Syndicate from 1993. Don't know if that fulfills the "RPG" part of Tactical RPG but it's definitely worth a play.
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Yes! I loved playing this game on our old 486.
I feel like it had RPG elements with the soldier upgrades and equipment. There was progression in what your characters could do. This game was amazing, I'd love a remake of this with some small graphical and quality of life improvements.
Tuned Heart - PC-9801
Koudelka - PS1
Jean D'Arc - PSP
XCOM 2 - Steam
There was an old one on the first sega console controlling different knights on a board. It was the first game of its kind i played but could never remember what it was.
If you enjoyed Into the Breach, take a look at Tactical Breach Wizards. Not much of an RPG, but the combat is similar to ITB. Not as difficult though.
For some reason I read Tactical Breach Wizards and thought of Sexy Battle Wizards, and I just thought, that's a cool recommendation but why here?
Just for the story, FFTactics. That story twists so much it makes Cables envious.
Job system is fun too, just unfortunate the later Heroes stomp over created characters
And the music is incredible
Shining Force is a classic. Basically Seva's answer to Fire Emblem.
Wargroove is pretty good too. Kind of like Advance Wars, but in a more medieval fantasy setting. From an indie dev with pixel art. My only real complaint is one I have with all modern "retro pixel art" style games: the "pixels" can move by much smaller increments than themselves. I wish games that used that style would align everything, including animation, to the fake pixels. It looks kind of busy and messy imo. It doesn't bother me enough to ruin Wargroove though.
Banner Saga was pretty good. It's a combination of tactical RPG with mostly text-based choose-your-own-adventure style elements between battles. Still haven't played the 3rd one, but I enjoyed the first 2.
Loved Shining Force since I watched my brother and his friend play all night after renting it from Blockbuster in the early 90s! I’ve played 1 and 2 a few times over the years and always had fun.
My favorite series is disgaea, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people, it's over the top game breaking silliness.
Chroma-squad is often overlooked, but captures a lot of what name 90s trpg's great and improves on the formula quite a bit.
The absolute best trpg imo is "bionic dues", I feel like it you enjoyed into the breach you should definitely give bionic dues a shot, it's such a different style of game,
What's the one in the picture? Also, how do I read alt text on Summit?
Picture is of "Front Mission" (1995). I've never played or heard of it, tbh it is just taken from the Wikipedia page for tactical RPG.
Front Mission was pretty fun, and it looks like there's a remaster available that shines it up a bit. I don't remember much about the plot, but you build and outfit a squad of mechs, and you can specialize them for guns, or melee, or rockets or what have you.
Ooh, thank you. It looks cool.
Jagged Alliance 2 (especially with the 1.13 mod) is the most ludicrously detailed tactical RPG you'll ever find. It can be a nightmare to actually play until you spend many, many hours learning all its systems, but nothing else comes close immersion-wise. You can customize every mercenary's loadout down to individual weapon attachments, capturing different parts of the map gives bonuses that actually make sense (like being able to ship in weapons once you've taken the airport), you can train militias to hold onto captured sectors for you, and you can even use the in-game internet to send flowers to the main villain.
Yeah, I really liked JA2. The UI is pretty elderly today, though.
I haven't been very impressed with some of the subsequent attempts to revive the series, though I still haven't gotten around to playing Jagged Alliance 3 yet, and that has much better scores than some of the intervening releases, like Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. If you haven't tried JA3 yet either, you might consider taking a look.
EDIT: Oh, wait, yes I did play it, because I remember the intro mission that they have screenshots of.
I don't recall finishing the game, though. I should go back and see what my status in that game is. Thanks for making me think of it.
I've heard good things about 3, but haven't bought it myself. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you ever get back into it!
Just tried it, and it was some other game I was thinking of; I hadn't played JA3 yet.
While I haven't finished the game, thoughts:
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It's the strongest of the post-2 Jagged Alliance games that I've played.
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Still not on par with JA2, at least relative to release year, I'd say also in absolute terms.
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My biggest problem
I'm running this under Proton
is some bugginess that I'm a little suspicious is a thread deadlock. When it happens, I never see the targeting options show up when I target an enemy, and trying to go to the map or inventory screen doesn't update the visible area onscreen, though I can blindly click and hear interactions. The game also doesn't ever exit if I hit Alt-F4 in that state, just hangs. AFAICT, this can always be resolved by quicksaving (which you can do almost anywhere), stopping the game (I use kill
in a terminal on Linux) and reloading the save, but it's definitely obnoxious. Fortunately, the game starts up pretty quickly. Nobody on ProtonDB talking about it, so maybe it's just me. I have not noticed bugs other than this one.
- So far, not much by way of missions where one has to figure out elaborate ways of getting into areas or the like: more of a combat focus. I have wirecutters, crowbars, lockpicks, and explosives, like in JA2, but thus far, it's mostly just a matter of clicking on a locked container with someone who has lockpicking skill. Probably more realistic
in real life, an unattended door isn't going to stop anyone for long
but I kinda miss that.
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The maps feel a lot smaller to me, though the higher resolution might be part of that. A lot of 3d modeling to make them look pretty. There's a lot more verticality, like watchtowers.
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The game also feels considerably shorter than JA2, based on the percentage of the strategic map that I've taken. That being said, JA2 could get a bit repetitive when one is fighting the umpteenth enemy reinforcement party.
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Unique perks for mercs that make them a lot more meaningful than in JA2 (though also limit your builds). For example, Fox can get what is basically a free turn if she initiates combat on a surprised enemy. Barry auto-constructs explosives each day.
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Thematic feel of the mercs from JA2 is retained well.
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Interesting perk tree.
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A bunch of map modifiers like fog that have a major impact.
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Bunch of QoL stuff for scheduling concurrent tasks for different mercs.
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Pay demands don't seem to rise with level, though other factors can drive it up (e.g. Fox will demand more pay if you hire Steroid).
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Feels easier than JA2, though I haven't finished it.
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I'm pretty sure the keybindings are different.
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Tiny thing, but I always liked the start of JA2, where your initial team does a fast-rope helicopter insertion into a hostile sector. Felt like a badass way to set the tone. No real analog in JA3.
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I started running into guys with RPGs early on in JA3, much earlier then JA2.
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JA2 has ground vehicles and a helicopter and they require you to obtain fuel. Transport logistics don't exist in JA3, other than paying to embark on boat trips at a port (and just checked online to confirm that they aren't just in the late game).
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More weapon mods in JA3. Looks like some interesting tradeoffs that one has to make here, rather than just "later-game stuff is better".
For me, it was a worthwhile purchase
even with the irritating bug I keep hitting
and I would definitely recommend it over the other post-JA2 stuff if you've played JA2 and want more. It hasn't left me giggling at the insane amount of complex interactions that were coded into the game like JA2 did, though, which were kind of a hallmark of the original.
I love Tactical Breach Wizards, which is somewhere between Into the Breach and Invisible Inc (also amazing).
Wasteland 3 is really good, baldurs gate 3 kinda, darkest dungeon, Valkyrie chronicles 1 & 4
X-Com - UFO Defense and TFTD are definitely my favorite. Fallout 1&2 are a close second and I've been meaning to play through them again. Ogre Battle is a distant third, with Front Mission right behind it.
There's a reason why oldschool X-Com players kept coming back to the games despite technical issues like the Groundhog Day bug. (Thank all applicable deities for OpenXcom solving those issues, though.)
Absolutely loved both of them! I think UFO Defense was the first pc game I played on our first 486. It was one of the first games I ever successfully hacked.
Not sure how many people know, but there's another game from Gollop, Rebelstar Tactical Command for Gameboy Advance. It's part of the Rebelstar series dating back to the ZX Spectrum. It plays pretty much the same as the original XCom games.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, above all else.
That being said, Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 1 and 2 are awesome. They combine SRPGs with the usual SMT combat - I don't think I've found something similar yet.
You move around like you would in any other SRPG, then you can attack enemies in range to enter normal turn based combat - however, at most, you can only play out 2 full turns before combat ends. Afterwards the next unit moves. Each unit represents a squad of up to three characters you will be batteling with, usually a human and two demons. Depending on your squad, you may have different movement, range and abilities.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, above all else.
Yes. The day is full of moments. (Relevant Penny Arcade)
Advance Wars, of course.
I haven't seen any mention of "Steamworld: Heist", yet. It's a very different sort of game engine, but scratches the same itch.
I'm a weirdo, so Massive Chalice.
It has a strange high-concept premise where you are an immortal ruler defending against a monstrous army that only attacks every decade or so. Any surviving individual squad member will only be able to go on a handful of missions before aging out, so you are also managing familial bloodlines to birth new soldiers, while controlling for genetic and social traits that get passed down. I love the uniqueness and big ideas. It's far from perfect, but you asked for favorite not the best.
Wildermyth was very enjoyable, it's not as deep and well written as some of the others mentioned but still held my attention long enough to finish it.
Pretty unique art style and it felt relatively challenging throughout.
I lamy FF Tactics a little bit. And it was okay (I was pretty young) but when advanced ears came out. Hooooo my god k was hooked. I was always on my Gameboy every chance I could get.
Another good one that’s more recent is Triangle Strategy. Positioning is important. Great story. Very similar to FFT but FFT is better overall. Still a great game and more modern.
Tactical RPG's are my favorite genre of games, and Tactics Ogre (not Ogre Battle) in any of it's many iterations is my favorite. No game is perfect but it does so many things so, so well. Matsuno's magnum opus. The latest version, Tactics Ogre Reborn added high quality voice acting which I really love.
Laser Squad, playing couch hot-seat is what sent me down this path.
I really liked Jagged Alliance 2, Afterlight and especially X-COM: Apocalypse. Apocalypse had such radical departures from the first two Ufo titles, which did not make it very well liked among enthusiasts, in particular the real-time battle mode. But the game had such fun mechanics and steep difficulty curve, I really enjoyed the challenge of it, as opposed to getting another Enemy Unknown clone that was TFTD.
I'm playing Last Spell right now, isometric base defense game. Lots of viable ways to play, but later missions become a slog if you don't plan out hero builds. A run takes 5-10 hours, but rounds take 20 minutes. Emphasis on crowd control and positioning.
Darkest Dungeon is nice if you want a break from isometric stuff, dungeon crawler, emphasis on team combat and resource management.
Creeper World III if you want to try RTS style, lots of community maps.
Tactical Breach Wizards, Come in through a window, throw everyone else out the window. Silly, but fun.
Oooh, I got you OP. If you liked the dense micro-maps of Into the Breach, check out Bad North. Defend small islands from waves of invaders with limited troops. Not an overly long game, but very satisfying for what it is.
My favorite is the original Final Fantasy Tactics, hands down. I also liked XCOM 1, Advance Wars, Ogre Battle 64, Unicorn Overlord, Fire Emblem 3 Houses, and probably a few others I can't think of right now.
FFTactics like others was my favorite.
I quite enjoyed into the breach.
I bought a couple of tactics like games on steam and they all dont seem to be fun to me. I guess I like to grind a bit on fair but punishing tactics titles.
Not my all-time fav, but I like it a lot and it's kinda slept-on: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars for the 3DS. It's got a lot in common with X-COM -- heck, Julian Gollop was even the producer on it.
I like the disgaea series not only because of the deep systems involved, but also just because gameplay is so snappy. So many SRPGs are slow as molasses in terms of interface. I also really enjoyed Unicorn Overlord recently.
Baldur's gate 3