izigame.me

I absolutely loved Final Fantasy Tactics (well over 2000 hours) and had Reborn recommended to me as comparable title, however I still found Tactics superior to :Reborn in several ways.
(Note: I never played the previous tactics ogre, only the reborn version and I am aware the previous version has a lot of the things i disliked about Reborn)
The game has some solid benefits and I will list each Pro and Con below:

PROS:

Story - CHOICES MATTER! the story will adjust and go down an alternate path based on the choice so there is lots replay-ability
Steam deck Compatible!
Combat - I enjoy the Rock, Paper, Scissors combat system or well PIERCING, CRUSHING, SLASHING and what armour / class counters each, however I found it was not explained overly well to the player and I had to search online for a more in-depth explanation of this, there are also character "Elements" where you have your standard Fire beats ice beats Earth which is explained however if the units are weak to one another I do not know, only found that they were weak/strong to that damage type
Class Balancing - They balanced a lot of the classes to where you cant just run 3 archers 4 ninjas and absolutely wreck the game, (this is both a negative and positive to me, sometimes its fun to just absolutely roll through the game with certain builds) and feel the need to take a lot of different classes as each does its own version of damage (Piercing, crushing, slashing) sticking to a single class will get you absolutely rolled if you run into its counter
Crafting - The addition to Craft and improve your gear is brilliant, it feels more open with equipment and you know your characters are going to get stronger when you see that "New items are now in stock at the shop" text appear
Difficulty - The AI makes the correct choice in almost every situation and will burst your healer or caster if they get too close
Overworld - The overworld is similar to that of FFT where you move around the map from tile to tile, they removed the "Random battles" and instead added a "Training" option to the citys which allows you to farm up to level cap prior to a story engagement, I do like this change as it was annoying as hell to go from A-> Z and have to do 5 battles in a row, or running out of items and saving after every tile.
Spells - Its strange to see that a lot of classes can use magic, its neat because you dont need a healer to heal other units without the use of items, however they are limited to the weaker versions of the spells.
Finishing Moves - This has to be my favourite part of Tactics Ogre, Once you get level 10 in a weapon skill you unlock a skill that costs between 40-50 mana (based on the weapon) and feel extremely powerful, you unlock more and more as you level up and these skills hit HARD and are your main source of damage when you have the mana to spare.

CONS:

No Cross-class skills - I know some people enjoy this change as it removes the need to play other classes & potentially breaking the game, however it removes the "Tactics" feel, it is always fun mixing up class skills (ex. taking dual wield on Berserker would have been a blast)
Level Capped - This is an interesting addition however it feels not needed or maybe a select-able option? there have been several missions I found in the story where you are just at an extreme disadvantage (i.e Enemy has a castle and 8 archers and 3 mages, 2 knights and they have like 7 free turns to rain arrows down while you slowly move your warriors up and my archer couldn't shoot over the edge, on top of having a +1 level advantage on you) I also get that this is used to stop people from over-levelling the quest, but it feels limiting.
Class System - You are limited to Early / Mid-Late game classes as they are based on a Token system. you cannot farm classes early and are stuck to the basic classes for quite some time until you either kill that enemy in the battlefield or buy it in the shop. Unlike in tactics where you are able to learn Ninja / Samurai fairly early and begin mastering them. I am not a fan of being tied down to a single class for a majority of the game, however there is a sense of reward when you find a battle that has THAT class you want and you kill it and get the token
Maps - Some maps are copy and pasted but turned around, some maps have like 3-4 SINGLE PATHS meaning you can send like 4 characters one and are forced to split the party into opposite sides of the map or just skip skip skip until the enemy gets close :(
Skills - Your characters are able to take 4 skills, however I have found that you NEED to take your characters weapon skill otherwise they do 1 damage with everything, so realistically you are limited to 3 skills, which I have not run into any issues with it yet, but I can see myself running into issues later (Currently my Berserker has Sanguine Strike (Mandatory), Fist weapon, Berserk) I found all of these are mandatory for my character to even be useful, So i only have 1 skill slot that is flexible, also they dont have a list of skills or anything ANYWHERE IN THE GAME, you need to either level up your character and just hope you get something new, or just look up an old skill guide from the previous version. surprised in a reborn game from 20+ years ago you couldnt add this in as a list somewhere?
Price = BUY ON SALE: If this game ever goes on sale below the over priced AAA title price I would recommend picking it up, however its very very difficult to recommend this game at full price as I do believe it would be better to just emulate the old version as its vastly superior to :Reborn in just about every single way and its a lot cheaper
All in all I think this is still an enjoyable product and I would give it an honest rating of 6.5/10, if they added a CLASSIC & REBORN mode where you can play the old combat, class & Levelling system on the updated engine + story that would honestly make this a 10/10 but the changes to the Cross class skill + Level cap dropped it down a few ratings in my books, and the fact that you feel forced to rush the boss down rather than full clear the battlefield to get new classes & items, and some maps just feel unfair to the player.