In 1995, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together was developed and released by the now-defunct Quest Corporation on the Super Nintendo to critical acclaim. In the following years, the sequel and second game in the Ogre Battle series saw various ports to other consoles, even getting a full remake on the PSP under the same name in 2010. In 2022, Square Enix brings out yet another remake, with Tactics Ogre: Reborn now available on PlayStation 4|5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The game’s story takes place in The Valerian Isles, jewels of the Obero Sea. After many years of conflict, a man known as Dorgalua Oberyth finally stood up to put an end to this war. Known as the Dynast-King, he brought peace and prosperity to Valeria for half a century. After his passing, a civil war erupted and threw The Valerian Isles into a bloody struggle for power between three warring factions.

Players follow the story of a young man named Denam Pavel, who you can rename in-game, caught in the centre of the bloodshed. Although he seeks a path of freedom and justice, players will soon discover that even the noblest of goals requires impossibly difficult decisions to be made.

Just like all the other games in the series, Tactics Ogre: Reborn is a fantasy-themed, turn-based RPG strategy game. Gameplay-wise, it focuses purely on turn-based mechanics, so players won’t have to worry about exploring various locations and solving puzzles, and will be put straight into the action in between all the dialogue segments. The turn-based combat mechanics are deep and offer so much variety for players to really strategise and plan out their attacks against the opposing factions.

Learning new moves and magic as players progress through the game will help keep things feeling fresh and help them prepare for the tougher challenges ahead. Adding to this, players will also be able to recruit other soldiers, warriors, and even monsters to their faction, as they’re going to need all the help they can get for what lies ahead. The diversity and different personalities amongst all the main characters and recruits will offer a wide variety of entertaining conversations between each other.

One of the biggest upgrades in this latest remake is that the dialogue scenes are now fully voice-acted, and you can select either Japanese or English. Every character’s voice is done incredibly well in both languages. There isn’t a single character that has a voice that doesn’t suit them. The RPG side is also one game’s best features, where the choices the player makes can affect future events.

The graphics, presentation, and all of the menu screens have also received a massive overhaul. Even though the game sticks to its classic isometric colourful 2D sprite-style graphics and chibi-looking character models, it still looks fantastic and pleasing to the eyes, especially with the upscaled appearance on modern consoles. The character art seen during the dialogue segments also looks even better since the original game almost 30 years ago.

The music also sounds so much better than it did during the game’s 16-bit days. It’s really nice to see that it takes the original soundtrack and allows players to listen to it the way it was meant to be, rather than restricted by the technology from that era. The development team at Square Enix really went above and beyond to bring this classic game to the modern day and not just simply make a port of an older game.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on the SNES was, and still is, an all-time classic. Tactics Ogre: Reborn takes everything good about the original game and just enhances everything to the point it feels like an entirely new game instead of a remake. This creates an excellent opportunity for longtime fans to relive some of their fondest gaming memories in a whole new way, as well as any newcomers looking to try out the Ogre Battle series. The team at Square Enix has done an amazing job bringing back one of the greatest games made by Quest Corporation, and it is no doubt the best remake of the 1995 classic.

Written by: Sammy Hanson