History VideoGame / OgreBattle

What made this game different from other Strategy {{RPG}}s of the time, such as ''FrontMission'' and ''FireEmblem'', was a RealTimeStrategy presentation, as well as its open endedness. One started out as a leader of a rebellion against an evil empire, who with the help of a seer named Warren tries to save, or conquer Xenobia. Depending on how one plays the game, one's reputation can have him be seen as evil - and he can create a kingdom far worse than the empire he toppled. On the opposite spectrum, he can also be seen as an example of pure good, and even go as far as to give up the throne to its rightful heir.

* BonusDungeon: Hell Gate, an epic 100 level battle with no saves, no heals, and hordes of monsters. Good thing you get gamebreaking stuff in there.

* OurLichesAreDifferent: They tend to be the strongest mages in the game, but have extreme vulnerability to light magic, sometimes there only weakness.

* {{Catch 22}}: [[spoiler: Denam ''really'' can't win if he becomes ruler of Valeria. Chaos frame too low? Someone assassinates him. Chaos frame high? Then Lodis invades and takes over Valeria.]]

These games provide examples of the following tropes:

** Depending on the game, in ''Knight of Lodis'', they aren't entirely that good. ''[[TheSameButMore Sirens]]'', on the other hand...

* OurLichesAreDifferent

* AWorldwidePunomenon: [[http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/wc/contents_wr.htm Warren Report]]

[[quoteright:255:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Ogre_Battle_4136.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:255:Fight it Out!]]
-->''The rule of the empire was a pure regime of terror. Merciless persecution was directed against survivors of the old kingdoms and those who would escape the tyranny. The heart of the people were troubled by secrets and betrayals and much blood was spilt over the land.''
-->''Imperial Year 24 - Here on the frontiers of Sharom the last survivors of the Knights of Zenobia were planning a final challenge...''

The first game of the ''OgreBattle'' series, ''Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen'', is subtitled as "Episode V". Eighty years ago, five great heroes brought peace to the continent. Fifty-five years later, one of the two surviving heroes, the mage Rashidi, teams up with Empress Endora of the Highlands to assassinate king Gran of Zenobia and his family. With this, Endora unites the continent of Zeteginea into TheEmpire. Twenty-five years later, you play a young noble who rallies the remaining Zenobian knights to start a revolution against Endora, her son Gares, and Rashidi and his evil magic. But rumors rise that Rashidi seeks to release the Ogres from the underworld, and provoke a new Ogre Battle among humans, Ogres, demons and angels!

The game is a strange RTS. The player controls squads who travel the world map. When two squads meet, the battles are resolved automatically.

Followed by 1999's ''Videogame/OgreBattle64'' as episode VI, and 1995's ''TacticsOgre'' as episode VII. ''TacticsOgreTheKnightOfLodis'' is a GaidenGame and not given an episode number.

!!''Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen'' contains examples of:
* AbdicateTheThrone: Tristan in some of the endings.
* AntiGrinding: Done innovatively. There isn't a limit to how high you can grind a single unit, but there are consequences to doing so. First off, if a unit kills another unit that's weaker than it is, it can lose ALI and CHA. A unit with low CHA is often prevented from advancing to a higher class (as such classes represent positions of leadership), and a unit with low ALI damages your army's reputation when it liberates a town. In addition, each level fields a limited number of enemy units (though RandomEncounters with wild monsters are unlimited), so if you use one unit extensively, you can end up with a [[OneManParty One Unit Army]] that you ''have'' to use because the rest of your army CantCatchUp, which means that you may as well write it off as a permanently zero-alignment unit.
* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: Both Sage Rashidi, Galf and Albeleo tell you that killing them won't do anything permanently, as long as the threat of war is present.
* BiggerBad: In a sense, the Holy Lodis Empire. It's seeming intent to invade the continent of Zeteginea eventually results in the formation of the Sacred Zeteginea Empire, and after the end, Destin and some allies go off to [[Videogame/OgreBattle64 fight it's expansions elsewhere]]
* BlackKnight: Prince Gares. His introductory chapter is called such. He is often refered as "The Dark Prince" or "The Black Knight".
* BlackMagic: Wizardry. Yes, the traditional fantasy magic is evil: you need to have a low alignment to take the class in the first place (though don't go ''too'' far or you can't advance), it allows you to summon and make deals with demons, and can even lead you down the path to necromancy and eventual lichdom. DarkIsNotEvil and BadPowersGoodPeople ''can'' apply, however; the most notable example of this is Saradin, who has a low alignment in-game, but not only doesn't act it, explicitly calls out Albeleo as APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: Shows up sometimes. Especially concerning the issue of the Japanese L and Rs. The kingdom of Holai is often called Horai. Fenril is sometimes called Fenrir. This can be quite confusing.
* BloodKnight: Fogel, according to his back story.
* CanonName: The Opinion Leader is named Destin Faruda in the sequel.
* {{Catchphrase}}: For the series overall. "FIGHT IT OUT!"
* ChivalrousPervert: Slust The Red.
* CrossoverCosmology: Within the same game. The goddess of justice "Felanna" appears while the Chariot card summons Thor. Angels and Demons are also common.
* DarkHorseVictory: The Hierophant ending of the original game. [[spoiler: Rauny becomes queen as heir to Zeteginea, your hero marries her, and Tristan goes off to fight Lodis. This is the only ending in which Rauny rules in her own right.]]
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: DoubleSubverted. [[spoiler: Empress Endora's StartOfDarkness was when she tried to form a continental alliance to protect against Lodis, got her kingdom invaded for her trouble, and allied with dark forces to protect her kingdom and conquer the continent. When you reach Zeteginea, she tries to get you to join with her against the threat of Lodis, which ''would'' be an aversion...except that she's doing this solely as a con to maintain her own power.]]
* DealWithTheDevil: You can opt to recruit the devil Galf by giving him the holy sword Brunhild, while having a low alignment and reputation. [[spoiler: Doing this can get you a special bad ending where Galf possesses you and rules the world in your name. This ending only happens if your reputation bar is less than a quarter full, so you can still avert it by rebuilding your reputation.]]
* DeathSeeker: Yushis' sister Mizal, and the shaman Norn. [[spoiler: If your reputation is high enough, you can talk Norn out of it by telling her that her boyfriend isn't dead, as she believed. Mizal... not so much.]] Tristan is infered to be doing this before you recruit him.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: Under the right conditions, you can get some of the level bosses to join your cause if you send the right allied units to their castle. You can also get Deneb to join your side in the first game, but doing so delivers a '''CriticalHit''' to your Reputation meter, and it has to ''already'' be low just for her to agree to join.
* ElementalPowers: Plays a rather good chunk of role in the latter games. In the original Three Dragoons (Slust, Fenril and Fogel) are based on this, as are the breeds of dragons - Good = Cold, Fire = Neutral, Evil = Physical.
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: There were six different types of offense in ''March of the Black Queen'': fire, cold, thunder, holy, dark (or evil) and physical. They clashed about how you'd expect; however, not all characters were inherently set to a particular element. Rather, each class tended to be strong in some areas and weak in others.
** If you have a spellcasting character like a wizard, however, you needn't worry about choosing the right element yourself; they will automatically select a spell keyed to their target's lowest elemental defense. How convenient!
** Generally speaking, the element opposition is Fire - Cold, Light - Dark, Thunder - Physical. Generally one is only strong in one element of each pair.
* TheEmpire
* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: ''Literally''. Having a Princess as leader of a unit will give ''all'' characters in that unit an extra attack. All units are actually improved with a Princess!
* EvilSorcerer: Rashidi

* FourIsDeath: The Four Devas (Debonair, Figaro, Previa and Luvalon) play this straight.

* GenderRestrictedAbility: In most ''Ogre Battle'' games, each gender has its own set of classes, with no overlap. In the ''Tactic Ogre'' games, there is some overlap.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Empress Endora.
* GuideDangIt: And ''how!'' Finding out where you're supposed to go first to get a particular event takes the wisdom of a thousand other players, and finding Chaos Gates or buried treasure without a guide is pure luck or systematic map-combing.
** Not to mention trying to get some of the endings. Oddly, the ''worst'' ending is probably the most difficult to get, and the biggest Guide Dang It of them all. It's also really ''really'' bad for the hero.

* [[HoYay Les Yay]]: In Universe, [[PurelyAestheticGender Gender only affects the main character's sprites and endings with the ''very'' rare man/woman or pronoun]], with the result of Deneb telling the main character that she is pretty good looking, and (if spared) townsfolk on the map saying you spared her only because she was a pretty girl. Another boss suggests that you are jealous that he gets all the women.
* KarmaHoudini: Deneb thought nothing of killing people for her experiments. However, even if you kill her, she just comes back in a new body. Since she seems to think helping the good guys in sequels is fun and has held back on the killing innocent people people ''recently'', she's tolerated and it's not even a hit on the KarmaMeter to have her join in later games. There's not a whole lot anybody can do anyways.
** And it seems she doesn't consider it killing; she does get pretty cheesed off with you for smashing all her pumpkin people, so they were probably still alive in some way, just in that tortured "Aaaugh kiiiill meeeee" way.

** The "Charisma" stat also qualifies. It moves in a similar way to the "Alignment" stat.
* TheKingdom: The Kingdoms of Zenobia, Holai and Deneuve, as opposed to TheEmpire.
* KnightInShiningArmor: Lans Hamilton
* LadyOfWar: Rauny Vinzalf, future queen and the first female Paladin on Zenobia. Also Fenril, one of the Three High Knights who fought in the original ''Ogre Battle''.
* LaResistance: Which you control.

* TheManBehindTheMan: Rashidi to Endora.
* MultipleEndings

* [[spoiler: NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Where Endora's fall from grace started. When it looks like the Holy Lodis Empire seems posed to invade, she appeals to the outher four Kings for an alliance to fight them off. Their response? To take this plea as a sign of weakness and invader her kingdom of Hyland. With a little help from Rashidi, Hyland not only fends them off and defeats them, but the rage from their acts brings her to path of evil]].
* OfferedTheCrown: In ''Ogre Battle'', this can happen if you're high alignment and meet certain conditions. [[spoiler:In the best ending, you refuse it; in others, you can take it or marry the legitimate heir of the appropriate gender.]] Meanwhile, in the evil endings, you [[ICanRuleAlone take the throne by force]], to varying degrees of success.
* OneManParty: In ''Ogre Battle'', it is relatively simple to create a single unit that can effortlessly steamroll over the entire enemy army. See GameBreaker above for some possibilities. The only problem is that this unit will end up with incredibly low alignment, so they can't liberate towns without screwing your KarmaMeter... but hey, the rest of your army needs to do something with all this free time they have, right?

* OutOfCharacterMoment: [[spoiler: Prince Tristan's]] actions in the Hanged Man ending are completely at odds with his portrayal in every other scene in the game.

* PrideBeforeAFall: Fogel's backstory.
* RebelliousPrincess: Rauny, who actually does not follow her father's MyCountryRightOrWrong stitch and oppose the Empire, and [[RunawayBride ran off from her proposed wedding from an evil baron.]]
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified[=/=][[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized Civilized]]: Is the rebellion good or evil? Well, you're the one running it, so it's whatever you [[KarmaMeter want it to be]]. You can be a shining beacon of hope, worse than the empire ever was, or somewhere in between.

* ShelteredAristocrat: Prince/King Tristan Fichs Zenobia.
* ShoutOut: Yasumi Matsuno loves the band Queen. Both "Ogre Battle" and "March of the Black Queen" are named after Queen songs, and the stage "The Rhyan Sea" is a reference of the Queen song "Seven Seas of Rhye". The subtitle of ''Tactics Ogre'', "Let Us Cling Together", is from another Queen song.
* SquishyWizard: Wizard units deal excessive amounts of damage, but tend to die easily. ''Not'' the case for [[OurLichesAreDifferent liches]].
* StellarName: Several characters in the original, including Deneb. Almost to the point of ThemeNaming.
* StoneWall: Most monster units aren't as damaging as smaller units, but can tank more damage. Undead units completely shrug off all damage that isn't holy (which kills them in one hit).
* TakenForGranite: Saradin.
* TarotMotifs
* ThemeNaming: The Four Devas in ''Ogre Battle'' are all named after cars — the Mitsubishi Debonair, the Nissan Figaro, the Toyota Previa and the Chrysler [=LeBaron=].

* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler: Tristan in the Hanged Man ending is ''really'' not a nice guy. You've conquered the continent for him, but [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished that very fact means that you've become a danger to his throne]], and he quietly murders you to ensure that you don't challenge his rule later. This is only for this ending, however; he's far more reasonable in the others.]]
* UrbanLegendOfZelda:
** Several sources said that battles directly affected reputation, in the same way that they affected alignment and charisma. This wasn't true. Also, amazons don't hate male leaders, at least not in anyway that affects gameplay.
** Certain game mechanics are improperly represented by most guides, which are then copied by others, allowing rumours to form. For instance, Amazons do not do better in units that are all female, and attacking weaker/stronger units does ''not'' affect global "karma", just individual unit ratings.
** Sadly, almost all of those rumors arose from the official strategy guide and ''Nintendo Power'' (often NP copying the guide), which led to them being copied by the earliest internet walkthroughs, which led to them being "common knowledge," despite being completely false. You can, in fact, have a level 25 unit running around pwning lvl 10 units with no hit to your reputation whatsoever, though they will have 0 ali and 0 cha. Probably the first game is especially vulnerable to this due to its rather vague mechanics and the fact that the reputation meter, despite being a 100-point scale, is represented by a fairly small visual with no number, so playing the game the standard way may make it hard to tell just how much impact anything had on it.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Low-[[KarmaMeter karma]] endings are bad endings. You can't hold the realm by force, [[spoiler: at least not without being taken over by Rashidi or Galf]].
* WeCanRuleTogether: Sorta. Empress Endora at one point asks you to ally with her to protect against the Lodis invasion. Your Lord, however, [[ButThouMust cannot accept the offer]], though you can have most of your ''other'' units surrender if you're TooDumbToLive.
* WhipItGood: Beastmasters ''love'' to whip.
* WhiteMage: Cleric, Shaman, Monks and Princesses.
* WingedHumanoid: Canopus, and every other hawkmen in general.

* ReviveKillsZombie: Undead units (skeletons and ghosts) are dusted with one hit from a holy attack, usually delivered by [[TheMedic cleric classes]].

* WhitePrince: Prince/King Tristan Fichs Zenobia.

* BiggerBad: In a sense, the Holy Lodis Empire. It's seeming intent to invade the continent of Zeteginea eventually results in the formation of the Sacred Zeteginea Empire, and after the end, Desting and some allies go off to [[Videogame/OgreBattle64 fight it's expansions elsewhere]]

-->''The rule of the empire was a pure regime of terror. Merciless persecution was directed against survivors of the old kingdoms and those who would escape the tyranny. The heart of the people were trouble by secrets and betrayals and much blood was spilt over the land.''

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Ogre_Battle_4136.jpg
->''Fight it Out!''

* BiggerBad: In a sense, the Holy Lodis Empire. It's seeming intent to invade the continent of Xytengia eventually results in the formation of the Sacred Xytengian Empire, and after the end, Desting and some allies go off to [[OgreBattle64 fight it's expansions elsewhere]]

* [[HoYay Les Yay]]: [[PurelyAestheticGender Gender only affects the main character's sprites and endings with the ''very'' rare man/woman or pronoun]], with the result of Deneb telling the main character that she is pretty good looking, and (if spared) townsfolk on the map saying you spared her only because she was a pretty girl. Another boss suggests that you are jealous that he gets all the women.

Followed by 1999's ''OgreBattle64'' as episode VI, and 1995's ''TacticsOgre'' as episode VII. ''TacticsOgreTheKnightOfLodis'' is a GaidenGame and not given an episode number.

* AntiGrinding: ''March of the Black Queen''. Each map (except the last, and the bonus one) had a limited number of enemies, and it was beneficial to ''not'' kill them all with one unit. They balanced the game so that you could have a whole army of mid-to-high ALI/CHA units if you rotated them in/out and used your leader only for fighting bosses. Once you killed all of the enemies off, the boss's unit sits there in his castle and doesn't move, giving you free rein over the entire area until you beat the boss.
** You ''can'' subvert this by having your groups target only the leaders (set tactic to Leader). They will kill the leader, deal damage to the rest of the group, and force the enemy unit to retreat to base. The enemy unit's leader (and, subsequently any other units that were killed during the encounter) will be revived and the unit will be sent back out for you to repeat the process against. If there is a risk your unit will annihilate the enemy unit, retreating is always an option to preserve this tactic.
** There's also the major fact that defeating a unit of a much lower level is considered an evil act, and will reduce your own unit's alignment. This is especially important for your player character, as their alignment influences your [[KarmaMeter reputation]], which determines which [=NPCs=] you can recruit as well as the ending you receive. So if you grind up your hero then spend the rest of the game curbstomping enemies of lower level than you, expect to get one of the worse endings.

** The "Charisma" stat also qualifies. It moves in the same way that the "Alignment" stat does.

** There's also the major fact that defeating a unit of a much lower level is considered an evil act, and will reduce your own unit's alignment. This is especially important for your player character, as their alignment determines which [=NPCs=] you can recruit as well as the ending you receive. So if you grind up your hero then spend the rest of the game curbstomping enemies of lower level than you, expect to get one of the worse endings.

* AntiGrinding: ''March of the Black Queen''. Each map (except the last, and the bonus one) had a limited number of enemies, and it was beneficial to ''not'' kill them all with one unit. They balanced the game so that you could have a whole army of mid-to-high ALI/CHA units if you rotated them in/out and used your leader only for fighting bosses. Once you killed all of the enemies off, the boss's unit sits there in his castle and doesn't move, giving you free reign over the entire area until you beat the boss.

* CatchPhrase: For the series overall. "FIGHT IT OUT!"

* LesYay: [[PurelyAestheticGender Gender only affects the main character's sprites and endings with the ''very'' rare man/woman or pronoun]], with the result of Deneb telling the main character that she is pretty good looking, and (if spared) townsfolk on the map saying you spared her only because she was a pretty girl. Another boss suggests that you are jealous that he gets all the women.

* StoneWall: Most monster units aren't as damaging as smaller units, but can tank more damage. Undead units completely shrug off all damage that isn't holy (which kills them in one hit).

* TakenForGranite: Saradin

* WingedHumanoid: Canopus, and every other hawkmen in general.

* WhitePrince: Prince/King Tristan Fichs Zenobia