People love to go on about how games are really great when the choices really matter - ‘choices matter’ is even a tag on the Steam storefront. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout: New Vegas rules because there are multiple endings depending on who you side with, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mass Effect punishes you for your choices through heartbreaking guilt trips that make the games incredibly memorable, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Detroit: Become Human can disappoint you in more ways than you can count. Giving the player agency is a great way to make a game feel more impactful, and no game has come close to making me feel as impacted as I did with 1995’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tactics Ogre.
Tactics Ogre is known largely for two things: being the granddaddy of all Japanese strategy RPGs and having extremely di🌊sparate routes through the game, depending on the choices you make. The first chapter memorably forces you to choose between slaughtering a village full of innocents at the bequest of your lord or disobeying, turning you into a fugitive.
This is clearly a significant choice in an RPG’s narrative. In a game of any genre it would have lasting effects on the plot, NPC attitudes towards the main character, possibly altering the ending in a big way - that much is obvious. It’s a huge establishing m꧂oment for protagonist Denam. This decision goes a step further, however: it’s the game’s first major route split. Deciding to go along with your lord’s plan sets you on a completely different path, with the story changing in every way you can imagine. You face different challenges, get to recruit different characters, and experience a totally distinct narrative as a result of your actions.
This is decidedly not something you’d find in a modern release. Implementing branching paths to this extent would be incredibly costly and even games that dabble in this, such as those of the Dark Pictures Anthology, do so in a way that still has you hitting the same general plot beats, thus making every playthrough feel just a little bit same-y regardless of your inputs. It makes sense - developers and writers want their efforts to pay off; they want every player to see as much of their game as possible, so the consequences of a player’s actions can’t change things too much. Granted, Tactics Ogre’s three routes end up at the same climactic showdown against an ancient evil, but the 40 hours preceding that finale are totally different, and thꦆe💫 way that the game’s rereleases make this palatable for the modern age is inspired.
In lieu of a New Game Plus mode, Tactics Ogre implements the World Tarot mechanic. This is a menu that lets you view the timeline of your playthrough from beginning to end and adds anchor points spread throughout. These allow you to roll back to that point in time, team, equipment, and progress intact, and make different choices. If you slaughtered those innocents the first time, you can spare them the second time꧅ and see where the story takes you without - and this is the key thing - having to start the game all over again. 100 percent completion just went from a 180-hour mammoth feat to a feasible 80-hour task.
The World Tarot mechanic might be a retroactive addition to an old game that makes it easier to enjoy in full, but it’s something that should be adopted by more games going forward. You’d see bigger and bolder narrative divergences that make for more interesting experiences, your choices would make greater impacts on a game’s world, and most importantly of all, you wouldn’t 🗹have to spend hours of your precious time getting back to the point where you make that all-important choice. You’d be able to choose a cake and eat ♔it too.