#this is the phoraena sisters game. to me

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I just met Sherri (who is rad as all get out) and I'm going nuts over the dialogue you can trigger with her sisters. You've got Olivya and Cistina who both reach out to say something along the lines of "We're sisters!!! Stop this!!!" and subsequently get shot down with "I am going to throttle you right now for real. how's that for stopping"

But then you've got Cerya who goes "Surrender. Now." and Sherri responds with "GEEZ glad to see you too :/"

Truly the siblings of all time ❤️❤️❤️

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I reblogged that post the other day about never finishing video games and it made me stop and think hard about my life and the fact that. oh my god....... I really DO never finish video games........... So I have changed my ways by finishing up Chapter 4 and the ending of Chaos route for Tactics Ogre! Tons of endgame spoilers ahead but here are my bullet-pointed highlights:

My guy Azelstan the pirate! I love him. His whole arc with losing his daughter reminded me a little of Svarog and Hossabara from Triangle Strategy (albeit with substantially more nihilism!), and finding him at the port and then going through the story with the girl he takes under his wing made me die a little inside.

I do really appreciate the fact that even once he joins you he's still a little bit of a mess! I feel like a lot of the characters join Denam out of anger or honor or something else equally passionate, and meanwhile Azelstan's out here going "I've lost everything I love and this is just a decent way to try and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else." He's simply a very sad old man and I love him a lot

This is not a highlight per se but it IS funny: I had to play the whole pirate cove dungeon where you recruit him like three or four times because I kept thinking I had the recruitment conditions fulfilled and then. did not in fact have the recruitment conditions fulfilled. I killed SO many ghosts. I got to the point where I just bought like 30 exorcism arcanas before going in so I could just have anyone regardless of cleric status blast the stilled undead whenever I needed to

AUGHKDHJSHDGHJJS. I am. SO unwell about the Sherri recruitment scene. I cannot express just how much I am unwell about the Sherri recruitment scene. All the Phoraena sisters really are so cool and good and I spontaneously combust whenever they come on screen but this scene is just AUUUUUGH........ It kills me thinking about how long Sherri's been hiding out because she doesn't think anyone will welcome her back and meanwhile her sisters just!!! love her so much!!!!!!!!!! and SHE loves THEM so much!!!!!! it just makes me go woaugh..........

I also just replayed some of the earlier chapters with Cerya and Cistina to test out the endgame rewind feature, and I take back my little chart I made of them a while back where they're arguing over clothes and things. All of the sisters are defined first and foremost by Being Willing To Sacrifice Everything For Each Other and I love them so much about it

And in addition to all the Phoraena sister dynamics, looking at this scene through the perspective of Denam ALSO having a sister who's keeping herself apart because she feels unloved is so. wowowowow

And on that note Denam and Catiua are rotating around in my head 24/7!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm really so in love with how far the writers went with their argument and fallout and also insane about the bad ending in this scenario because AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?!?! and also I'm just a sucker for guilt arcs and having to live with mistakes even when it'd be easier not to. Catiua's absolutely insane (affectionate) and I think it's so fun how she changes things around and really comes into her own after this.

Also I really really love that the two of them got to have such a narratively clear conversation about everything that went down!!!!! This is a complete tangent but I sometimes kind of go insane over the fact that in Triangle Strategy we really don't get to see a ton of Roland and Cordelia after they reunite and Whiteholm is retaken. They have. so many things to talk about, and Cordelia has more than a few valid reasons to feel resentment toward Roland for the way he handled retaking Whiteholm. The closest they come to really talking about how they feel is that scene where they're standing in the garden and Roland's trying to explain why he killed Avlora and Cordelia just kinda quietly goes, "I know. I get it. I can't blame you." And while that scene is fun in its own "this bad boy can fit SO many emotionally traumatized Cordelia headcanons in it" sort of way, it's also so so so nice to see Denam and Catiua do the opposite and actually sit down and hash it out for a bit. They get to talk about why they're angry!!! They both get to explain themselves and then reassure each other that they're still loved!!!! They get to be genuinely close again and work as a team!!!!! and I love that for them :)

Also with comparisons to Cordelia, Catiua very distinctly doesn't get sidelined after Denam rescues her!!!! She's an active participant in the war and really takes charge over Denam, which is very neat imo, and I love getting to see her coronation and speech at the end

THIS ATTACK SPECIFICALLY. The whole final boss was so cool but I actually gasped and sat back when I saw this, it was just so so different than any of the other graphics in the game and it made me go nuts

AAAAOAUGH GHAGHG

The credits are really pretty :)

RHCKCHHGLGLRLRLAHHJG I am once again foaming at the mouth about the way the game blends game mechanics and story this is SUCH a fun explanation for how the whole world tarot system works and also I am absolutely gutted by the idea of Denam doing this canonically because he can't stand the regret of the choices he's had to make. I feel like Denam's guilt over the entire conflict isn't explicitly mentioned a ton (he actively makes a lot of comments to the effect of "I'm doing what my honor dictates and I have nothing to be ashamed of") and then every once in a while the game comes back and slaps you with stuff like this. Like hey. hey. yasumi matsuno. can we talk? I jst wantto talkk

Also all the endgame content is SO GOOD. I'm starting to move over to Reborn because I want to experience all the voice acting and stuff over on that version, but it's also so hard to leave my team and all the cool stuff I've unlocked. I need to read up on it more but I'm 90% sure you can recruit Lancelot and Warren if you do the Palace of the Dead stuff which I avoided in Chapter 4, so I'm tempted to go back and do that on there sometime. Or mayhaps I'll just play it through on Reborn once I get through Lawful and Neutral!

But yeah!!! Overall, such a fun route and a fun game and a fun ending :) I do feel like I want to come back to Chaos route once I've finished the other two, because I miss Vyce and the role-playing part of my RPG-obsessed brain really wants him to survive the canon-ish ending because I think there's a ton of things from the beginning of the route that I'll think differently on now that I've finished (like all of the stuff building up to Vyce going nuts and Catiua leaving).

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ask game; 6 and 19 for Tactics Ogre!! :D

Tactics Ogre!!!!!! Thanks so much for the ask <3 <3 <3

6. My favorite character

I regret to say that. Vyce is maybe possibly my favorite. Cerya is definitely a close second but there is something wrong with my brain and whenever I see a character make absolutely undeniably horrible decisions many times in a row I get heart eyes. I just think he's neat!!! And his whole terrible relationship with Denam compels me. Whatever those guys have going on is insane and also really funny <3

Honorable mention to all the Phoraena sisters though, I'm really enjoying how often they get to interact + how their stories build on each other. I cannot remember how far I've gotten in posting my little screenshots yet, but I did get to recruit Sherri a while ago and got that scene where Olivya and Denam kinda talk her down. It's really fun to see the four of them comfort/interact with/argue with each other with everything that's going on--I feel like it's uncommon to see sibling dynamics with more than two siblings let alone four, so it's fun to see tactics ogre tackle that

19. Favorite headcanon

Speaking of the phoraena sisters!!!! Ever since I picked up Sherri my brain's been trying to piece together how exactly all of them would interact with each other so now I've got this fun convoluted little web which I'm now going to inflict upon the world.

Mostly my take is that I think Cerya + Cistina have really similar personalities (really opinionated + stubborn) while Sherri + Olivya are really similar in a different way (more laid-back, tend to be more passive-aggressive than outright aggressive), and that Cerya + Sherri / Cistina + Olivya would tend to be a little more fond of each other just because they're closer in age.

I also think if they were going to have a vote of "sister most likely to defect to the Bakram army and try to kidnap our dad" it probably would have been in order: Cistina, Cerya, Sherri, Olivya, so it would have been pretty out there when Sherri was the one to go nuts after their mom died. "Most likely to start her own rebel army" was definitely Cerya though. 100% all of them saw that coming and actively made plans around it