Not meant to be formal, just putting thoughts to paper and explaining why I like or don't like a game.
Ogre Battle: March of the Black queen
Info: Released in 1993 (1997 PSX rerelease). SRPG with an RTS style map. Fairly lengthy (50+ hours, 30 maps). Three sequels and one prequel. Actual combat is indirectly controlled via four AI combat modes (Best, weak, strong, leader). Teams of up to five characters fight each other, depending on unit build and monster size. Multiple endings.
The flaws are easy to notice in a game released that long ago. The SNES's lack of ability to make in game map saves was inexcuseable in a game where you spend hours on every single map unless you're outright blitzing. The CHA system served zero point and was rightly tossed in later games. Getting the best ending was a serious pain in the ass and documentation for the game is seriously horrible. With the length of the game and how big the maps get later, it's tempting to just say fuck it and send an uberunit (Lich+Princess+Tanks+Eagleman for move) to crush everything. Diablos was a shitty excuse for a final boss, not that it's unusual for an SRPG to deal with.
What's to like then? Well, the combat's fantastic if you can get past the slow earlygame. The team dynamic focuses on building effective units and positioning. The game will kick your ass to the curb if you just use the default builds the AI gives you and don't fix it. The RTS movement system actually puts a premium on movement versus offense- sure you can have a high sky unit that can liberate any town, but can it hold versus the empire's hordes? The story deserves praise. The buildup of your army makes sense. You grab the remains of Gran's forces/the rebels and attempt to fight back in the smallest corner of the empire. You don't get serious attention till you actually kill one of Rashidi's minions (Kapella), and then you deal with one of his top generals in Debonair, then Gares, etc.
You take as much or as little from the story as you want. Sure, you can just rush the boss, but you'll miss rewards from liberating towns and free tarot cards on top of said story. Every single map has the very same basic format (You take the empire's base, hold your own), but the story in each varies along wtih your foes. It's limited by how old the game is, but puts a good deal into each map to give it flavor. Every boss fights you for his own reason. The Nixie boss for the freedom of her people, Gares because he's an evil scrub, Debonair for duty, Norn for revenge, etc. Getting all the characters and every bonus requires liberating every town and going back to visit them after the map's cleared. Every town's based off a historical town or city. Of course this isn't explained to you in any detail. Boo. Anyway. You can also skip entire maps if you want, though there are some (Slums of Zenobia) that are required.
Combat is entirely free to build as you want. While there are a couple of god units (Dragoons, Liches, Princesses) all are extremely hard to acquire. Dragoons require the good ending path and getting Brunhild, Princesses need a rare item. Liches need -two- rare items. The entire game is a balancing act. You have to grab and seize chokepoints in towns, and be able to hold them. You can only assign ten units to the map, preventing you from just crushing the game with overwhelming numbers.
The alignment system (Fuck you CHA) means you have to be careful to not just overlevel and steamroll everything with one unit- if you do that, you'll quickly find yourself with a bunch of 0 cha/alignment units that can't promote. It also will get you in over your head level wise with the enemies, giving you only one or two good teams when you need several for most of the game.
What catches me about the game is the depth put into the game, as mentioned above. The size of the map makes you feel like you're really taking over an entire giant empire, by slogging across it one area at a time. It just makes me sad that the last third to fourth of the game usually turns into a zerg rush, and you have to spend so much time backtracking for the world ending.
