Best Tactical RPGs You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Disgaea: Hour of Darkness are all pretty recognizable games for tactical RPG fans. They’re often mentioned as some of the finest in the genre, but there are so many others out there. Many lesser-known games don’t get the limelight they deserve because of their release window, platform, or maybe they didn’t even launch in North America.

For all these reasons and more, these tactical RPGs remain oddities in the fandom. Are they worth reappraising now, or are they too weird for words? Let’s gather some examples across a plethora of consoles and find out.

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8

Bahamut Lagoon

Release The Dragon

Bahamut Lagoon is one of many lost Squaresoft games from the SNES era that was only released in Japan. Units can move within certain spaces on the map and can use skills on their turn. Once an enemy is engaged for real, the perspective will switch to a 2D turn-based battle window. The biggest hook of this game is the dragons, as players can befriend them and add them to their units to strengthen their power.

7

Bleach: The 3rd Phantom

One Of Ichigo’s Better Games

• Developer: Tom Create
• Publisher: Sega
• Released: September 15, 2009 (NA)
• Platform: DS

Most Bleach games, and anime games in general, are fighting games. There was a decent fighting series on the DS, Bleach: The Blade of Fates, but Bleach: The 3rd Phantom was actually a typical turn-based tactical RPG. Players could control Ichigo and other characters to slay Hollows and other fiends in their pursuit of peace. It was an original story that lightly touched on some things from the source material and, overall, was not bad for a tie-in game.

6

Bomberman Wars

An Explosive RPG

• Developer: Hudson Soft (PS1 Version)
• Publisher: Hudson Soft
• Released: April 16, 1998 (Japan)
• Platforms: PS1, Sega Saturn

Bomberman Wars was released on the PS1 and Sega Saturn, but neither version was ever released outside Japan. Most Bomberman games stick to the explosive maze mechanics, but this spinoff saw the titular hero go into small-scale bouts with a fantastical party.

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The gameplay still involved planting bombs, so it didn’t stray too far from the norms. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a nice distraction for the Bomberman series, and it’s easily accessible thanks to an English fan patch.

5

Dragon Ball Fusions

Fun With Fusions

Dragon Ball Fusions is a 3DS tie-in game to the king of all anime franchises. Unlike most games that like to go into the main story arcs of the series, Dragon Ball Fusions is an original story wherein players can create their character.

The gimmick revolves around fusion, as players can combine new and familiar characters to create stronger ones in battle. Instead of a grid, characters have free movement within a limited space and depend on placement, making it a more freeing strategy game. Hero characters can team up for typical flashy combos that only Dragon Ball characters know how to do.

4

Operation Darkness

Werewolves Of London

Operation Darkness

Released

October 11, 2007

Microsoft tried hard to be the JRPG king during the Xbox 360 generation, getting exclusives left and right, but not many went on to become big franchises akin to Final Fantasy. Enter Operation Darkness, an alternate-history RPG wherein players commanded an elite troop of werewolves who fought against Nazi vampires and their zombie followers. It’s one of the harder games, on the list as it was easy for units to die and players had to revive them quickly. That said, the concept alone makes it worth a look.

3

R-Type Command

Shmups Go Tactical

R-Type Command

Released

September 20, 2007

• 

Most players probably know R-Type as a classic arcade horizontal shmup. Sequels and spinoffs followed the same formula until R-Type Command came out on the PSP. Ships were moved on hexagonal grids to engage other ships, mechs, and alien creatures in combat.

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It received a Japanese sequel, R-Type Tactics 2: Operation Bitter Chocolate, which will soon be released in the West for the first time via the remake collection R-Type Tactics 1 & 2 Cosmos. Hopefully fans won’t have to wait long for these remakes.

2

Rockman Strategy

Truly A Bizarre Discovery

• Developer: Dream Come True
• Publisher: Acer TWP
• Released: October 29, 2001 (Taiwan)
• Platform: PC

Rockman Strategy is without a doubt the strangest Mega Man game of all time. It was a PC-only game made for Taiwan, with Capcom having almost nothing to do with the project.

Mega Man and his companions can move across maps each held by a specific boss around the world. Upgrades can be acquired at Dr. Light’s lab, instead of doing the typical copy ability formula from defeating bosses. When enemies are engaged on the map, battles are fought in real time and action will be ticked down by a timer. The art design is something else, to put it bluntly, but not every Mega Man game can look as good as Mega Man Legends.

1

TearRing Saga: Berwick Saga

Fire Emblem’s PS2 Cousin

• Developer: Tirnanog
• Publisher: Enterbrain
• Released: May 26, 2005 (Japan)
• Platform: PS2

Some RPG fans may have heard about TearRing Saga: Chronicles of War Hero Yutona, which was a PS1 spiritual successor to Fire Emblem that was only released in Japan. After helping create the franchise, Shouzou Kaga left Intelligent Systems to help create a new company, Tirnanog.

That’s the basic backstory, but this first outing got a more obscure sequel on the PS2 called TearRing Saga: Berwick Saga. While the 2D battle screens still look like Fire Emblem games, the equipment menu is more detailed and the maps use hexagonal movement rather than squares.

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