then absolutely shining force, its like what if tactics games had to go in an arcade in a world where that made sense
all the thinking you do during fights, theres not a lot of time spent in menus. you can only hold four things and two of those slots will be taken by weapon/equipment
its super simple and its not pedobait but its sword people/monsters fighting groups of other people/monsters. it turns out its very hard to avoid army things in tactical combat games
also if you like it you can play SHINING FORCE 2
SHINING FORCE GBA
SHINING FORCE GAME GEAR
SHINING FORCE THREE etc etc but dont get fooled shining soul is not a tactics game (i love it but its not tactics!! dont be fooled!! also the second one is better but DONT BE FOOLED)
invisible inc is imo the only game that isnât more in the xcom tradition of being primarily a loose sim rather than a series of engagements like japanese srpgs tend to be, that actually constitutes an evolution on matsunoâs best work
the new fire emblem is at least as good as most SNES/MD/PC98 stuff though if thatâs what youâre after, after years of mediocrity
Iâm watching shining force 1 on youtube, it looks so pretty. Itâs got that classic SRPG style with top down perspective and the special battle screens. This sort of style could be redone really well today. I love the idea that this is a secret arcade game. It feels accurate.
I LOVE army stuff! I just havenât been in the mood for faceless characters, jingoism, hoorah assholes, feelbad torture drama, dull colors etc. and all that stuff seems to go hand in hand with modern army stories. I want to cheat and get all the good feelings of having 100 friends without any of them getting hurt. Iâd play milsims wargames etc all the time if they were somehow rainbow-colored and had cartoon monsters lol
new fire emblem is very good
and iâm a âsega gave us outrun 2 and streets of rage 2, nintendo gave us 38 year old american men in cargo shorts crying at the zelda themeâ person
Growlanser 2 (Part of Growlanser Generations on PS2; be sure to disable the voices; Growlanser 3 is decent as well but 2 is the highlight; avoid 5)
Phantom Brave (a.k.a. the game by the Disgaea devs with tolerable characters and story)
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (the GameCube one and, to a lesser degree, the direct sequel on Wii; I donât know how these compare to the portable ones because I havenât played the portable ones)
I am bad at knowing the difference between a strategy rpg and a tactical one, but I played through Mutant Year Zero last year and it both seems to be about the right genre and fairly okay. Itâs probably a bit on the simple side if I managed to beat it as I played none of them before.
Itâs a bit on the easy side, but Iâm having a good time playing through Mario x Rabbids Kingdom Battle. I like the seamless transition between environmental exploration and battles. Itâs a nice change from the usual menu/map time that often slots between SRPG battles.
Energy Breaker has a 4-person team, but battles are on huge maps where space and orientation are super important. The quality of encounter design is extremely variable, but the good ones are quite good and the translation is very cute.
Daphnyâs right though, just play Shining Force. Itâll make you happy.
Dang I forgot about the âstrategyâ/âtacticsâ dichotomy thing. I never remember the difference. I actually prefer smaller teams with distinct movesets. If anyone was holding back a rec because I didnât say tactics, please do throw it in.
Roughly, âstrategyâ refers to planning that goes on before the battle begins, whereas âtacticsâ is about the moment-to-moment decisions made on the battlefield while the fighting is going on
As for my recommendations, if you liked Final Fantasy Tactics better than Fire Emblem, try the mainline Front Mission games. After that, if youâre still hungry enough for FFT style play that you donât mind a general overall quality downgrade, you might look up a slightly more obscure title called âHoshigami: Running Blue Earthâ
Iâm playing vandal hearts 1 now and I recommend it to anybody who likes shining force 1, it has that same raw energy and it does interesting things with level design and other gimmicks.
As noted above, the modern takes have some of the best mechanics. Invisible Inc. is sealed tighter than a space capsule, and is the epitome of chess-like SRPGs. Into the Breach is very tight but has more space for mistakes and youâll be astounded at how surreptitiously it makes you better at playing over several games.
They absolutely never bog down, but neither of them really hits the sense of a world or journey like the Japanese classics.
I like games with loose improvisation and chaos. Of course itâs very hard to manage that above a certain difficulty level, especially in a tactics game.
Of course, one of the main appeal points of FFT is that it is a very loose and easy game, and thereâs space in this world for games that arenât challenging in terms of âability to scrape byâ but can be challenging in terms of âtesting player improvisation and creativityâ
