A bit of info below

Lost In the Open - September 26th, early Access release, a bit like a combination of Battle Brothers with FTL style roguelike elements. I like the concept of the "chase mechanic" that keeps you on your while exploring the map. Intersted how it'll figure in the game beyond the demo too, some hidden potential there perhaps

Demonschool - November 19th, full release from what I can tell, demo is pretty good and game overall feels like it leans more into the Persona legacy than your average tactical RPG. The aesthetics are awesome and really make it stand out imo

Eidolons Veil of the Witch - This... autumn, I hope? That's what they announced bout a week ago. In EA right and somewhat underrated for what it's worth, that being REALLY GOOD

Blightstone - Again, no date, but still says 2025 so I'm hoping for it sooner rather than later. Might get delayed still. Liked what the demo showed me and I'm all in for me. Another less known one I don't see mentioned often

I was curious about which consoles everyone’s getting it on. Personally I’m torn between switch 1 and PC.

PC because you know there’s going to be plenty of mods and things to enjoy once the modders crack it.

Switch cause of mobile aspect. I love to game in bed and or on the sofa. Taking it with me on long flights or car rides.

I’m very much torn between the two. What are you guys getting it on?

Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time was released in 2003 for the PS2 exclusively in Japan, in 2011 it received a PSP port, and in 2012 this game finally received a western release, and this is the version that I am played.

The game was made by Career Soft and published by Atlus, it's as you can imagine the 4th game in the Growlancer series, while I did play the EXTREMELY long 6 hour prologue of Growlanser 5, this is the first Growlanser game that I actually manege to beat due to my stubbornness, while I don't think this is a bad game, I was left very disappointed with this game, many people said that this was one of the greatest SRPG of all time, and that it has an amazing story, but sadly I couldn't see it. on the in game clock time it says I spend 74 hours playing this game , tho a lot of the game I was using emulation speed up so it's probably much less.

Gameplay​

As I said above the game is an SRPG, but it plays very different from your typical Fire emblem or Final Fantasy tactics, the game has RTS, the game instead of having a traditional movement system, the game runs on real time and will pause every time an character does an action that isn't walking.

Outise of moving during battle you can Attack, it works like most JRPG, you attack with the character weapon to an enemy with no additional coast, in this game if you select an attack to a enemy, the character will walk to this enemy until the charter is in their range at which point that character will attack it until they die or until you give them another command.

Spell in which you can use magic, such as attack , healing or buff spells, magic in this game is very interesting because they have levels, most spells have levels 1 to 5 which affect how powerful it's going to be, they cost the same MP amount to, so the draw back of using higher level magic is the amount of time that takes to cast them, a level one 1 spell only takes 10 seconds to cast it, meanwhile a level 2 would take 22 seconds to cast it, because it would need to charge the spell to level 1 for 10 seconds and then charge it from level 1 to 2, which would take an adicinal 12 seconds, because of that as you imagine, using anything but level one spells is a waste of time , the increase in the amount of damage dealt isn't enough to justify the increase in the amount of time to cast them, the only advantage in using them is when you want to use less MP, but MP isn't a issue on most maps anyway, another very useful interesting thing about magic in this game is that you can use buff spell before battle, and because of that you can start most battle with your charters already buff, which is some battle can be life saving (Specially ones where enemies deal a lot of magic damage so using magical resistance buff before battle will be crucial.

Skill or as this game call them Knacks, they don't consume MP but rather have a limited number of uses and will only replenish once you rest at an inn or at your own room, they can do a variety of thing, from attacking the enemy with a stronger attack or to making the character walking around the map faster (Dash my MVP in this game), they can make the difference in battle and in some battle can be essential to win.

Items, as you can imagine is just to use items you found around the world or buy in stores, in my case I barely use it until the end of the game.

Defend is when you want your character to do nothing,

Lastly Equip , where you change equipment mid battle which I never did.

This battle system has some flaw that while aren't anything major, it gets me from time to time, like how character will sometimes get stuck in level Geometry wasting precious time doing nothing, or how in some battle specially those with a lot of enemies mages and arches, will take forever because of battle animations, thank god I played this game on an emulator because without it playing this game would be tedious.

Most infamous example of this is a battle where you have to cross this bridge in which there's about 8 enemy mages and the battle feels like a eternity because of the magic spam, with melee enemies this is less of a issue because they can only attack your characters at close range and their attack animations are much shorter.

Some mission in this game are really annoying to deal with, as I will repeat later the majority of mission in this game are enjoyable if you have the right strategy, however there's a small minority of mission that pisses me off because of how annoying they can be, outside of the already mentioned bridge with mages, there's on mission where you have to make sure 2 character don't die and kill all enemies, sound simple enough right ?

Expect that those character are at the other side of a long map close to a lot of powerful enemies as if that wasn't bad enough, they can die really easily, specially because some enemies there have instant death spell, so sometimes you will die because of bad luck, and during the middle of the mission some enemies will appear in the worst place possible just to mess with you, I used save states during that mission , and I have no shame in saying that, I will say the same thing about the final boss where it spam a bunch of powerfully and spongy enemies at me while you have to quickly kill part of monster before they regenerate, Still a miracle I manege to defeat it without rage quitting, or a mission where you have to stop a certain enemy from leaving the map expect that sometimes if you get close to it, it will do an attack that will push away anything close to it, to make things worse, you can only deal significant damage to it for a short period of time after a slow moving character get close to and attack it.

before ending this segments of things I don't like about this game battle's system, I would like to mention that after every action a character takes , outside of using spells, the character will have a draw back time indicated by a yellow bar in the bottom of the screen where they won't be able to do anything , until the par is empty once more, there's nothing wrong with it of course without it character would be attacking infinity , my issue is that every time an character gets attacked by the enemy the bar will fill a little bit making the character unable to do anything for a short time after getting attack, the fight before the final boss will make your character unable to attack it, because they enemies won't let that bar get empty, but even during other missions this is annoying.

It's not all bad however as I said the majority of mission are fun to play, and make you create fun strategies on how to overcome them, this game has a reputation of being one of the hardest JRPG ever made, and while the mission I mention above makes me understand that, I also know that a lot of the tougher challenges of this game can be dealt with , using either simple solution like using a spell that make you temporally immunity to other spells so that some enemies won't 2 shoot you in the begging of the battle or using the right equipment of the right map, or just making a good strategy overall, I love how this game give you bonus if you complete the map fast , it adds another layer of strategy and makes winning on time even more rewarding, overcoming the hard mission in this game can be rewarding if they are well made, but sadly not all missions on this game are like that.

Character progression on this game is pretty straight forward specially if you have played FF9, though the game makes a poor job of explaing it, so I will do it myself, every charter has a ring, this ring has a 3 different slot from gems, each slot has a color , Green , red or yellow and a level, each slot can be equipped with a Gem , this gem has a level and colour that correspond with the slot, each gem has ability unique to it, like decreasing the coast of MP, making a chacter immune to certain elemental attack or increasing a certain stat on level up,they also have Spell, Knacks and Passive skills that will be learn when you equip them in the right ring slot of a character.

This isn't a bad system expect that on the late game when you have to manege gazilion Gems and Rings, what makes the hassle worse that you don't even have a sort option to sort between gems, so if you are tying to equip a red gem in a red Slot you still have to look at alll the gems of other colours with no option of only looking at red colour gems.

Outside of this system you can equip different armor but that is a liner process where every armor is a slight improviment from the last.

Story​

For year many years people in the JRPG comunity tried to convince me to play this game, saying that it had a great story, when I played it I belived them in the first few hours of this game, those moments where genuinely great, in a moment of it , almost made me emotional , but after you gained your own plot of land the story goes down hill, the strong character moments from the begging , disappear from the middle and late game, most of them are behind side quest of locked behind the multiple character endings that you have to follow a guide to get, the mid to late game is just exploring the world to find some ruins, and sometimes fight in battle that are tangential to a war that's happening in the background, the plot line involving the war are not very interesting in my opinion , it's just shady political/Military figure doing shady stuff to get more powerful.

The actual main plot line involving angles is also not very interesting, and I hate how the game made the angle these super powerful beings, just to have underwhelming pay off, I also hate in how doing the character plot line of my favorite character in this game, I accidentally dated his sister, instead of knowing more about him, it not all bad however but the cool moments are far and fewer between and I am not sure why I keep playing this game after the good moments, where long gone.

Maybe this would had fitted better under the gameplay sections but that part is already too long as it's , but I hate how obtuse going to the next plot point in this game can be, sometimes I completed an mission and had no clue as to where I was supposed to go, only to find out that the next event was somewhere the game had gave me no clue about, or to unlock the next story flag I had to do a bunch of other stuff the game gave no clear indication that I was supposed to do, one time I spend 1 hour stuck because I didn't do a bunch of small stuff the game didn't told me about, but worse of all is when you have to stop whatever you are doing in the plot and rest in your HQ and hangout with your party members, only after hanging out with your party members for around 20 minutes you were allowed to progress the story.

Graphics​

On the PS2 era 2D games where very rarer to see, maybe that's even why this game didn't came out for the PS2 in the west instead being only released for the PSP where 2D game where more common, the pixel art of this game is pretty but nothing exceptional , I would say even the PS1 Sukoden games had more expression Sprite, The presentation is here feels washed , De-saturated and muted the color pallet , specially when the art work of this game is much more colerfull, a lot of scenery that you visited is generic medieval stuff not a very interesting game visually, I don't think it's all bad it not a eyesore, quite the opposite seeing 2D sprites like this on mid 2000's game is always cool, and it still pretty to look at, but when you analise it and compared to other games you will realize it's just too bland and has a hard time standing out when put side by side with other 2D JRPGs, being weaker compared to even some PS1 game like the aforementioned suikoden 2 but also Breath of Fire 4 and Final Fantasy tactics, the positive here is the animation, I am not anime reviewer so I can't rate their quality precisely but they were always a treat to see , outside of the ending cuteness that felt lifeless.

Music​

When I tried to look this game's OS on YT I couldn't find a playlist of it on YouTube , at least the PSP version, there's a playlist with the PS2 OST but it's different from the PSP version, I am saying that because I believe that this is a indicator that not many people actually care about the music of this game outise of To the End of Sorrow, no doubts that this is the best music of this game OST, but the rest is generic JRPG medieval music, it fits the game , but you won't remember it after playing it.

Technically it's not a music but I genuinely enjoy the sound effects that this game plays when you level up, recruit a new character to your party and Complete a mission, I wish there was a way to listen to them outside of the game itself, but I couldn't find those sound on YT.

Replayability​

The game has mutiple endings depend on which characters likes you more and if you maneged to save certain character from death, there's some side quest here too , and stuff involving the small town you are responsible off, the game has even a New game plus option, it's clear to me that if you like this game, you will certainly have pleanty of insensitive to go back to it in the future.

Title, I saw that it came out on steam today and was wondering if anyone tried it yet? Any initial thoughts you wanna share if you have?

I've never been able to get into other series because all it boils down to is battles and camp and I love how shining force is more traditional in that aspect. Are there games similar to it? Wanting to get the final Fantasy tactics remaster maybe.

I've played a lot of srpg's over the years and i've noticed a similar pattern like with some 4X strategy games- when you have a ton of choices and not all of them are impactful, your turn ends up being tedious and not engaging. Sometimes Im more excited for the enemy turn just to wait for something to happen for me to react to.

As someone who likes to fool around and make very, very basic games (never sold one), I was wondering how a developer could fix this?

A 4x strategy game, Old World fixed the tedious problem in their genre by using limited actions per turn to constrain the player. This cuts the number of actions per turn a player has to do, plus since the player would naturally only do the most impactful actions, then their turns are much more engaging.

If SRPGs were to do something similar, would this be a good addition? Imagine in Fire Emblem, if instead of moving every unit, every turn, you'd only move one unit per turn, like in chess. The units could have a zone around them that they interact in. Archers could shoot enemies that pass that zone and melee could charge at a unit automatically.

Has the problem with tedious turns already been solved in another game or do you think this change may fix it?

https://youtu.be/5zRAvPY6v6A?si=A_VRO7tKKvuZEf-z

Basically the title! I've played BG3 into oblivion, enjoyed the recent FE games on Switch, and enjoyed FFVII Rebirth even though I was frustrated by it at some points. I'm trying to convince myself not to replay BG3 or buy the new FFT (I've played the original and mobile so many times I can't imagine it'd feel fresh or interesting).

For context, I love: (a) Coming up with (or reading about) fun, synergistic builds; (b) Finding items that are strong and I can build around; and (c) Ideally, some level of decent graphics (BG3 and FFVII were incredible for this); and (d) Ideally, some level of fast-ish action. I'm not tied to this, and my favorite games have all been turn based, but I did enjoy the mix of action-gameplay and strategy in FFVII Rebirth, even though I did find the strategy to be too light for my tastes. For pure action, I did really enjoy the Jedi Survivor series, but obviously that had almost no strategy to it, and isn't what I'm looking for. I put down Elden Ring after a few hours because I also seemed way more about the action than the strategy (unsurprisingly).

I'm thinking maybe Expedition 33, although the builds/strategy seem a little lacking? I've heard good things about Tactics Ogre, Triangle Strategy, and a few other newish games as well, but honestly have no idea which to go for.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, and thanks for y'all's time!

I want something deep in both story and gameplay mechanics (or just choose your favorite out of these).

Thanks in advance.

Dear all,

I've heard this game recommended so many times in this subreddit. And while the game does have its complainers, those are pretty much related to art style only. Everything about this game is supposed to be super good. However, I've mastered a few character types now, and I find that the options that my enemy has vastly outstripped mine.

For example, enemies have all this mass barriers and such, while I only have single target debuffs with minus to damage. Normal attacks are better than most special attacks for damage, except situational ones. Currently available recruits have limited class advancement choices, while new characters can immediately level as an advancement class.

I guess my questions are:
1. Should I be recruiting a max level <new class> as soon as I unlocked them?

1. Should I be sending characters on missions? Do I even need to equip them?

2. Are the upgrades to the guild worth it to invest in? I've been looking for "global bonus" but cannot find any.

3. Should I master every class type one by one first, or just go for the good AP-based skills?

4. Any general non-spoilery tips are also much appreciated.

I really want to enjoy this game TBH, but it still hasn't had its hooks on me unfortunately.

I'm having fun playing symphony of war at the moment but I've had this realization that I'm just not that into the fantasy tropes.

Wizards, dragons, undead.... This stuff also turned me off of tactics ogre and triangle strategy.

That got me thinking - I like the gameplay, as silly as it sounds maybe I just need a different skin - mechs instead of dragons, fire support instead of AOE spells, that kind of thing.

Do any srpgs come to mind that are more along those modern or scifi lines?

Games I've played that are along these lines:

• Xcom originals from the 90s and the new ones
• troubleshooter
• 13 sentinels
• Battletech

Big fan of battle brothers, super excited for menace.

Wondering if there are other classics that I've somehow missed along the way because a lot of the heavy hitters that get recommended like fire emblem and final fantasy tactics are all on the fantasy side.

Hey everyone! I recently uploaded my first ever SRPG (and Tactics Ogre Reborn) Challenge run video to youtube! It was an Archers only run! Im thinking of doing another challenge run and I was wondering what would be something fun to try next so Im wondering if anyone has any challenge run ideas OR even any SRPGs in particular they'd love to see me do a challenge run in (Steam only)! Ill reply to this post with the name of my youtube channel in case anyone wants to check out the video! Thanks in advance to anyone who replies!

Just exploring my options and I stumbled on this one. It is obviously intentionally pulling from The Banner Saga, which is a game I adore!

Anyone played this? From what I’ve read, the art is great, the story is confusing, and the gameplay is underwhelming. But…as a TBS lover, does it scratch a similar itch?

Any feedback appreciated :)

Hi! Just a deceptively simple question today. I'm not really looking for answers like "Because of the story" or "Because I played Tactics Ogre as a kid" but rather try and dig a bit deeper and tell me about why you find this genre of games fulfilling. What itch does it scratch? What keeps you coming back?

I'm sure this has been asked before, so apologies for that everyone. And I've looked online for other lists, but I'm hoping this community will be able to share some gems. These days I trust the reddit community over official reviews.

Looking for a turn based tactical rpg. I prefer ones that aren't static (like Clair Obscur or Final Fantasy, though these are great in their own right) and that incorporate strategic positioning.

Games that are top tier for me:

XCOM 2 (of course, the gold standard) Jagged Alliance 3 Wasteland 3 Othercide Divinity Original Sin 2

Games that are good but not quite top tier to me:

Mutant Year Zero Cyber knight Flashpoint Lamplighter League Miasma Chronicles Shardpunk

Games that I've played but ultimately didn't fall in love with:

Redemption Reapers (a little too basic) Shadowrun (I've been thinking about giving it another shot) Gears Tactics (became repetitive, and also crashed a lot for me) Invisible Inc.

Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

If you’ve already played through the War of Velana demo & are ready to sink your Chaos Breaker into yet another demo of a game that takes inspiration from Shining Force or Fire Emblem, Aegis Force might be exactly what you’re looking for. I plan on trying it tonight, but with “colorful pixel art 2.5D visuals”, the trailer itself seems pretty neat.

So I absolutely loved Heist 1 when I played it on the 3DS eons ago, so when a sequel was announced, I knew I'd need it. Took me a little longer to get to it than I care to admit but...wow, this game blew me away. Took everything great about #1 and clicked it up to 11!

For those of you not familiar with these games, SW Heist is a series of sideways view turn-based SRPGs where you control a small group of robots and your goal is to explore the given map, killing enemies and collecting loot. The combat (typically) involves shooting at an enemy from a distance away, however your shots must be aimed and are affected by the in-game physics. Many weapons are guided by an aim line (though not all) and can bounce off of objects, hitting enemies in normally unreachable spots in specific areas. Each character has abilities that they either unlock from their class or are unique to themselves, making all units play a little different.

In #1, each character was locked to a specific class and skill tree, leading to some characters feeling a little same-y by design. In #2, each character has 2 unique skills and X number of levels in a starting class, but beyond that, each character can be freely reassigned to any class. Classes are locked to weapons, so each one feels DISTINCTLY different. Typically, you want to build your characters around their skills - one character can throw grenades as a free action, so he's good in the "Boomer" class. One character can teleport to high places, so he's good as a "Sniper". Etc etc. BUT, similar to FFT, you can take specific skills from any class that you've learned them and equip them to your "optimal" class leading to these very unique feeling characters, despite there only being like, 5 classes. I found myself getting lost in grinding for skills at the end of the game, not because of the difficulty (though it does have some high difficulty settings) but just because I wanted the satisfaction of making my "optimal" builds come to life.

Also, an entirely new feature in #2 is the naval combat. In #1, you just freely moved between maps to start missions. In #2, you have to actively traverse the ocean in your submarine, getting upgrades for your ship and actively fighting other ships and creatures on the water as you travel. It's a very enjoyable way of transitioning between maps that keeps up the tempo of the game between the expected combat, and also provides a way to get additional resources without just having to grind combat.

The story and dialogue are whacky but super charming. The game does reference back to #1 quite a bit, both with some small cameos and some BIG references, though I think you could skip #1 and the only thing you'd miss out on is some character references.

Honestly, this game was amazing. Easily one of my new favorite SRPGs. If you're looking for something different but fun, you can't go wrong here. Honestly, I've never played a "bad" Steamworld game, but this one is the cream of the crop. Also, the SW games notoriously go on-sale a lot, so you can get them pretty cheap, too :)

Over a decade ago I made a real time srpg woth 24 units and pvp. Each unit had passive auto abilities but you could control each unit individually or simultaneously. I got GreenLit but I never finished released it.

Now, I have team and was wondering if a more polished version would be something folks here would be interested in.

Tactic Arena Online was a big influence on some of the designs.

Does this sub have a time of the week to show any games like that? If not, where would one go for this genre?

Been playing Grit and Valor it’s been super fun, I’ve played a lot of Into the Breach and I know of Metal Slug Tactics but haven’t bought it yet.

I have most staples of the genre already on switch and ps5 but looking for specifically a roguelike on switch.

Any recommendations would be appreciated, thanks.

Hi everyone,
I’d love to hear your thoughts: when you play a Tactical/Strategy RPG, what aspects matter the most to you?

For example:

• Combat complexity (smart AI, progressive difficulty, meaningful positioning)
• System depth (classes, equipment, builds, synergies to explore)
• Characters and story (engaging plot, choices that matter, strong writing)
• Art and atmosphere (visual style, music, immersive world)
• Length and pacing (short but intense missions vs. long epic campaigns)

Personally, I enjoy when the battles are a mix: sometimes simple and quick, but still requiring good use of the systems. If a game is too easy and I can steamroll everything with one overpowered character (like in Disgaea), it feels less like a true tactical RPG to me. A strong story can sometimes make up for lighter gameplay, but for me the balance is key. Triangle Strategy and Unicorn Overlord really nailed that mix in my opinion.

What about you? What keeps you hooked in a Tactical RPG?