Good Game Design - Tactics Games
Vložit
- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
- Let's talk about all the fantastic game design I've noticed so far from diving into tactics and strategy games.
PATREON ► / snomangaming
MERCH STORE ► www.teespring.com/stores/snoma...
SNOMAN GAMING 2 ► / snomangaming2
DISCORD SERVER ► / discord
TWITTER ► / snomangaming
#GoodGameDesign #TacticsGames #SnomanGaming - Hry
I love Advance Wars.
Starting with a disadvantage and winning anyway is so satisfying.
You know a game series is good when Nintendo suddenly decides to stop making installments or even acknowledging its existence.
That's strange. Most battles in AW actually start you with an advantage designed to look like a disadvantage.
For example, the enemy may have a ton of battle copters, but they don't have tanks, so you can steamroll them with anti-airs. This is a common trick in many strategy games.
me too I love how it actully feels like your at war
@Joshua Suh I certainly hope so.
@@zerarch77 That is indeed an example of starting with an advantage.
However, what I had in mind is more like the final battles with Sturm.
Games mentioned in video
Wargroove (2019)
Mario + rabbids Kingdom battle (2017)
final fantasy tactics advance (2003)
invisible inc (2015)
chroma squad (2015)
fire emblem (2003)
steamworld heist (2015)
advance wars (2001)
Xcom enemy unknown (2012)
pit people (2017)
into the breach
he should try xenonauts too
Probably just me but I was hoping to see some Valkyria in the list :(
Not one 4X or RTS? I've always considered those more Tactics/strategy games more than whats listed above.
Thank you!
@@wookinbingprime5946 that's because there's a subtle but really important difference between a tactic and a strategy, while 4x's like Civilization series and RTS's like Age of Empires series have both of them defined by you, tactics game have the strategy defined by the game itself, while you control the tactical engagement of your troops, ok so for an example:
Let's say Battletech 2018, while you have some degree on what you will use to complete the mission, you don't have the same level of choice on what strategy will be used on it, let's say you have to assault an enemy convoy, the strategy is assault the designed target, what you are doing on the battlefield is using your tactical ability to complete the strategy objective, most of the time we think that strategy is complicated, but most of the time a simple frase can be described as the strategy, while the tactics is the means to completing the strategy, that's way 4x and RTS games aren't Tactics games, it all stand's from the fact that you can use tactics in an strategy game does not mean it you can use strategy in an tactics game
My favorite "AH-HA!" moment in a tactics game is probably when I realized how incredibly useful the Warp and Rescue staves were in Fire Emblem, which blew my mind when I was a kid who didn't really think things through all that much in those games. Another was when I noticed that the CPU in the Advance Wars games has a tendency to attack personnel carriers, so I could just produce APCs and T-Copters to use as a distraction to advance the units I actually cared about along another route.
Yes that is beautiful stuff right there
rescue staves is one of the best item to rush the objective boss when every unit except the important ones are defeated
yeah, suck it garon
Warping a Knight where Archers hung out to kill them all was one of the most satisfying moments I've had.
My favorite moment wasn't even a good one, but it was hilarious. I was doing a Fire Emblem ironman (You never reset and if you get a game over, the run is done.) I had this one archer named Setsuna who is known as being useless personality wise. Her first round of combat she missed a 95% chance hit and got killed by a 3% crit. I was dying laughing.
I noticed that too and only thought of it as a negative because I had to lose units. This is so wickedly clever and I've been playing Advance Wars for years but never would have thought of it myself. Might try it even though it will hurt lol.
Dude so stoked you're digging tactics games. Like hearing you understand why they're so satisfying makes me so happy. Lowkey favorite genre for years. ALSO DID YOU GUYS SEE ME HEADSHOT THAT ALIEN?!?!??!??!
Dude, threw that shot in cuz it was so baller lol
BOOM, headshot!! Couldn't resist that reference, lol.
@@snomangaming at 2:23 can you tell the title of that game?
Fft is and probably always will be my favorite game of all time
mang adi 3859 advance wars. Game boy advance.
What's an airport again?
Gosh darn it, Andy, who decided to make you a CO?
Namadu More important, who thought it was a good idea to clone him?
xD I love this joke
Egglord!
Kanbei need bases
Man, Into the Breach is a continuous series of a-ha moments. Love this game. In Darkest Dungeon, one form of damage your heroes suffer is stress, and it is harder to heal. But if you land a critical hit on your enemies, it heals some stress. The a-ha moment was when I managed in a run to up the critical chance of my heroes so highly that I was stress healing every turn. It is a very difficult and unforgiving game but when you learn to synergize it's mechanics it becomes a lot more interesting.
Yo checkout this template for a grid tactics game , this one is by far the best ive seen so far
czcams.com/video/hqIATP5BLaQ/video.html
I will always instantly click a thumbnail with Andy in it. God advance wars was good.
Advance Wars > Fire Emblem
@@zerarch77 They're different genres. FE has tighter tactical gameplay generally speaking while the strategic considerations are based mostly on which characters you decide to use and whether you're going for Low Turn Count or not. AW's more strategic, and I say that because the optimal tactical play often devolves to infantry/mech/artillery spam near the central fighting area unless the map is explicitly designed to encourage something else, like going for an HQ cap, and there's more variety to be found in those map setups compared to what FE does.
All of the Advance Wars games were amazing, not a single one was bad!
I didnt know who that was i was just "damn that is a sweet looking character design who os that"
And here it is, in the first comment!
@@Flowtail Advanced wars featured some of the best character sprite work (and sprite work in general) that I have seen in a game, amazing for a GBA and DS game
Always loved final fantasy tactics (advance and otherwise) for being the best expression of the job system. There were so many fun little broken strategies with combining classes to make even the supposed 'weak' members of your team unstoppable badasses. The most memorable one for me was making my blue mage also my white mage. So they could heal and then when in danger use bad breath or take advantage of always having re-raise to be a walking time bomb with self destructs that they could heal themselves from casually. In the original tactics I just always loved giving my white mage a gun to snipe when they don't have healing. Something so awesome about a white robed calm looking lady just pulling out a rifle and pot shotting in between blessings.
The Battle For Wesnoth is a free tactics game with a day/night cycle where some units are strong during different times of day. It also features units favoring certain types of terrain and a level editor so you can make your own campaigns. I have been playing it for years, it has really come a long way.
This is the comment I went searching for. Admittedly, Battle for Wesnoth has its fair share of weak spots stemming mostly from its concept age, but makes up for it with infinite modularity and very active community of not just players, but content creators as well.
It's really a good game to play with friends
Yo checkout this template for a grid tactics game , this one is by far the best ive seen so far
czcams.com/video/hqIATP5BLaQ/video.html
This comment will be drowned among the others, but I'd want to suggest any Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game! Although they're rogue-likes, they have tactical RPG elements, involving how you use your items and plan for certain scenarios, how you fight certain types of Pokemon and occasionally deal with minor terrain, all while balancing movement, since enemies can't move a space forward or attack unless you do either. Explorers of Sky is by most considered the best in the series, so maybe give it a try!
I second this. Weirdly in depth and fun.
I recommend Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wander. Although I've not played the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, all Shiren fans have told me that they are easier and generally not as good.
@@zerarch77 As a fan of both, I agree. PMD doesn't have shiren's permadeath, each individual fight is far easier, items, while still important, aren't nearly as Central to the gameplay, and the latest ones have scrapped any semblance of difficulty whatsoever. The first five are still quite enjoyable, especially if you can look past the brokenness of multi-hit moves in RRT and BRT.
On the flip side, I would consider Shiren almost too hard, but maybe I'm just a noob.
@@xlordday7241 You're just a noob ^_^ Shiren is very manageable once you start to refine your strategy-until the post-game dungeons. Then things get crazy.
PMD is less strategy than more of a dungeon crawling game though, which could give him another genre to look at
Into The Breach really is an absolute masterclass in strategy game design.
dude, your channel is so underrated, I know you will keep getting subscribers because your stuff is pure gold.
Now that you've gotten a few Tactics games under your belt, I highly recommend checking out the Disgaea games. They're sort of an amalgamation of mechanics from Final Fantasy Tactics, Mario + Rabids, and Pit People, with a degree of minmaxing and character customization that I've yet to see truly replicated, while using narrative mechanics as gameplay mechanics as well. Want to make a powerful new unit? Gotta go through the Netherworld bureaucracy of the Dark Senate, but don't worry, if they deny you, you can always beat 'em up. Stuff like that. It's a really charming mix of humor and heart and I just adore them.
I really want to like Disgaea, but it hasn't clicked like other tactics games for me. Feels too busy and too anime trope heavy. Admittedly I started with 5, I will be going back to 1 when I get a chance to see if I can click that way (switch).
As much as I like the Disgaea series they're less about actual strategy/tactics and are considered to be more of a sandbox-y RPG with a focus on grinding or min/maxing, which goes against the point of this video. If anything, the biggest challenge in Disgaea is constructing a self-made difficulty level that isn't too easy or too hard (since you usually have to be forcefully underlevelled to find much challenge).
Disgaea is the Dynasty Warriors or Pokemon of 'strategy' games. It's pure fun over depth.
the music of disgaea is pretty good tho
@@DLuna333 The Disgaea series and general Atlus Tactics titles have a significant amount of depth to them, more than the average title really, with the number of disparate mechanics pumped into each.
The difference is in the process they follow when it comes to balancing, and the sacrifice of one interesting element that most other Tactics titles keep: whether to encourage or discourage Broken power matchups.
To ensure that most maps can be won or lost, several things are done to equalize power levels. Units are the same, resources are balanced, and all sorts of work is done to make each map a singular puzzle to be solved. Even the tactics rpgs with levels can limit the total amount or rate of exp acquired to keep the levels even. But Disgaea doesn't do that, and that gives them the freedom to exploit a great many mechanics to a higher level than other games.
The puzzle begins before you even start a fight, stacking various methods of progression to get exponentially stronger. In the main story, proper specialization can make you 5 times as effective as a base template. Postgame? 100 to 1000. That doesn't make the game itself EASY per se, since the game will also be throwing more and more powerful setups as well. The point is that the fun is shifted significantly more towards the building of your party compared to other titles, and it has an interesting side-effect of also speeding up encounters that really don't matter through brute force.
Disgaea isn't the 100% perfect Tactics series of all time, but by actively doing some things very differently from everyone else, they've carved a very powerful niche for themselves.
@@benedict6962 Depth =/= bloated pool of mechanics that mostly exist to min/max your units. I'm not saying that's a detriment to the game, Disgaea knows what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything different. And part of the appeal of Disgaea is to overpower the game in ways that can't really be done in other games. That's why its fun.
Otherwise, you'll only really find challenge if you force it; trying to equally level up a group of 10 units with no grinding. But with early access to the item world and other elements, it's pretty clear that that's not the developer's intention of how you should play. It's a sandbox to go wild with.
Strategic depth is not its forte. Some of the story maps can present a cute puzzle, but comparing it to the likes of XCOM, Into the Breach or some the harder FE titles isn't really applicable at all. But it's not trying to compete with games like those.
The very first permadeath moment in my first Fire Emblem (Sacred Stone) game was eye opening. Before i was just rushing through and thought "hey, this is so easy." But then i ran into a random encounter on the map and one of my units got wiped. The death screen was so heartbreaking that i immediately resetted and put way more care into my actions from then on forward.
When I put one of my tougher less damaging units onto a chokepoint in FE:SS and he proceeded to score three critical hits in a row and be killed by the subsequent counter attacks I ended up with very different tears.
You shouldn't have resetting. Accept your mistake and push on.
subseven resetting is part of the experience it's your time vs your unit
@@takumidoutou4412 Resetting isn't inherently part of the experience. You make it part of the experience yourself. It's much more appropriate to go through with the game as it is intended to be played.
I also tend to reset my game when I lose a unit, and I'm actually not too proud of it. On one hand a death scene tends to hit me harder than it should, but on the other hand the option to simply undo every mistake I make is just encouraging a reckless playstyle of trial and error. Fire Emblem is designed to make you care for every single character as its own distinct uniqueness.
This is why I like games that feature automatical saves for every action. The turn-based combat of games like Darkest Dungeon (despite hardly being a strategy game) does not pardon a single error. Its design unforgiving of both bad decisions and RNG has made me tilt several times before, but even after losing all my strongest characters to an equal distribution of mistakes, bad luck and my unwillingness to admit defeat, I find myself appreciating this style of game design far more than Fire Emblem offering a reset to the last manual save sate whenever you turn off your console. The very philosophy of unique and indispensable characters, permanent actions and the respective risk that comes along becomes naught.
Fire Emblem is the one strategy game series I come back to more often than any other. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem possible to balance the design ideas with an appropriate challenge level. Other games offer a theoretically endless supply of new units to use, Fire Emblem only unlocks a limited number over the course of the campaign. Actually losing multiple of those units may indeed encourage a safer playstyle and, consequently, actually getting better at the game, but it'd also lead to a lot of frustration and an ever increasing difficulty. I'm rather certain the games do not feature a fail-safe feature for when someone lets all non-protagonist characters fall in combat.
Chapter 7 of Fire Emblem 6.
When I finally was able to get to the characters fast enough for them to survive
I was introduced into video games with Advance Wars. Tactics has been my favorite game type since chess though :). I have really learned the value of good asymmetrical design. And there is always turn 1 advantage to compensate for. But when you win, you really feel like you earned it with your own strategy.
No mention of disgaea? When most tactic games strive for perfect balance, disgaea is all about finding how to abuse the multiple exploit.
One thing that I love about Final F. Tactic is how abilities can synergize with each other to make something cool like a monk that can hit 2 times with his bare fist thanks to a ninja ability.
My favorite tactical game is by and far Shining Force II on the Sega Genesis. No one ever talks about it, but its such an amazing journey, and it doesn't have anything to do with the first Shining Force game, so its a great introduction to tactics based RPGs
I'm still really bummed out that we never got the other 2 parts of Shining Force 3, that game rules as well.
@@SherlockHyde I've been dying to get my hands on the american Saturn release for so long but its just so expensive
They're mostly translated at this point and I played SF iii up to the 4th chapter in Scenario 2 where my game froze. I'd actually have say it's even better than SF ii.
@@mistertagomago7974 I wish it weren't such a pain to get Saturn emulators to run well, I finally got one working good enough to enjoy Panzer Dragoon Saga a few years back only for a hard drive crash to force me to go through the trouble all over again. Ideally, Sega would just put out Sega Ages versions of their Saturn games and localize the ones that never came out here for that, but I don't really expect that to happen, which is a shame because the Saturn has some amazing games that just never came out here, or came out here in depressingly limited releases.
Based on it's best entries I probably like the Saturn more than the ps2. I did manage to play and beat Panzer Dragoon Saga. I did accidentally lose my data at the end of the first disc but I didn't have trouble playing through it again since it was short and fun enough.
thank you so much for the subtitles! I have big problems taking in information through audio alone and the subtitles make your videos much more enjoyable for me! 🐸💘
One of my favorite moments was with Divinity Original Sin 2 (Highly recommend this game btw incredibly fun). In this game there are some objects you can move freely such as Paintings, barrels, boulders, etc. but have little value to the player. As me and my friends readied for ta tough upcoming battle, we noticed our characters could not pass through a rolled up rug on the ground. My friend had the idea to use that small rug to block the doorway and force the enemy into getting stuck outside as we pelted from range. This worked surprisingly well. Our character that had a teleport ability started the engagement and warped back to safety while the enemy stumbled over themselves in the doorway. Seeing a big bad crusader guy unable to walk over a small rug was hilarious and we made an otherwise tough fight look incredibly easy!
minor quip, but when you were talking about game speed you showed a clip of fire emblem being slow kinda implying it's always that slow, but you can increase movement speed and turn off battle animations in fire emblem too
Nah FE didn't bother me much at all, just showing that the stages are longer than other games with that specific clip, but that's good to know that you can speed it up, very good. FFTA on the other hand...lol
I can never bring myself to turn off animations in the GBA games tbh.
Quibble, not quip.
that's not what a quip is x3
An important design piece of tactics games that I feel wasn't fleshed out enough was that interesting tactics games can force you into into making hard decisions.
This comes in two forms: tough decisions throughout a specific battle, and tough decisions throughout the game. Throughout the game is simple enough; one example is you might have to choose which units will come together to complement each others' weaknesses, and potentially leave out otherwise powerful units.
However, I think the more interesting part of making hard decisions in tactics games come from battle-by-battle or turn-by-turn choices. And these in-battle choices come in many forms. Maybe the player can choose to play risky by pushing to complete an objective quickly because the game incentivizes small turn totals. Or enemies are placed or spawned in just the right way to put a constant pressure on the player to stay alive. Or in order to develop a weak character in a strong one for future battles, that fragile character has to be exposed to enemy attacks, potentially killing them.
All these in-battle decisions come down mostly to level design, and how the developers create a mission to let interesting gameplay emerge. And this interesting gameplay can only be emergent if the player has alternatives between risky play and a safer option. That way, less experienced players can still get through the game, while a challenge is waiting for more experienced ones. Players that take those risky options get a massive payoff when their decisions pay off and they see some kind of reward, like money, items, or stronger units.
I have come to one of these very hard battle decisions in Disgaea. In the game there is a randomly generated dungeon called Item World which you can only exit every 10 levels and has variable difficulty. So I entered the Item World with very low level characters for the difficulty I was going through and it was challenge just to not lose any character. When I reached the 10th level the enemies had more level than my party and in a formation that could kill half of them in a turn.
Prefering not to lose half an hour of progress since my last save, I decided to use a big area spell that would hit and kill one of my characters. Which meant that in next turn I lost 3 characters instead of 5 and that I managed to save the situation. It was a very tense and sad moment even tough the game does not have perma death.
Yo checkout this template for a grid tactics game , this one is by far the best ive seen so far
czcams.com/video/hqIATP5BLaQ/video.html
My recent "Aha" moment from a tactics game was Sacred Stones, when I realised that while there will be reinforcements eventually from a southeastern corner of the map, they can easily be held off by two units, and so could move rest of that guarding force to a much more dangerous front.
I see Andy whats an Airport, I get baited to watch the video.
First
Yo checkout this template for a grid tactics game , this one is by far the best ive seen so far
czcams.com/video/hqIATP5BLaQ/video.html
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more intelligent in my life than when I first figured out how to properly utilize the Rescue command in Fire Emblem. It can really change how you play once you start to think of it less as a Rescue and more as a Ferry. Pairing this with dancing, rescue chains can just make the player phase a lot more interesting.
Also, if you could do one of these for 3D collectathon platformers that’d be pretty cool
And then we have Disgaea's speciality: numbers!
*1 billion damage intensifies*
*deals 10.000.000 damage* those numbers are big for sure! ^^
We dem combos and number for the super boss Baal
The franchise gives you many ways for you to finish levels. From grinding and farming to buff up your units to using advantages of combos, team attacks, and tower attacks while making use of each unit's evilities
It's still my favourite tactical rpg
I am in love with this channel :(
Great video as always man, keep it up
WHERE IS SHINING FORCE?!
I think it is important to know these things... even if the game you are making doesn't deal with that specific genre. For instance, understanding the core reasons why these games are satisfying in a turn based combat would help if you were making an RTS. I would even contend this could help when making an MMORPG. Action based combat is much faster and about twitch based reflexes, but tab target MMORPGs are a bit slower and only allow you typically to attack or CC a single target at a time. CC's that effect more than one target are limited by CDs. People only talk about the pros of action combat or the cons of tab target, but there are pros and cons to every design decision.
To me, the benefit tab target (with its slower pace and limits on attacking a single target) is the ability to focus on strategy. This is a strength that an action combat MMORPG will never have. So many tab target MMORPGs seem not to understand that, as they have a severely limited amount of abilities or are pruning them like in WoW. By doing so, you are limited the potential options each "turn" (GCD), and what you are left with feels less like a game of chess, and more like a game of tic tac toe, which lacks depth and is predictable. Also, strategy requires not just choice, but more than one way to accomplish a goal, with varying consequences (good or bad) based on the decisions made. This is at odds with a limited set of abilities.
If one were working on an action combat MMORPG, it is important to know where the influences are coming from. One such influence is fighting games. Thinking about it in this context, having too many abilities can be a hindrance. You could also look at areas where an MMORPG falls flat if you throw fighting game mechanics on top, such as pacing.
In fighting games, you usually have a "vs." screen at the start of a match, a short break before you can begin when an announcer says "round one.... fight!". You can then look at how long matches tend to last (and how they are limited with a timer) to get a feel. When someone loses all health, the game usually slows down a tad as they hit the ground, the winner of the round does a quick animation indicating their victory, and traditionally you wait a bit longer as the score ticks upward. Rinse and repeat for consecutive rounds with the break with an announcer, and sometimes there is a screen after that shows who wins and who loses. So the pattern of pacing is a longer break in between matches, short breaks in between rounds, and limited periods of intense action. Action>short break>Action>short break>Action>long break>repeat.
MMORPGs today usually have you going from mob to mob in longer stretches, with breaks coming in when you have to go to town to turn in/accept quests, sell items, etc. Dungeons almost have no break in action, and raids only have breaks before boss fights, with boss fights that can be as long as 10 minutes. This pacing could be tiring for players doing very intense, action based combat. Perhaps you could bring back older MMORPG mechanics of having to eat or drink every few mobs? You could also have each mob take longer to kill solo and space them out a bit more. There can be other things besides combat you might want to do from time to time, like GW2 has with puzzles (jumping or otherwise).
What if in dungeons, the layout included a bit more space between packs of mobs, or every few packs? Maybe when bosses appear there is a short, introduction or cinematic? Could you do the same for phases in a raid boss fight? You could also design raid fights around the idea of every so often having to stop combat to deal with other mechanics like movement. Of course, you have to think about how all of these changes might effect the MMORPG side of things, like if too many quick cut scenes hurts immersion.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but stepping outside your comfort zone of game genres can really help, and when working on something that takes influences from multiple genres, you have to understand what makes those games work and feel great. Either way, you are increasing your tookit of design tricks, and who knows? Maybe you will come up of a blend of two different genres that is really enjoyable.
I don't think I ever had a moment when things "clicked" as you mentionned, but I know that I loved, in FFTA, to equip characters with armor that make them absor magical damage. Spells usually cover several squares, so I could use these units to attack ennemies head-on, then use my mages to deal more damage to the ennemies while healing my own units with one single spell. The objective was to find the right balance with placement so that I could hurt ennemies as much as possible while avoiding those who could reflect or absorb them...
It was a great game...
Into the breach is sooo good. I still remember the moment when I realized that I could leave smoke near the buildings to protect them from melee attacks, or when I have broken a mountain by making an enemy bump another enemy into it, it makes you feel like you are smart while punishing you a lot. Permadeath plus roguelike system? Beautiful
Very cool video, thanks. Discovered some new games and also got few ideas for my own tactical game :)
So glad you played Chroma Squad since I recommended it on your last video dude, it's a vastly underrated game that I enjoyed a lot!
Mario + Rabbids has been a great introduction to strategy games for me. I’ve played some before, but it really helped me fall in love with the genre. Looking forward to Into the Breach and SteamWorld Heist next.
You dropped this video as soon as I got interested in tactics games! 😊 I started Final Fantasy Tactics a few days ago. I've always been intimidated to play tactics games but I'm realizing how fun they can actually be.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying tactics games. As far as difficulty adjustment, I like how Super Robot Wars: Original Generation does it. In those games, each mission has a bonus objective, like clearing within a number of turns. During your playthrough, the game dynamically scales it’s difficulty based on how many of these you’re able to achieve. It’s unfortunately not something directly chosen by the player, but it does usually mean the game is scaling well to how good you are. And achieving enough of them for the game to graduate you to Hard mode feels awesome. Like “Yeah, I’m no pushover, you better give it everything you’ve got!”
Another gem of this genre you don’t mention is Valkyria Chronicles, I definitely recommend those games highly!
If you’re looking to broaden your horizons, and given how much you’re enjoying tactics games, how about checking out tactics sister genre, RTS? Which stands for Real Time Strategy. Age of Empires 3 is one of my favorites, and you can’t go wrong with good old Starcraft. The highest rated RTS of all time is Company of Heroes, so it must be doing something right, too. And I greatly enjoyed Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2.
It'd be nice to see farming simulators covered. Like Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, Harvest Moon, the Rune Factory series, etc.
My favorite are the farming tactics games.
Agreed!
@@owlblocksdavid4955 ...is this a thing?
When you were talking about FFTA and bringing few units into battle and challenges it reminded me when of when I did a few Solo Ramza/Single Class challenges (don't remember the name) in FFT.
FFT is a very easy to break game and not very well balanced, so it was only during these challenges that I actually learned in depth about various mechanics that I either ignored or brute forced through in normal gameplays. Still one of my favourites =P
I few old games that I recommend are Vandal Hearts (especially the second one) and the Ogre Series (Tactics Ogre/Ogre Battle).
Great video! It's so cool to learn about the careful attention to detail that that this underappreciated genera can have.
My greatest A-HA moment was in Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX. There's a battle where the main character Ramza starts separated from the rest of the team on the inner side of a castle wall, and has to fight a Dark Knight named Gafgarion on his own and/or open the gate so that his allies can help him, or so that he can help his allies fight Gafgarion's soldiers on the outside.
Ramza was doing fine against Gafgarion, but my team was getting absolutely wrecked by an enemy Summoner. I simply couldn't stop him from dealing massive AoE damage to my party every freakin' time, sometimes more than once. After losing countless times, I decided to start the battle with nothing but Ramza on the inner side (which was mandatory) and a single Lancer on the ouside. The Lancer has the Jump ability: he leaps skyward, disappearing for an entire round before falling on top of an enemy for critical damage.
What happened then was that, upon using the Jump ability, the enemies on the ouside were left with no viable targets as the Lancer was temporarily removed from battle, so they all just skipped their turns. The Lancer then proceeded to Jump every round (he had high Speed and would act before the enemies), cleaning them all up entirely on his own without getting hit once. I'll admit it was a bit cheesy since it exploited the enemy AI but goddamn, it felt incredible to wipe out an entire enemy squad with just one guy.
I still adore final fantasy tactics a2.
The combat felt strategic, the world felt alive, and the progression system felt soooo good.
There was always a new cool class to try, and a new cool skill to unlock.
One of my favourite games of all time, sadly they never made another one :(
That reminds me I need to go back and finish it. At this point I'd probably have to start over cause I forgot everything though...
Yay! My first new video I caught since I subbed! Love your vids!!
Edit: thanks so much for the heart! -I'm fangirling right now!-
I'm thankful!
so i was playing the first disgaea game, i was in the item world, and i had one character run around the map setting up a gaint geo panel explosion, as i tried to get the rest of my units to somehow lure the enemy units off of these tiles that gave them invincibility, without risking thier death. needless to say i finished setting up the geo panel combo before i could get any significant damge off on the enemies, so i moved as much into safety as i destroyed one of the geo crystals. i wasn't entirely sure if the combo was as efficient as possible or not, because it was hard for me to keep track, but after i set it off it destroyed all the geo crystals, killed all the units (including my only unit on the field) and got rid of all the geo panels giving me the most perfect score i could've gotten in that level. needless to say, it was a pretty cool moment.
Great video as always. Made me really happy to see bunch of my favorite games and know you just discovered them. I wish I could re-experience some of them for the first time.
I can strongly recommend Shining Force series as well as Pokémon Conquest. Shining Force 2 was the first tactics game I ever played. Since you talked about the differences between each one, I think this one stands out because it has RPG-like exploration in-between battles.
Seeing as everybody is talking about their favorite tactics games I will talk about mine,Devil Survivor. My absolute favorite RPG,SRPG,and favorite Megami Tensei game. The depth,story,and soundtrack make this game outstanding in every way. For people who don't know devil survivor is a SRPG made by Atlus originally for the DS. The game takes place in modern day Japan when a sudden lockdown on Tokyo makes you and everybody else unable to leave. The reason,demons have appeared in Tokyo why,how,for what purpose? I will not spoil but it is an incredible story that always kept me interested and wanting to see how it progresses.
Now time to talk about gameplay. It is essentially a standard Megami Tensei game with fusion,weakness abuse,and the like but with no demon recruitment,instead you buy demons from auctions. Sadly there is no press turn system instead you get an extra turn when you hit a weakness or get a critical hit. This is done to make the skirmishes shorter as well as keeping the game not too complex. So for someone who knows megaten you will feel at home. The main gimmick is instead of dungeon crawling you do battles on a very FF Tactics area with some elevation in areas but usually it is flat.
This comment is long already so I'll stop here but I implore people to experience this wonderful game with great gameplay,story,soundtrack the only fault it has is it being on the DS makes it not look or sound amazing,but the 3DS version called Devil Survivor Overclocked makes it perfect.
ah nice, I've been wanting to try a few SMT games and I didn't realize this one was unique in that way!
3:24
Invisible Ink: *gets spotted*
ME: "It's rewind time"
This is a really good take on what makes tactics games well-designed! Well done sir
Real good video, made most of the concepts very tangible! Would've been nice if you included the game titles in the description though (which luckily someone in the comments did).
Why there's no Valkyria Chronicles in the list?
@chobopanda Not to mention how ridiculously gamebreaking the order system can be. Most of the game's levels can be beat with just a single order stacked scout. And using Alicia in VC1 is just a randomly activated cheat mode.
P.S.: There's a certain boss in VC4 that has two phases when they get to half health, but i never knew that in my first playthrough because i just used a simple Grenadier and Engineer combo to beat it on the first turn before they could even change phases. You can even beat the final boss of VC4 in the first turn he shows up by order stacking a single unit and firing maybe twice.
My favorite "Ah HA!" moment in tactics games was when I realized that, in Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, you could teach an assassin the Concentrate support ability and turn her into a bunny-eared weapon of mass destruction!
Giving that game the respect it deserves, I see! ;)
I'm actually going on a family trip to Arizona for Spring Break and decided to get Civilization VI on the Switch because I've been seeing how much you've been enjoying turn based strategy games! Great videos man!
Favourite "A-ha moment"? That'd have to be something that happened very recently, that I discovered in the middle of recording a Let's Play of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. I realized I could un-transform Laguz INTENTIONALLY to lure the AI. For those who don't know, Laguz are shape-shifters who need to fill up a meter and transform into beast form, which doubles all their major stats, to do any real damage. In Radiant Dawn (I don't think you have this option in Path of Radiance) you can choose to un-transform at any time, and originally I saw no use for this.
But then I was playing 4-2 and accidentally put Elincia (a flying unit) in range of a bow enemy. I realized I could use a Shove-chain to get Ranulf into range of the same enemy and un-transform him, and was banking on the AI to target him due to untransformed units' horrible defense and speed (I calculated he'd still live due to Laguz having massive HP). Sure enough, they did.
Later in 4-4, there was a Sleep Staff Bishop that I didn't want targeting Ike, but I also needed Ike to move forward into his range and there was no-one else in range with lower Resistance than him (enemies with status staves in RD usually go for whoever they're most likely to hit). Except Maurim would have lower Res if he was intransformed, so I moved him just barely into range of the Sleep staff and sure enough, the AI targeted him and left Ike and Nailah alone.
I've been playing the game for around a decade and I never knew intentionally un-transforming could be used that way. It also doesn't set your meter to 0, so depending on their type the Laguz could still be able to transform back next turn. I still think RD's Laguz system is really unbalanced as a whole but things like this show it had potential if only they could refine it more.
Don't see enough of Invisible Inc. out there. Thanks for exposing this great game.
It's funny. I've heard about the game a month ago and since then everyone seems to be talking about it.
Valkyria Chronicles is my personal favorite. More of a JRPG to a certain extent, but the class-based units and the wonderful battlefield design leads to great tactical gameplay.
This is your best written video yet. Well done.
Hey thanks, I'm really proud of how it all came together!
Awesome video, you make fantastic content, very thoughtful and substantial stuff.
I may have to try into the breach again, I get so frustrated with it every time I try.
Fire Emblem though, oh man the first one in GBA was prime time.
Damn snoman, you really got bit by the tactics bug, huh? I'm here for it!!
Now that you have a few tactics games under your belt you should really give the Disgaea series a try. The games push their own mechanics past the breaking point intentionally allowing for some crazy deep strategies and exploits.
Exploits are bad in a strategy game though.
@@mistertagomago7974 I imagine its a case where exploits are needed to win, and thus the game is balanced. Although, RPGs with leveling systems tend to suck hard at balancing anything at any time, so who knows...
@@zerarch77 Pretty sure exploits aren't needed to win in a game where you can just grind to improve your level. I personally like when these games require more on the part of strategy rather than grinding.
I've never much had the patience for strategy games, but one game I particularly loved back in the day was Battle Hunter on the PS1. Think the turn-based grid battles of FFT, turned into a four-player board game with randomized objectives. I've never seen another game quite like it, though unfortunately it was a budget title and it shows -- it was ultimately rather limited in depth and content. I'd love to see a team today give that idea the attention it deserves.
Ahh man, I love that one of my favorite channels is into tactics games now.
my favorite "ah-ah" moment was in fire emblem fates conquest on lunatic, i think it was level 23 with takumi possessed. The last level was so hard it took me dozens of tries, but this one, wich is considered one of the hardest, i first tried it! Like it demanded proper staff use and really clever movement and skills awareness. Like the story was comming to the climax and I was so scared of the challenge ahead that it pushed me to my limits, I've never (and will probably never more) been as thoughtfull and caring regarding each single action as much as in this level. Accessibility is fine and i respect people playing on easy/beginner. Though having started the series with easy mode, I can really say that you're missing the most awesome feelings of those games this way. It turns from fun to absolute genius and will make you feel a lot more emotions through pure gameplay than most games. That's why I'm kinda divided when it comes to difficulty, i allows new players to feel good while playing the game but it kinda makes the whole experience just less memorable and awesome. I dunno choose what you prefer i just wanted to express my feelings about difficulty, I hope someone will try out after reading this.
I agree but jfc absolutely PLOWING Anankos’s scaly ass was one of the best times I’ve had playing an FE game. It also showed how quickly you could take down a boss if you got lucky
In all advance wars games, you can also skip battle animations and make units’ move faster. Wargroove didn’t start it, but it really deserves credit for keeping the spirit of advance wars alive. (I still need to try Wargroove)
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin even let you remove the explosion for dealing damage, making every attack 0.5 seconds faster.
Being able to play precisely as fast as I want is a luxury more TBS games should offer.
So happy you had a fantastic experience, man. :)
Nitpick: in Into The Breach, blocking a spawn doesn't cancel it outright; rather it postpones it to next turn.
On the penultimate turn, spawn-blocking postpones the spawn to after the end of the scenario, so in that case, it does effectively cancel that spawn entirely. And there are reports that the Vek have a unit cap, so there are some circumstances where a blocked spawn will either disappear or prevent another spawn from appearing. But, in general, spawn-blocking is delaying part of the next wave to add to the following wave, rather than straight-up killing. It's still often good, but it's not automatic.
Could you do a video about adventure games? Not action adventure, just adventure. This is one of my favorite genres of video games. You've got to try Night in the Woods, Journey, Gris, Oxenfree, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Gone Home if you haven't already. :D
I did do ones on Gome Home and Journey (and ABZU), but yeah there's a lot of great ones out there, not a bad idea
This was a pleasant surprise
I've put so many hundreds of hours into FFTA, one of my favorite things to do is to try to make unusual characters. My favorite challenge is making the best bangaa mage possible, which is fun because all the growth rates for that race are working hard against you. But there's something so satisfying about finally making a bishop that can wipe out all your opponents with a well placed Holy or Aero!
And if you haven't already, check out FFTA2. The story is worse but the game is beautiful and I actually really love the granularity of the systems working against you (it's much harder to get access to new weapons and armor, therefor to new abilities)
@@stephaniec6307 Nice! I'm about done with the first FFTA and I was considering to play either FFTA2 or FFT War of the Lions.
My two favourite parts of this genre are the absolute rush of adrenaline I get from getting overwhelmed and the gameplay stories I experience.
It feels so good to overcome odds that's been stacked so much against you. It always feels glorious when that one unit that fails at everything suddenly hits a 10% and saves your whole team, or even a whole entire campaign run, especially if you play ironman.
Speaking of that unit. The stories of you can get from this genre is quite inspiring and I wish more genres can get this effect too. The only real other game(that I remember, I'm sure there are others) that had this effect on me was Far Cry 2.
Most of the stories I get from Far Cry 2 is my weapon jamming and very intense firefights I bearly win and the nuggets of context that comes with it.
I bought advance wars a little ago and I love it. There is one game series that I love as well it is the total war series. I love how large the battles can get and how hectic they are.
You really need to check out Disgaea. It's the ultimate tactics game. Once you experience the item world, you can't stop.
Oh boy.. Disgaea. With that L9999 level cap on your characters. I've never reached anywhere close to that, but I do love the franchise.
The ultimate tactics rpg is Fire Emblem Seisen no keifu ;)
If by ultimate tactics game, you mean a game so dedicated to the grind you wouldn't have to change a thing to make it a microtransaction phone game, then totally.
@@note4note804 Disagree strongly. Disgaea is great, and mobile games are not. No sense trying to convince you though.
@@Aeroxima Then you haven't played a good phone game. Point is if you break them down into their base mechanics, almost every single game design present in mobile gatcha games is present in Disgaea. The only difference is that Disgaea didn't design itself to be a chore to play on purpose so you could pay for microtransactions to skip it. Hell, some of the better phone games know their grind is a chore and let you earn things just by logging in every day so you have to grind less. Imagine a Disgaea that learned from phone games is all I'm saying.
Something great about strategy games is when they allow you to make fun choices. Usually, you are thinking about strategies to win, and it IS fun, but, take the reclassing from Fire Emblem 11 and 12, this allows you to use every unit in ways never thought. Like using Navarre as a cleric, Jagen as a Sniper, Merric as a myrmidon and Wrys as a cavalier. It’s GREAT. And also you can turn useless units into clerics, which is great.
My favourite a-ha moment was in mario+ Rabbids kingdom battle where the game gave me 10 turns to get a perfect run, with the object being to reach an end zone, having to navigate a winding path filled with enemies, yet I felt incredibly satisfied when I realised that I could position a character at the edge of the winding path, and use Luigi's advanced movement to leap the gap just barely to the other side, completing the mission in 4 turns, not 10
I haven’t had too many experiences with tactics games having only played WarGroove and Mario Rabbids.
But my aha moment came in WarGroove during The Fortress (Act 6 Mission 3). I was completely surrounded in Valders chambers and I was sure I was done for. I managed to take out certain units and position Caesar so I could use his Groove to enable four units to take out Valder in one attack. The fact I had pre planned it so my Calvary was in the right place to land a Crit made it super satisfying.
Like you said in your video they designed it in such a way to give you the tools so you feel like a boss. To have finished the main campaign without reducing the difficulty once really makes you feel like you have mastered the mechanics. Such a rewarding gaming experience.
Final Fantasy Tactics still is my favorite tactics game. It is a masterpiece in both gameplay and plot.
And making self-inflicted challenges in that game is super fun. The Solo Ramza is incredibly hard, but also very satisfying once you're well prepared.
I also do love the law system. It punishes you for relying on particular strategies.
Ahhh the nostalgia is so real for me with this video.
I don't even know how many times I've beaten Sacred Stones and Tactics Advance.
I love those games--not just the gameplay, but the stories.
Sigh.
I love how steam world heist incorporates skill in the shooting instead if just a percentage chance of landing an attack.
Yeah same! That made it pretty darn unique
Advance wars iconic!! Marche and Montblanc iconic too!
I think the idea of tweaking your own difficulty is very important. The challenge of old Fire Emblem games was a staple of the series, but the option to remove perma-death and bringing back encounters for grinding levels in Awakening took it form a fringe cult series to one of Nintendo’s most successful series. It’s a real testament against gate keeping and for letting people choose for themselves how much challenge they want.
The PSP had lots of tactics games... Disgaea, Dungeons & Dragons, Endwar, Field Commander, Final Fantasy, Generation of Chaos, Gundam Battles, Gungnir, Growlanser, Jean Darc, Killzone, Knights in the Nightmare, Lord of the Ring, Metal Gear, Mytran Wars, Phantom Brave, Ragnarok, R-type, Socom, Star Hammer, Tactics Ogre, Valkyrie Chronicles, Warhammer, Wild Arms (at least 24!) etc.
I have never played a single tactics game in my life, but this video showed bunch of really really cool looking ones! I might try some!
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the best.
@@zerarch77 Is it on PC? Because I only have a pc
@@sneeznoodle It's a DS exclusive, although you could look into emulation. For PC, I hear Wargroove is great, and I can recommend SteamWorld Heist.
@@zerarch77 Awesome! I'll try all of those :D
Hey, could you do a Good Game Design episode on how to scare/bully the players?
Like, balancing Fear/Anxiety, Lore, and Gameplay among other things?
I think that would be interesting.
You can talk about places like Undertale's true lab or Celeste's Mirror Temple, and the Wrecked Ship from Super Metroid.
Have you played Pokémon Conquest yet? That’s a really good tactics game
I second this.
I third it
Love Pokemon Conquest! Such a weird but effective mashup
JpharBaz JokerSnake Fourth
Conquest is one of those games that i bothered to 100%. I really want to go back and play it now
I find looters to be really fun and have a lot of interesting design. The way they entice players to chase after cool gear from just grinding the same content is very interesting. That moment when you finally get a god roll weapon in something like Destiny, having that personal stamp of "this is MY unique weapon, and I can tell you the story of getting it" that makes you feel different and unique amongst other players.
I still remember when I got specific weapons, and I tell those stories with my friends who play. And I also tell the stories of my friends getting some of the best gear in their first raid, there's a story attached to each cool piece of loot you get.
Nice coincidence seeing this video as I'm picking Chroma Squad back up, even saw a little clip of it, cool.
Would love to see you talking about Divinity Original Sin 2, this game is sick!
I personally don’t like tactic games, but man, even when you talk about a subject that I don’t really enjoy, you do it in a way that is interesting to watch for people with different tastes in videogames. Great content you make. Keep it up
"While I prefer games that don't have any randomness to them..."
Says that during a clip of Advance Wars involving the CO Nell, who's whole gimick is randomly doing up to 10% more damage in an attack.
Not sure if you’re still taking suggestions, but I’d like to point you towards Yggdra Union. It’s got an interesting system involving cards that give you both how many squares you can move in one turn and special powers you can use while attacking, as well as a system where you don’t attack units one vs. one but by adding up how many on each side are within a certain area. The story is also quite well put together, if with a few translation issues and some infuriating character decisions. I highly recommend it!
My "Ah ha!" moment is from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance where I realized that with the Charge ability, you could not only push your enemies from you to avoid counter attacks, but also push them from a cliff for extra damage! Neat :)
Man, that game is full of moments like that once you realize how easy it is to game the Laws system in your favor. A criminally underrated entry into the series, in my opinion.
It's the game of my childhood ^_^
Tactics is one of my favorite genres. I enjoy finding new ones to play.
Aside from Disgaea, another thing you might be interested in is, Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum. Especially if you like Yu-Gi-Oh!
I wouldn't call it the best or anything, but you might enjoy it.
Excellent video. I recall many aha moments when I played Advance wars Dark conflict (EU name) my personal favorite and I'm dying to try into the breach and wargroove on the switch.
I really think thank that you heard my feedback ... so this video is a strong sign that you listen to your audience, thankyou for going beyond your normal world ... which for you is your analysis
Play Disgaea 5!
Card games like hearthstone also fit well into this category but they introduce another interesting, psychological effect. You don't know what cards your opponent might have on their hand, or even their deck, but the way they choose to play could hint at the other options left.
Or you yourself could intentionally make a strategically worse move just so your opponent will miscalculate what's on your hand. I think my best a-hah moments were when I was able to predict what cards my opponent would have and playing around that in unexpected fashion.
PS, I used to hate chance based strategy too, but after some time I got used to it and now I even deem it necessary for most games to have a chance. It's the best way to make "high risk, high reward" possible, and while it arguably sometimes makes the better player lose, the players decisions become much more exciting as they have to account for unexpected variables.
My favourite aha moment is noticing visual boy advance has frame skip turned on by default and you can turn it off to make the game actually run at 60 fps
I can't believe why I didn't heard of Chroma Squad till now. Im lovin it thanky youu
GBA tactic games. (might make a list for good tactic games on other consoles too.)
●*Advance Wars* (1, 2, DS, and DR): I love these games. I like that you can make the sacrificial play and not get penalized like in Fire Emblem. Battles that are won by using a variety of tactical methods are why I love the franchise so much. Custom maps and Multiplayer is where this game franchise shines the most. ((I am playing *Wargroove*, and enjoying it so far.))
●*Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance* (A & A2): I both loved and hated the first one, being limited so strictly by the judges. But I have such nostalgia for how fun, and puzzling it was to complete. It is clearly the most demanding tactical game I have played. FFT:A2 was good too, a bit easy at times, over all both excellent games.
●*Tactics Ogre: Person of Lordly Caliber*: Like FF:TA this game is very slow to play through, battles can slog on for 30 minutes. But there is an interesting catch with this game. Enemies level based on your main character, and the average level of your squad. Try playing the game on "easy" mode by never using your main character to do anything. Be aware that late in the game this method swaps over to "hard" mode as your character might be one hit KO'ed. lol It makes the game interesting. ((I have never finished this game, as both times I have gotten near the endgame I have encountered a glitch that for some reason duplicated a random character in my team over a plot needed character to storm the final castle with. Back in the day I contacted SE about this, and they had no reports of this bug elsewhere. so it's likely exclusive to my cartridge.)) ((TO:PLC is related to the *Ogre Battle* series and OB64 is a real time, squad based, tactical, RPG, is one of the only of it's kind to my knowledge. It's also fantastic, has branching story paths for lots of replay value.))
●*Rebelstar Tactical Command*: Oh man what a hidden gem on the GBA. In this semi remake of *Xcom*, you have a wide variety of tactical ability for each of the squad mates. The UI was very informative about what you could do each turn. Random accuracy issues do come into play, but as long as you are aware of this you are able to play more effectively. This was my favorite turn based tactical shooter until I found *Valkyrie Chronicles* on Ps3.
Rebelstar was a reboot of a series made by Julian Gollop, creator of the original X-COM.
@@DioBrando-mr5xs
Yes! That. It's been so long I couldn't remember how it tied together. Thanks for the correction.
I had so many "a ha" moments playing fire emblem jajaja
Even the cellphone version.
I love how strategy games in general make you feel clever, and my best memory of a tactic game was in FFTA2, placing a trap behind an enemy and pushing them into it felt utterly evil
My aha moment in that game was combining mirror items with item lore which solod the rest of the main story.
This is a genre I REALLY need to get more into