Sara I'm Sorry

Sara, I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

I had committed to a strategy that would bring my enemy, Xaebos, to his knees, one that left Sara, my lone ninja, exposed on the right wing, dealing with rogue mages and healers. That would be her unraveling.

She fell on the battlefield, out of reach of my healers and out of luck. Usually I wouldn't accept the loss of a main unit, and would restart to avoid that outcome. However, she was lost at the very end of a battle that I had already restarted several times, one that was driving me mad, and therefore I couldn't stomach a do-over. The skirmish had progressed too far to rewind and undo her fate.

When a non-core character falls in Tactics Ogre: Reborn, a remaster of the SRPG classic, you have three rounds in which to revive them. There are a couple of items that'll do the trick, which can only be used by a friendly unit stood right next to their downed ally, or by a costly spell wielded by a healer. Once those three rounds have expired, so does your character. Permadeath. They are gone forever, reduced to a stat in your in-menu report.

Sara is gone, and she won't be coming back.

Our battle with Xaebos was the final in a series of two. Xaebos, a prominent knight in a rival house, is as tough as he is ugly, which is to say very. He also has some hard-bastard friends, ranging from mages to marauding golems. I'd already lost a couple of hours unsuccessfully trying to clear this battle, nearing the end each time before realizing that my strategy had failed me - victory was an impossibility or at the very least too costly. Understanding that I was doomed, I had quit and restarted. Again and again and again.

My options for retooling and restrategizing were limited, as I was already locked into this mini-dungeon and unable to back out to grind, or at least not without loading an older save and sacrificing significant progress. Tactics Ogre wants you to tweak your approach within these dungeons, to rethink your strategy using only the resources you've brought with you. 

Xaebos' golems and cyclops demanded my immediate attention, keeping my team occupied as his far more dangerous human units closed the gap between us and them. Next, the mages and archers needed to be dealt with, while also having to withstand the onset of the other melee units. Finally, I needed to cut down the two enemy healers, as they could replenish Xaebos' health faster than I could whittle it down. Sara, my fast-moving ninja, took to the right flank, along with my archers, to deal with the threat of the mages, and then the healers.

In every attempt, this was a battle of attrition. My units fell almost as quickly as Xaebos', and even in victory the majority of my troops were incapacitated by battles end. Incapacitated, but not lost. Only Sara was gone for good. My healing magic-wielding Cleric was bleeding out on the floor, and I had burned through all my curative items. I had used the last one to revive a treasured archer - a difficult decision, knowing that it would doom Sara, but the correct one. I think Sara would understand.

With no one capable of saving her nearby, I had accepted that she was lost long before her countdown hit zero. In a gesture that made far more sense narratively than strategically, I sent a Knight out to her corner of the battlefield, to ensure that she didn't die alone (and I could recover her gear!). With her final breath she said something mournful about her parents. A couple of moves later, Xaebos finally fell.

I have a new ninja now. Avelyn looks identical to Sara, but she ain't her. I'll know the difference, even if no one else does.

Gut-wrenching losses aside, I love Tactics Ogre. And I really love Tactics Ogre: Reborn. You should play it, and please look after Sara.