Discussion
Any Fire Emblem-likes that do stuff better?
Tactics RPG? Strategy RPG? I don't know what to call it. I like moving my guys on a board to outwit and defeat the enemy.
I hate level grinding for hours, pointless battles against helpless enemies, unreactable RNG bullshit, feeling invincible, feeling like my input and original thought doesn't matter, softlocks, crashes, UI that gets 10 button presses where 1 or 2 would do, unnecessarily being asked for confirmation, infinite lives/resources/exp glitches unless necessary to bypass boring grinding, games where the tactics never get more advanced than "gang up on foes and hit them with the right thing for maximum damage", and any system where the correct option is not "Figure out something smart" but "see what the optimizers did".
i don't think googling a guide to using the best customizations to become invincible is valid gameplay design. How is any dev playtesting all 999e+999 combinations to ensure nobody gets softlocked or bored? When I play FE Fates Conquest choose not to make Odin's daughter beat the game for me on enemy phase.
Permadeath is optional but I'd prefer not to have infinite respawning generics like in Wargroove.
I would rather have interesting options than raw stats and I would rather be outgunned by strong foes I must outwit. I found Fire Emblem Three Houses the most boring gameplay-wise and Fates Conquest the most interesting gameplay-wise. Swap them around when it came to the story. Edelgard for life.
Story wise I don't mind if I'm restoring the monarchy or overthrowing it, slaying Demon King Balzack and rescuing the princess, slaying a dragon or laying one. Just point me at something evil worth destroying and put a country behind me worth saving.
The game doesn't have to be better than Fire Emblem on all fronts. It just has to have a good reason to play it.
The story can be anything. As long as it's not unbearably self-aware self-parody like Tactical Breach Wizards, where it can't take interesting fantasy elements and war and the potential end of the world seriously but takes its juvenile and simplistic political takes unbearably seriously. Wow, did you know absurd fantasy religions can be le bad? And loyalty too, except when it's good? And the real protagonist's arc is learning she's actually awesome and she's over her self confidence issues now and her petty pathetic personal villain matters less than the decoy protagonist and whatever reason the main villain has for being so obsessed with impressing him? Riveting stuff, I don't feel like having my mind blown like that again this year. Give me fantasy with the cojones to believe in itself, not just the author's slogans. Give me writing that's more than marvel quips and lampshades.
God, I hope this thread doesn't get derailed by calling the story and characters of TBW tonally confused, tedious, and uninteresting.
OP, Those Who Rule has zero grinding, it's just the battles all the way through. The system is at a perfect level of complexity where there are choices in your build and load out that matter but you don't need a guide to get through it. And it's shorter than the typical Fire Emblem.
There is one exception, because Those Who Rule has actual jumps in difficulty, you can always come back and play brutal mode if you do want to get perfectionist with your builds.
The hex grid adds layers to the positioning in this game, since a character can be open to multiple sides, and facing matters. There is additional damage to the sides and the back, and there is also opportunity attack so you cant just bum rush the unit’s back.
Gameplay loop is kind of like making shield walls, and making strong attacks on the sides to hit the opponents back.
Ending sucks though, but hey, if Conquest didn’t mind you as much then you’ll enjoy this as well.
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It's kind of interesting because you specifically don't want grinding and a lot of suggestions are full of it I think.
You allude to wanting something where tactics actually matter, and while it's not grid based, I would give a shout out to Mutant Year Zero. Tactically eliminating enemies before getting into combat can be super rewarding on higher difficulties and I find the story is interesting.
Hear me out, it’s clearly a love letter to older Ogre Battle games, obviously March of the Black Queen (SNES) and Ogre Battle 64 (N64), but it is genuinely a gem FE fans would love.
Personally, it was my GotY when it came out. If you have experience with the series it is pretty easy, but you can turn the difficulty up.
I've said this somewhere on this subreddit before, but I stand by the fact that if OgreBattle 64 came out on the PS1, where people went to play rpgs, rather than the 64 where they basically had none, this would be known as one of the best RPGs of all time. It's just such a good game.
Game mechanics are excellent, but it becomes very easy. I do think hiding the preview screen, and the ability to change positions/moves ahead of battle would have made it a 10.
I can somewhat agree. I like the preview screen, and obviously positions should reflect that given the nature of the game.
However, I hate it when a game lets me know I’m going to crit. (At least in the context in a game such as this)
Edit: I just remembered that people will change their formations before a battle to give themselves better odds. I have never done this, just learned about it recently on Reddit and I think that’s lame af
Try Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery.
Haven't had this much fun with a tactics game since forever. It has a lot of ideas, some of them more cool and some of them less (many people hated stealth levels)
It is pretty heavy on story though (You can always skip it, but you'll be out of the loop pretty fast)
Another great thing about it - it is very consumable reliant, and actually manages to break your typical hoarder mentality.
I second this ! I believe I've played every other game mentioned in the thread and reverse collapse is one of my favorite tactical experience in the past years
Been a long while since I touched it, but i rmb a pretty big field, maybe just receiving some radar or something and I felt it was such a slog trying to guess the right way to clear the level
Unicorn Overlord has a lot of classes and it's not grid based, it's real time but it pauses when selecting actions. You can setup to 5 units to autobattle the enemy but you set the conditions for skills and stuff. My GOTY 30min after playing and I 100% the first weekend it came out with 50hrs.
Symphony of War Nephilim Saga is like fire emblem, but it's can go up to 9 units in battle, they also have autobattle so you can control them directly, but the fun is figuring it out outside of battle and watching it pay off.
Triangle Strategy is more akin to Fina Fantasy Tactics, every playable unit is unique with their own class, so every unit plays different to a specific niche.
Tactics Ogre Let us Cling Together is the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics, mostly same people, type of graphics, plot, and is just bigger and more bold.
I also wanna mention that Triangle Strategy is pretty light on grinding. Most of the out-of-battle fight preparation stuff is inoffensive to the player, too.
IHave you tried any older FE games? Reclassing wasn’t introduced until Shadow Dragon, and the skill system as we know it today originated with Awakening, so if your main issue is with having to dedicate a ton of time to character builds, you might enjoy the SNES, GBA, or GC/Wii games (i.e. the games Conquest was meant to call back to). Based on what you’re saying, I’d personally recommend either Sacred Stones or Path of Radiance.
As much as I love Unicorn Overlord, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say you could easily spend more time tweaking your unit compositions than you actually do in battle, especially on higher difficulties, and especially when fighting the final boss.
I can recommend Othercide. It is technically full of infinite generics, but it works at least for me. The gameplay is very tight, you must outwit the enemy or your characters will die, the game is not forgiving. The story and ambience are well dark. Worth a play in my opinion.
Should mention that othercide, while fun, has the whole roguelite fail-because-you-dont-have-upgrades and you can only unlock stat upgrades by failing thing going on
If you haven't already you should certainly check out Kaga Saga (Tearring, Berwick, Vestaria) games, they diverged from FE in several respects but if you've played any of the gba FE games or Thracia 776 then these games are more along those lines (well Berwick saga is quite different actually).
For more recent games, I'll go and recommend a game that I've been really into playing recently; Crown Gambit. I initially got into the game because of the dev's newer release "Sovereign Tower" (not an srpg but highly recommend, its my personal goty) and I was so impressed I wanted to check out their other stuff. Its rough around the edges (it is a first game after all) and somewhat buggy, but both the actual tactical battles and narrative structure of the game are incredibly well done. The story is fantastic too, and seems to be inspired by FE3H (at least in the broad strokes), but unlike 3h the factions and characters are actually interesting/not half-baked and unfinished.
That's a cool french studio ! Writing improved a lot since Crown Gambit indeed. Mentally I found Crown Gambit more in the "card game" because the game space is abstract, plus customisation is very limited. But studio are tactical RPG fans so I expect more from them in the future !
My main problem with this game is that it was clearly made for playing with controller and I own a PC version. Controls can be a bit annoying at times.
You are getting mass downvoted for a very reasonable take. If releasing a game on PC then competent kb + mouse implementation is a valid ask. I am a controller gamer but all for accessibility.
I just couldn't stand having to manage every single one of your little followers on the map. It got tedious later on and made me drop it. I'm not sure if that was an issue in other Langrisser games though
One of my favorite games of all time is Banner Saga. Highly recommend.
Its story is very good. Your choices heavily matter. There is no grinding (even if you fail a level most times there are story consequences but it’s not game over). There is permadeath for certain characters throughout the game depending on your choices. Combat is straightforward, easy to learn.
I really hated the initiative system there. Numerical advantage or disadvantage barely matters, because after each allied turn there is an enemy turn. What, there's only one enemy left? Well, now he will go after each and every one of your units. It is certainly an unusual design with unique challenges, but it is just not something I enjoy.
Completely understandable, and I won't say I loved it entirely either. It definitely makes you lean more towards weakening everyone rather than picking them off one by one.
But they tried something different than most there, so even if sometimes it was frustrating, I liked the fact it was a different approach to turn based.
Tactics Ogre Reborn handles things in a way that basically ignored stats unless someone really wanted to pursue them.
But. Something else that might be exactly what you want:
Together in Battle is a really neat indie title that's like Fire Emblem with fully custom or random units that basically dynamically interact with the world and story based on their backgrounds, preferences, and so on. It's like if the relationship system actually felt like humans being....well, human. They'll bicker, get depressed when their significant other gets suplexed into a volcano, ask for sick leave, or try to strong arm you into a raise right before an important battle.
Cross Classing can literally mean your dudes just like hanging out, decide to spar a bunch, and just start training each other skills.
It doesn't look like much visually, but it's really cool once you're in it.
XCOM 2 has the RNG issue, but is an obvious suggestion for fans of tactics combat.
Give Midnight Suns a shot too — nice twist on usual tactics gameplay via deck building mechanics.
Unicorn overlord is great suggestion that others have made already. I was so addicted on my first play through.
Into the Breach has fantastic tactics strategy with many unique teams to play as. Adds a rogue lite/like format, which is great for quick sessions.
Honestly, Baldurs Gate 3 is basically a tactics RPG. Best game of the decade so far and a must-play if you haven’t experienced it already.
Triangle Strategy is also incredible, but heavy on story.
Here are lots of other suggestions. Many are imperfect, but worth playing for fans of the genre: Battletech, Troubleshooter Abandoned Children, Wartales, Disgaea series, Battle Brothers, The Last Spell, Mewgenics, Shadowrun series, King Arthur Knights Tale
Into the breach is pretty different from a lot of these other tactics games. I definitely prefer it, it is in a league of it's own IMO.
I suppose it is much more a rogue like than these other narrative driven tactical set pieces.
I certainly had fun with it on my first playthrough, but when I found that Maradeurs can get 35% headshot chance and trivialize every single encounter it became pretty boring.
I cant believe no one mentioned any of RadCodex's games. All of them are great but Kingsvein is probably more what you're looking for as far as fights that can turn into puzzles depending on how you level up your characters. Horizons Gate is more contemplative because you spend more time sailing than fighting but its still good SRPG fun
People have already mentioned both, but I'll still reiterate recommending Triangle Strategy and Berwick Saga.
Triangle Strategy is closer to Final Fantasy Tactics when it comes to stats and combat mechanics, but characters are all unique and have their own skills. This in turn allows for a lot of crazy effects and interactions, which along with a good variety of map terrain and objectives creates a great combat system. Skills can also interact with the map like setting grass on fire for a lingering damage effect. For an extreme example, one of the strongest characters you'll get is an engineer whose skills don't even do damage, but are things like traps that push enemies around, or (probably his strongest skill when used right) simply a ladder he can set up to let you reach a high spot. I recommend playing on Hard, though for some reason the very first map in the game tends to be disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of it. The story is also fantastic, a surprisingly well-written and somber take on politics, resource conflicts, and racism. It takes a while to get going, though, the game has a pretty slow start in general, but it's very worth it.
Berwick on the other hand is the best game the original creator of FE ever made, and it fits pretty much every one of your requirements. It plays similar to FE, except it's hexes rather than squares, and rather than player and enemy phases it uses a weighted form of alternated activation (so that, for instance, if you have 5 units and the enemy has 10 they'll get to move two units for every one you move). It's crazy hard, too, and requires you to play carefully, but has a lot of optional map objectives that strongly reward you for taking risks and being aggressive. Characters all have their own individual stories and relationships going on and their abilities and stats will usually reflect who they are rather than a standardized class. Horses are also a mechanic, your mounted units actually have to worry about their mount's health and you can lose it in the middle of a map. Mounting and dismounting is important to consider.
Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre have better stories, in my opinion.
Berwick Saga is the ultimate "Kaga Emblem", both for good and bad reasons. I'd also argue that Berwick Saga has excellent map design; better than most Fire Emblem games, in fact. If you like Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776, you HAVE to play Berwick Saga.
Disgaea has better character customization and more endgame content, even if the stories are very nonsensical and the games can be quite grindy.
And there likely won’t be for a while. The Battle Brothers guys are just on fire, XCOM games and their ilk are going nowhere for some reason, yet Menace remains a step ahead.
Berwick Saga is peak.
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 sometimes are very good, but sometimes very annoying. And it has plenty of potential softlocks.
A lot of people recommend Final Fantasy Tactics, but I feel it's more about building your team and picking best skill compositions instead of actual tactics.
Honestly, these are among the few games that really do capture a lot of the spirit of fire emblem for me, even though there aren’t a lot of unique characters. But it turns out emergent narrative matters a lot for me in terms of fire emblem feel.
Tactical Breach Wizards is a gem. Fun gameplay, diverse levels and objectives, and despite the silly title, it has a really great story and writing. No grinding, no stupid time filler mini games (looking at you 3H and FW with your tea time).
Triangle strategy - a bit story heavy in beginning
Tactics ogre reborn
Fell seal arbiters mark
Front mission ( modern and mechs)
Valkyria chronicles (haven't played but often mentioned as some great gameplay
All the games I've mentioned I've enjoyed from a story and gameplay standpoint. They don't have a lot of the extra "sim stuff " that 3houses and Fortune's weave have. It's basically keep moving forward into next battle.
If you want "old school with modern qol" go fft ivalice chronicles or tactics ogre reborn
If you want "modern spiritual successor" to those go triangle strategy or fell seal
For specific to "like fire emblem " with phase based rather than speed turnbased like fft, there is Dark deity (which I overall enjoyed) and the sequel (haven't tried yet), Berwick saga and Vestaria saga (also haven't gotten around to these yet)
Underrated gem. There's so many characters and so many ways to build them all. The maps are pretty big, too. My only complaint was the translation wasn't the best especially with skill descriptions so it was a little difficult without using a guide. Still, totally worth checking out for people looking for a FE-like experience.
Besides all the good ones already mentionend by others, i'd like to suggest Lost Eidolons.
I kinda see it as the non-anime Fire Emblem as gameplay and classes are very similiar. Iirc there's only 1 (optional) skirmish per main mission + some fetch quests for your party members
They might not like it, but I also really enjoyed the spin-off game Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch. Basically a Fire Emblem rogue-like with a very tight party that's a ton of fun.
I very much enjoy the rogue-like randomization that allows for more variety and replayability every time, but also can make me both love and hate the rogue-like meta progression aspect. I think so long as you're fine with that, you'll have a blast as the focus is then going to be on mostly combat and more combat. If nothing else, definitely worth grabbing next sale!
The fact its a rogue-like is what has held me off on getting it sooner, havent played a tactics/rogue combo before.
The combo feels so weird to me, cause usually in tactics games the goal is to keep all your guys alive, while in rogue-likes its fine to die and come back stronger/with more resources.
But i will wishlist it and keep an eye out for a sale at least!
Edit: apparently it is on sale for 12,50 rn, downloading it as we speak, haha
Not really imo. Fire Emblem fits a niche thatnothing I've tried ever seems to quite match.
Unicorn overlord and fell seal are probably the best two modern games that get close. There's also triangle strategy.
Have you played all the fire emblem games? Imo the older games have strong gameplay elements that even the modern titles struggle to match. Particularly because older titles had no grinding (unless you really abused some mechanics). Path of radiance and radiant dawn are definitely what I'd recommended, though fe7 is excellent too.
And there are countless romhacks of the GBA titles too. I've tried a few and some are worth checking out.
Check out banner of the maid. Story is not bad, characters level over time. May have been a little bit of a grind in parts but gameplay was unique enough to make it worth it. Triangle strategy also a great recommendation.
There are a bunch! Telepath Tactics Liberated and Together in Battle are like Fire Emblem with elevation and a bunch of environmental mechanics added in; Symphony of War is like Fire Emblem crossed with Ogre Battle; Gales of Nayeli has a really cool plot twist that I won't spoil...and you've probably heard the other ones recommended a bunch already.
For tactics that matter, you have Langrisser. Similar rock paper scissors strategy, but harder as you have more types of units. It's all story and battles, no running around building relationships or talking to people. Better class branching paths. Downside is the gfx are not great. But it's my favorite tactical rpg. It's available on PC, Switch, PS5.
Another great one is Dark Wizard, but it does have grind to it because it is LONG. Absolutely banging soundtrack, old gfx, only available on Sega CD or emulation.
And there is Shining Force, watered down tactics, can be hard, can be easy. 1&2 are available on Genesis collections on nearly every platform or through emulation. Shining Force CD is only on Sega CD or emulation. Shining Force 3 is available only on Saturn or emulation.
You sound like you’d enjoy Engage, but outside of the plethora of great recommendations you’ve got in this thread, I’d like to bring up Redemption Reapers. I’d also like to re-recommend Menace. Probably best game in the genre right now, or at least shaping it to be in the near future (still early access).
I share your same exact criticisms except story i honestly dont give a fuck about it i just want a good, deep and intresting mechanics and want to be challenged and be forced to utilize every mechanic and positioning to be able to win, and all Im going to say just play natural doctrine
I’m working on my own FE-like and I’m planning to start releasing dev logs soon. I’m in the tricky part right now which is learning how to be an artist (I’m naturally a programmer so it’s new to me).
One of the focuses of my game is on making it less swingy as you talked about. I’m borrowing elements from Pathfinder 2nd edition to help me achieve that.
Symphony of War:The Nephilim Saga is a great indie game that borrows from both FE and Ogre Battle. As someone who absolutely loves both franchises, I also second the recommendation for Unicorn Overlord.
Tactics Ogre Reborn is a good one that slows down combat so its not just about 1 rounding everything.
If you're willing to drop the named soldiers Xcom EW and Xcom 2 do the tactics and strategic layer the best, and the Long War mods are some of the best difficulty increasing mods ever that really change how the game plays.
FFT definitely is up there for best stories in a tactics game, and the job system is really interesting.
Sword of Convallaria is great. Been playing for over a year now with next to no complaints.thr gameplay is so good I can't even enjoying playing Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre anymore.
It boggles me why no one has mentioned this gem, but Invisible, Inc all the way.
Story is simple (heist gone wrong and some basic conspiracy intricacies). Gameplay is fantastic. It's a heist turn-based tactics.
You assemble squads and pick the ones most fitting for the job. All maps are proc-gen, but the proc-gen is very intelligent that it always turns out coherent. Can be challenging and getting out of tight situation feels very, very rewarding. There are also mods so you can add more map chunks and more agents.
Could I recommend The Last Spell? The story is basically negligible, but it shines with its pure focus on the game play. Every night you defend your base against hordes of enemies and by day you partake in some base-building. Unit growth is satisfying and the unit skills depend on their weapon.
Heads up that the different bases are runs with meta progression, but if you are happy with turn-based tactical aspect then this game is pure fun. The only issue is there aren't too many maps, but it's kept me entertained for 200h so far.
Every unit is unique, no shared class. Unit progression is also simpler, but with a bit of branching that is meaningful (not just stat stick, but different ability unlocks). I think this is more of your alley. Other recommendations here like unicorn overlord, FFT, tactics ogre etc all is similar with FE in the fact that your unit will become OP and one shots, but not triangle strategy.
Into the Breach is the anti-optimizer game. Everything is visible, attacks are telegraphed a turn ahead, so each map is you outthinking it instead of copying a wiki build. No grinding. Story's thin, but if your own brain being the win condition is the itch, nothing else hits.
It's not a fantasy story, but I will keep up the Shardpunk: Verminfall propaganda for FE fans.
Think of the Conquest maps with the breakable jars, or the one where you have to fight the golems while running uphill. Your goal in every map is to escape with your healer unit still alive. Looting crates for rare items is dangerous because enemies are really scary, but at the same time ressources like healing or stun grenades are limited. Downtime between maps is limited to your units' action points which is extremely refreshing in order to avoid min-maxing. The story and characters are written in rather broad strokes, it feels a lot more like the very old FE games where there is little writing, but lots of stories to tell about how you solved a scenario with certain units. Also very reminiscent of FE is that you can recruit people on maps, not just between chapters!
More on the fantasy front, I second trying The Last Spell. A bit more management in between battles and keeping track of units' optimal inventory and skill trees can be a bit much, but the city defense aspect is inspired by Conquest's arguably best map from chapter 10, a defense map on which you are always spread thin and outnumbered.
Both can and should be played with permadeath for the best experience.
I was really into Banner Saga's lore, story, certain mechanics, but the battles felt very lackluster. They improved the map design a bit in games 2 and 3 and different unit types occupying 1, 2 or 4 tiles was cool, but a lot of it was open field brawling with little thought given to positioning. Definitely more on the story side, although the (decision-based) ways units CAN die are really memorable.
Chroma Squad has you managing a power rangers team. So its pretty granular. Stronger focus on the combat and less about dating a comedia del anime cast
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u/a-curious-crow 9d ago
Those who rule!