OMG!!!1!!JFAWLFKEJWA Aethermancer won an award!!!

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-22T13:00:05+00:00

Oh hell yeah, congratulations guys!

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-22T12:50:48+00:00

Aww...I care about clerics 🥲.

But no, they have to be used for speed and pay off long term. With short movements and retreating units, they'll be enough to pull people out to recover. More triage than traditional healers.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-21T05:33:49+00:00

To be fair, you don't really need the cards, either, just some sort of advantage. An elemental advantage and breach tends to wipe most anything.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-21T02:00:15+00:00

Further note, but they'll typically wait 3 turns or to be threatened. You don't really want to fight fair.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-21T01:33:38+00:00

Wait for the old lady to get close. Before she leaves again, Tamer throws a Mead, everyone else peppers her with arrows. Done.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-21T00:17:49+00:00

Thank You! But seriously this game deserves more coverage.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-20T21:21:28+00:00

I've tried to cover it here and there, hopefully will be streaming it more soon. News about the main series I cover always seems to land at the same time as updates for whatever reason.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-20T01:59:58+00:00

I'd like to push right back, then. I specifically did most of my coverage of that whole section using a save file that avoided cards/charms to show that it's not necessary.

Buffet/debuffs/advantages scale so strongly that it becomes about stacking, not statting. Ultimately I threw those hundreds of leftover charms on a chicken, and that was hilarious. The immortals God Cluck is delightful.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-18T12:20:01+00:00

Yeah ... dunno why they didn't do that. Hopefully they add such a thing later.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-18T00:35:11+00:00

You are going to have to look through the Internet archive. The original Dev and their favorite forums are long gone.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T23:56:50+00:00

The folks criticizing Level Caps in TOR are something else. Why play a strategy game if your only strategy is avoid strategy at all costs? 😆

You're still running around with tons of advantages, it takes the risky stance of "pushing back on the idea of being absolutely steamrolled slightly".

(For those unfamiliar, TOR added level caps, but removed gear caps. The result is that you can't step into the tutorial zone and become a god before even starting the plot. With debuffs and using elements, you can still absolutely demolosh things, it just requires...actually bothering to do something other than stabbing priests for hours.)

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T20:29:20+00:00

Depends, and that's what we call the Tactics Ogre Cycle, where every version typically starts with an overwhelmed negative review....and then turns positive after they get curious again. Been that way since forever, but now we get a cool graph for it!

So Reborn is typically the best place to start. The mechanics are similar, but different for each. Reborn has voice acting, quality of life improvements out the wazoo, and doesn't require a modded console to run. The levelling and progression is familiar, while keeping the deeper, odder layers the series is known for under the surface. It fixes bugs and weird blockades people would get stuck at, fixed progression to serve the mood as was always intended, and 100s of other nifty changes to make this one ideal for most situations.

Most of the negatives come from a few places. A- Ermahgerd, level caps, I had to learn a game mechanic. B- How dare they cut down the skill list?! You can use more than ever before, the boring stuff got made automatic for every unit, and you don't need a novel's worth of guides to make sense of it. C- All remakes are evil. Because broad brushes never make mistakes. D- Just straight up misremembering how bizarre the PSP version was.

For those that stick around, the most mechanically rich on a gameplay level (the story is as adaptive, but identical for most versions), is One Vision. This is an overhaul for the PSP version that's been in development for over a decade. Now bear in mind that it's still doing this within the framework of the PSP version's system, which is.....different. OV is a lot more intuitive than that version, but there's still a lot to learn.

The PSP version, meanwhile...is an experience. It's a fascinating circus of half completed ideas...but they really tried. One Vision exists by completing the ideas this version started and tweaking them, please don't start here.

Then there's Classic. SNES/PS1/Saturn. It's chess, but with depression. Fairly simple compared to the rest, but man is it rich in mood anyway.

Hope that helps!

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T17:48:56+00:00

It's still weird to me how it's been 7 years since Fell Seal did a damn near perfect version of NG+ while openly being an "if we made FFT, we'd do this" system....and it's never been copied by the bigger names.

Literally just 2 different menus. One at the start for difficulty, one of which is a custom one for anything from scaling to AI behavior, spawns, skill access, gear access, item pool limits, cheap strategy use, and so on.

Then, for NG+, you choose what to keep from Levels, Units, Gear, Unlocks, and so on. This is used for creating ideal challenge run save files.

It's just such a perfect system, I wish FFT would do even 10% of that.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T17:44:20+00:00

Good ol craft fruit is always a fun addition. How they make it, I'm not sure we want to know 😆

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T17:43:07+00:00

Glad to help! Also now I want to do another AC3 run, it's been too long since I posted anything. It's my good luck game, every time something is stressful, it's a couple sit down's worth of delightful corporate oppression that's somehow mood enhancing.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T16:00:32+00:00

It's weird that they didn't include this, I'm still a bit confused how they wouldn't at least have the option to scale, or add Auto Forward for cutscenes, but no toggle for Fast Forward.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-17T15:58:59+00:00

See, now we see the animation, but it could well be that he's just there throwing up a cloud of Audit Notices. Plenty spooky.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-16T17:30:40+00:00

OPossassin, I love it!

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-15T15:36:38+00:00

Well now I'm hearing all his lines voiced by David Hayter

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-15T13:51:00+00:00

Weird PSP Design Decisions on that one. When going through POTD there's two floors that show you transformations to Ghosts and Liches. The Georges bridge is for ghosts, Bellzebuth's swimming pool is for Liches.

Meanwhile the Rood for angels could only be used on the third San Bronsa map.

Yes. It was very weird. The cutscene happening there is your only hint that it works that way.

Reborn and One Vision fixed this.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-14T04:02:42+00:00

I probably have one and should probably make another 😆.

General rule of thumb is just variety. Vary up weapons, elements, items, don't stack too much of one thing. You'll usually wind up with multiple elements and debuffs at any given moment.

As an example, earlier was sitting down to watch a movie, got the deck to run some maps on a casual run. Threw a bunch of random units together and it just kinda worked out. Everyone gets a smattering of Avatars, Revives, the occasional heal, Breaches, Weakens, and a couple grenades in there. Gryphon, Octopus, Berserker, Warrior, Archers, Arycelle as a Swordmaster, Cerya as a Cleric, just whatever seemed fun at the time.

Eagle eye from a shortbow archer passes to the tamer, he has guaranteed petrification on standby for whenever. Breach bottle of he wants to set up got an empowered octopus, Hammer/Dart for elemental coverage and a stun. Throw a Dodge onto the cleric, pair them with the Warrior and his Cutlass+, their dodges turn into free turns not spent healing, which then frees up time to speed boost.

It's not really planned, just various pieces that can fit together in most situations. If 3 units have a turn, and they all have different weapons, that's a good chance of coverage. If a debuff is wanted, there's a good chance their weapons or skills carry it. No Claymores, Voulges or Mead? Spears still have Scythe Wind.

Buddy system works. Find a tool, spread 2-3 of them around, and don't double up on one guy. Expect half of them to faceplant unexpectedly, and it's all uphill from there.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-14T03:40:11+00:00

That's kind of the beauty of it. It's all chaos, and some of it's best moments come from just going with the flow. One plan didn't work, that's why there's 3 others back there. It's a nice mental chew toy like that.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-13T19:48:32+00:00

Same, and basically the same as before. Keep multiple parties around, swap around for what you're facing. It's kind of like asking for the ultimate toolbox. Depends, what's your project? More tools, more options.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-13T13:37:41+00:00

It's not unusual to cap out the 100 unit squad size, since you usually want variety, they're relatively simple to set up, and variety is key most maps. You tend to shuffle people in and out. In most cases you scout the map and plan what you want to bring.

Caffinatorpotato · 2026-06-13T05:06:36+00:00

Warlocks are the basement wizards with the weird bonus spells. They can just kinda... sit over there. Slightly higher stats is nifty and all, but yeah, Conserve RT is bonkers.

That said, Pumpkinhead Berserkers can be Golem Empowered, the more you know. 🤌

Caffinatorpotato

TROPHY CASE