NIS America to bring Imageepoch's RPGs to NA

It looks like NIS America will be translating Imageepoch's latest RPGs to NA.  This may or may not also include Luminous Arc 3 for the DS.  Relevant titles include Chevalier Saga Tactics and ARK Project.

2010 holiday sales..

Want to pick up some poor, sadly neglected tactics games over thanksgiving? If you see something post it here.

NIS Thanksgiving Sale
Battle for Wesnoth iPhone/iPad for .99 cents
Operation Darkness $15 CDN, Fire Emblem DS $20 CDN

Recent Nov 2010 news Part 2

Imageepoch, known for their Luminous Arc series of SRPGs, has announced a new PSN/PC SRPG for PS3 titled "Chevalier Saga Tactics". It's an online microtransaction based browser game with a focus on PvP. More details to be announced soon.  Naughty Famitsu scan here.


New Valkyria Chronicles 3 screenshots.  Taking a look, it seems like the classes are the same as VC2 except for the sniper, which is its own separate class. Missions will still be separated into smaller maps.  In another screenshot we can see Rank is back.


Arc the Lad I and II are available on PSN for PS3 and PSP.  Arc the Lad is a pretty mediocre and beginner level tactics game that appeared during the early days of the Playstation along with many other tactics games that never made it to NA shores, but it may be worth a look.

Namco has filed trademarks in Japan for "Namco Wars, Namco Emblem, and Namco Chronicle". The first two sound similar to Nintendo's Advance or Famicom Wars and Fire Emblem, while the last entry sounds similar to Valkyria Chronicles.  Interesting?

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PSP) NA release date is Feb 15 2011

Ready for one of the best selling console tactics games in recent memory?  It's coming to NA on Feb 15 2011.  Impressions from Gamefaqs posters seem to be that it's significantly easier than the original, but that was to be expected.  Here is some footage of the game in Japanese.

Recent Nov 2010 news..

NIS Announces Phantom Brave Portable (PSP) for NA on March 2011. This version is basically identical to the one released on the Wii.

Super Robot Wars L gets a 32/40 in Famitsu. Looks like more of the same Super Robot Wars action.  If you care about it you probably already imported it.

Sakura Taisen Online announced. I don't know whether it's actually a turn based tactics game.

Jagged Alliance 2 Remake will be RTS-pause based.  Meaning it's an RTS but you can pause the action to issue orders.  This is of course a significant departure from the original turn based format.

Recommended turn based tactics games

List of Recommended turn based tactics games. If you have a suggestion feel free to let me know as there are many games I haven't played.

Last Updated Sept 11, 2011.

North American/English titles:

DS: Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Rondo of Swords, Panzer Tactics DS, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Knights in the Nightmare, Drone Tactics, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Age of Empires: Mythologies, Devil Survivor 2,

DS games that look decent but I haven't played: Dawn of Heroes

PSP: Wild Arms XF, R-Type Command, Knights in the Nightmare, Valkyria Chronicles II

PSP games that look decent but I haven't played: Mytran Wars, Legends of War: Patton's Campaign

GBA: Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Super Robot Wars Original Generation 1 and 2, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

PS: Front Mission 3, Nectaris: Military Madness

PS2: Eternal Poison, Daisenryaku VII Exceed, Front Mission 4, Suikoden Tactics

PC: X-COM: UFO Defense, Panzer General and other games by SSI such as Steel Panthers, Sid Meier's Civilization V, Elven Legacy, Fantasy Wars, Field of Glory series, Wesnoth, Panzer Corps. Just about any modern tactics game from Slitherine.

WII: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

PS3: Valkyria Chronicles

360: Operation Darkness

WII, PS3, and 360: Military Madness: Nectaris Remake

iPhone/iPad: Military Madness: Neo Nectaris, Battle for Wesnoth HD, UniWar, Reign of Swords

SAT: Iron Storm

Import titles: Ready to learn some Japanese? Here are some great import tactics titles.

Most Super Robot Wars import titles are decent to great. I'm not going to list them all, though. Same with the SD Gundam G Generation series.

The Daisenryaku series from SystemSoft is the only traditional wargame series still being produced for modern consoles and portables. There are a ton of Daisenryaku titles and most of them are pretty good.

If I'm missing a good import title, let me know. I certainly haven't played them all.

DS: Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu*

GC/Wii: Fire Emblem: Souen no Kiseki

PSP: Valkyria Chronicles 3, R-Type Tactics II: Operation Bitter Chocolate, Dai-2-Ji Super Robot Wars Z, Gloria Union, Gungnir, SD Gundam G Generation World

GBA: Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi*

PS: Front Mission 2, Berwick Saga, Tear Ring Saga: Yutona Eiyuu Senki

PS2: Super Robot Wars Z / Super Robot Wars Z: Special Disk, Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, Super Robot Wars Original Generations, Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~, Super Robot Taisen Impact

PC: Daisenryaku Perfect

SNES: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu*, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776*

Imports that look decent but I haven't played: Gungnir, Gloria Union, Blaze Union

* = Unofficial English translation patches available

Tactics Ogre PSP Remake DLC

Want some DLC for your imported copy of Tactics Ogre?  You're in luck.  Presumably this DLC will eventually be available in NA when the game launches over here.  It's out in Japan and got 36/40 from Famitsu.  Looks like it's on track to sell at least a couple hundred thousand in the US given its popular status.  According to 4gamer impressions, the user interface is responsive, which is always a good thing.  It's bothersome when a decent strategy game is weighed down by an unresponsive or poorly designed UI.

Aksys Games announces Record of Agarest War Zero for PS3/360

Aksys Games is porting Record of Agarest War Zero to PS3 and 360 on retail discs.  Apparently the first title sold well enough to warrant porting over the prequel.  If you liked Record of Agarest War, you'll like this prequel, which is more of the same from Idea Factory.  It's a low budget anime fanservice and dating sim-lite mixed with tedious grinding and forced random encounters on a small grid.  The press release states a "this summer" release date, which I assume means summer 2011, unless the folks at Aksys games are actually time travelers.

Valkyria Chronicles 3 combat and demo details

New details on VC3's growth system.  VC2 drew the ire of many gamers who didn't like the randomized distribution of credits for promoting your army.  In VC3 it looks you level up the entire squad at once, instead of dealing with individual units or classes.  Seems like a simple enough progression system.  You can change any characters class to any other class if you wish.  Unlike past games where characters learn potentials randomly by participating in combat, VC3 will have you choosing which potentials you want your character to learn.  It seems like the developers have certainly listened to the fan backlash against overly random character growth.  While I thought the VC2 promotion system functioned appropriately the way it was designed, a lot of fans didn't like how it worked (although it's a mistake to call it 'broken').  The Valkyria Chronicles 3 demo will be available on the PSN in Japan on Nov 9.

Update: Developer interview here.   There's no hard mode, apparently.  We'll see what they end up doing with the scoring system this time around.