, including Engage and Sacred Stones. Engage's dialogue has been criticized enough already and Sacred Stones is great even though it follows many JRPG character tropes.

I wanted to take a slight break from that style of writing and tried Gales of Nayeli and it has been such a breath of fresh air. I won't say the writing is very original but it is very clearly Western style, more Baldur's Gate , D&D style characters. And it has really helped me get way more engaged with the game.

I am not trying to say JRPG tropes are all bad, but it's really nice to have some variety in SRPG dialogue. Also I don't have to feel cringe with the clearly sexualized young characters that Fire Emblem likes to add in since Awakening.

Also the gameplay itself feels pretty great, some better menus would have been nice but the actual maps work well. I recommend giving it a go.

A race to see who finds bread faster. Your gang of two cent chucklefucks or a goblin and a half.

Signed the contract bought a spear,

Thought we would drink some victory beer.

Faced an orc he swung his chain,

Now my squad is a bloody stain.

Battle Brothers sounds exactly like the title of a canceled 90s Marvel cartoon but it is actually a German tactical simulator that treats your units like disposable meat.

If you have always wanted to play a hardcore version of Fire Emblem but absolutely refuse to buy a Nintendo console this is your game. Yes this is the second review in a row where I bring up Fire Emblem and at this rate I might as well just review it next. Available on PC PlayStation Xbox and ironically the Switch itself.

The core of the game is building a mercenary company in a grimdark low fantasy world and desperately trying to keep them breathing. Oh and try your hardest not to interact with a crying baby lying under a tree next to its dead mother. We all know how that ends.

Your starting roster is a tragic collection of farmers blacksmiths crippled grandpas and typical Novigrad peasants. You take whatever contracts you can get and pray your company does not starve to death in the first week because of mismanaged wages or an ambush by a couple of very hungry wolves.

The game throws a ridiculous amount of low fantasy gear at you like acid flasks and throwing nets giving you infinite ways to build your guys. You can minmax your squad all you want but the game will always find a pack of horrifying beasts ready to take that meta build and shove it where the sun does not shine.

You have faction diplomacy forests crawling with giant spiders deserts with gladiator arenas and literal apocalyptic snowlands. It has everything including a giant Kraken and our beloved Slavic Hexen. What else do you even need?

The funny thing is the game lulls you into a false sense of security at first. I actually put together a squad of 10 absolute gigachads and did standard Fallout style quests. Killing bandits delivering mail escorting caravans. I was making bank and leveling my bros. Then one night I got jumped by goblins riding wolves with poison arrows. The last time my progression got screwed this hard was in The Binding of Isaac.

But all that suffering is heavily compensated by one beautiful fact. YOU CAN ROB CARAVANS. Sure Elden Ring lets you do that now but over there it is just a fun side activity for casuals. In Battle Brothers robbing a caravan is a tactical exam for intellectuals. I highly recommend reading Sun Tzu Steve Jobs and Jacques Fresco before you even attempt it.

The game constantly throws new mechanics and content at you so fast that you literally do not have time to get bored mostly because you will be dead way before that happens.

To quote a veteran mercenary grandpa from the trenches. Feed your brothers well but never trust the nobles because they will steal your crowns and leave you to rot.

I genuinely want to know about your absolute worst hiring decisions. Drop a comment telling me about that one asthmatic crippled beggar you hired for three crowns who somehow caused the death of your entire company. Let us share the pain:)

like triangle strategy

Never play ANY strategy games before, but FFT (physical version) is now low price on my country

It’s a good point to enter?

I see this game need a guide (no problem for me)

I don’t wanna play Blind, if this is a real problem

But I’m looking for a chill and fun experience

Hate hard things, easy mode gang here always!

Pls, help me to decide!

Like for example in Urtuk, throwing hot oil onto an enemy, thus making the hexagon hazardous, and then “taunting” an enemy when he is on that hex, thus causing him to NOT move from that hex is a strategy I only thought of after many hours of play.

One reason I like Urtuk is because of how high-stats and powerful equipment are not enough for victory (normally, but they DO help.) You have to be intelligent, clever, and vigilant to win.

Hey. I'm a solo dev working on an SRPG and I'm looking for feedback on what makes a good HUD. I come from more of a programming background, and while I have *some* design sense, I'm not sure I'd call it my forte.

I've got an early build of an attack preview here (camera shifts from isomorphic to 2d fighting game view):

GPS lacks terrain effects--just not in the game yet. Character art still just place holding. Map itself is a basic test map (shoutout to the random untextured stair test over on the left).

Anyway, got what I think is needed in most games. But I get 1) the sneaking suspicion that I've left something out, and 2) the ever-present suspicion that the overall look needs work. Just trying to figure out if this design is at least in the right direction and actually looks halfway compelling.

What do you guys think is useful in most games? I'm a big fan of the games from the PS-X era (think your Vandal Heartses and your Tactics Ogres--might also be the one person who also loved Vandal Hearts 2), and going back to those games, they appear a bit more minimalistic. I question though if that isn't due to the lower resolution screens they were designed to play on.

If this belongs better in the self-promotion thread, my bad. I did scan around and saw a few posts up asking for feedback and talking about design decisions, so I figured this was good. If not, just let me know.

I'm developing a Tactical RPG game with Visual Novel intermissions and asking about settings that players find most useful in this genre, one that was flagged was to being able to not only speed up dialogue but also skip the visual novel sections completely.

That made me wonder how much SRPG players care about the narrative between missions. Is the combat the only important thing and story is just there to give some flavor? Are you expecting a great story and the combats are just a excuse to discover what happen next to the characters? Do you think that it is the combination of these two things what makes this genre so appealing?

Langrisser: Sea of Sword is set for a global multi-platform release across iOS, Android, PC, Steam, and more.

I'm developing a Tactical RPG and I'm curious to know which options people usually expect to find, which ones are a must and which others are a simple curiosity that don't really add too much.

Which are yours?

Hello there! I really have a nice time playing wandering sword game which is that trpg perfect English with a scent of wuxia game with a great depth story, gameplay and scenery. I'm pretty sure that many of you have also found value in this game so I made a subreddit so that we can start sharing experiences there!

r/wanderingswordgame

So I'm a big tactics game guy, and of course Tactics Ogre comes up all the time in the greatest of all time conversation. And even though it's on my wishlist and it's on sale now, I'm a bit hesitant to pick it up. I've loved all the FE games, and even isometric top down games like Triangle Strategy, Banner of the Maid, Devil Survivor, and so on, but I didn't love the gameplay of FFT even though the story was great. So what's different about the two, and should I consider Tactics Ogre knowing what games have worked for me and what haven't in the past?

I've recently got into strategy rpgs, it all started with unicorn overlord a couple years ago, when looking for similar games I came across FFT and I loved it. Then I went onto Triangle Strategy and I loved it even more, that has been my favorite So far. I was looking at Fire Emblem Three Houses and Tactics Ogre, the latter was on sale so I went with it. I'm excited to start it!

Is it comparable to the other games I've played?

I've read that there is a level cap so there is no grinding involved but does that make it harder?

Are some unit combinations op that I should prioritize or just go in blind?

I'm playing on Switch.

I'm definitely putting a mercenary named Simba in my squad in War Hounds

He better know how to throw enemies off cliffs

I genuinely don't understand RPGs where you equip a new helmet, chest piece, gloves, or weapon, your stats change... but your character looks exactly the same.

At that point, what am I actually collecting? It feels like I'm just moving numbers around in an Excel spreadsheet instead of building a unique character.

Games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 absolutely nailed this. Every major armor upgrade changes your appearance, so progression feels tangible. You actually see your character evolve from a nobody into a legendary adventurer.

Then I play games like Solasta, Tyranny, or even parts of the Pathfinder games, where you can equip legendary gear worth thousands of gold, yet your character still looks identical to the moment you started. It completely disconnects me from the loot system.

For me, visual progression is just as important as stat progression. If I'm wearing mythical armor, I want to look like I'm wearing mythical armor.

Am I in the minority here, or does static character appearance make loot feel far less rewarding?

Not a game where you have to play as a character but something with deep management as well as a warring or defending aspect. If that even exists. I’ve tried Total War but there’s too much focus on war in those games, believe it or not.

I like the little things about the game like the art and the serious nature of the story. But my God, like the second battle in the game took an hour to finish.

This game is so slow. Unless it gets the Tactics Ogre: Reborn treatment and a remaster can double the speed, I don't see myself playing through this one.

Stardust Wish of the Witch was on my radar a while ago cause I can't believe there aren't that many games that have tried to merge an SRPG with cardbattler since that one Marvel game. Also, always down for the popup or 3d/2.5 pixel style.

Also, I hope we see more non-gacha games from more Korean (or Chinese) studios. There are a lot of talented people in those studios, and it kind of sucks that their entire industries are stuck in the gacha machine, so whatever good might be in them get's hollowed out eventually by the nesseties of a live service and gambling game.

Shame that Sword of Convallaria went the gacha route when it didn't need to.

Back in 2023, I was playing a turn based rpg that could be played by several people on an old work friend’s switch. I’d like to play it again but Idk the title and couldn’t find it online.

It had a bunch of options to play different types of campaigns. It was in 3D. I remember characters could all load up on a ship and move around certain campaigns. I’m pretty sure it is available on platforms other than Switch. I remember there being a snow covered mountain campaign too.

Certain enemies could resist physical, magical, and I think elemental attacks.

Any help is appreciated. TIA

I'm a solo dev working on a tactical SRPG .

My XP curve is built so that if you just play the story maps, you hit the recommended level for the next fight. No grinding required. That part works.

The problem is what happens when a player falls behind — lost units, bad promotions, whatever. I want to give them a way to catch up. But every catch-up system I add also becomes a farming system, and then players feel like they have to grind before every fight.

Two options I'm looking at:

FFT approach — unlimited random battles, but XP drops off hard when you outlevel the enemy. Self-limiting, in theory.

Tactics Ogre approach — hard level cap per chapter. No overleveling, but also no way to dig yourself out of a hole.

Right now I'm leaning toward letting players replay story maps for reduced XP (maybe 50%). Enough to recover, too slow to be worth farming.

Has anyone shipped something like this? Specifically curious whether players actually felt the catch-up option was optional, or whether they ground it out anyway because it was there. Player feedback beats theory here.