I don't think you're reading too much into things, this is the conclusion I also came to. He supports the Duke because the Duke has been doing more or less right by the Walister in the C route, but he also sees that the Duke's current course may be deleterious for the Walister. Still, as a knight, as pretty much all knights of all clans in this game, he remains as loyal to his liege as he may feasibly be under the circumstances, and he will follow the Duke's orders. But, seeing the possibility of the Duke's downfall or corruption, he prepares contingencies for that possibility, and basically sets up his men to defect to Denam should it come to pass as an insurance policy. In the L route, the Duke's position is less assured, and his leadership is far more questionable, so he takes the drastic action of betraying his knightly vows - but also sets it up in such a way that his betrayal can be pinned on Denam as a patsy, allowing him to retain his status as a leal knight, or, should Denam kill him, his betrayal could have utillity for the Walister cause. I don't see any inconsistency in how Leonar behaves between the L and C routes... I think it's the neutral route's Leonar which is the least consistent with his characterization elsewhere, though, because in that route he doesn't question or doubt the Duke's plans of involving the Dark Knight, and his ruthless pragmatism is so much less pronounced that he comes off as downright naively idealistic.

He’s like what Star Wars Legends and the SW fanbase thought Vader was, as opposed to the dead-inside-self-loathing-mess-empty-shell he truly was intended as. Which is ironic because KoL (regardless of how much it fits with Matsuno’s original plans) did better in one game than George Lucas did in a whole film trilogy (“Clone Wars” is another matter but still…)

@@borjankosarac3645 He's always struck me as being in that mindset of towing the line, but deep down just kinda being checked out since his girlfriend ditched him for the literal antichrist. I made a video last year over how fun it would be to see a Knight of Lodis 2 where the total opposite of canon happened. Destin was Europea, and surrendered to the demons, the Palatinus Rebels killed the Zenobians, Denam got assassinated, but Lans and Eleanor are getting ready to hop into the fighter jet to fix it all.

@@CoffeePotato I'd love that. The ending of KoL fucked me up as a kid, I couldn't accept that there was no way to save Eleanor. I thought I *must* have made a wrong choice somewhere. Probably why it's stuck with me so long, which is a sign of good writing in my book.

@@animagamer2 There's absolutely a way to save Eleanor. It's non canon, but the best ending of the game, and my personal head canon. You need to side with Cybil, need to promise to keep an eye out on Elenor twice, then keep her both alive and with you for the final fight. Once all's said and done, Rictor and Ivanna get hitched and rule the island together, Rictor smooths over relations with Lodis, while Alphonse and Eleanor wrap up the game by going to bang in the woods, where they retire from the army life. The most "no strings attached, absolute win" ending in the game. Oh, they wrap it up by burning the prophecy picture of Tartaros, because that timeline is dead.

@@CoffeePotato Oh my god, really? How could I not know about this? I was OBSESSED with KoL when I was 13. I spent months reading threads on GameFAQs and NeoSeeker. That's how I learned about the Fire Crest and the Snapdragons. Did I see it and just not remember it? Or did Golden Sun steal my attention before I found out about it? I know I saw at least two endings for the game. Well, either way, a good excuse to fire up one of the old classics! It's been half a decade since I last played KoL.

It's strange that he has the ability to use guns -- I guess he's an assassin and that makes sense.... but what *doesn't* make sense is that he can use every gun *except* the one gun the game describes as perfect for assassination... the Rimfire pistol. lol

@@orcbrand Mechanically he's a Fusilier or Archer with Steadfast instead of power moves. It got uses, I think it fits with his theme of refusing to be like anyone else at any cost.

I mean, Vyce sucks - he’s designed to be a crappy person, with the exception of the timeline he grows the frick up instead. So his personal class on Chaos/Neutral being a poor man’s substitute for the Ranger on Law (essentially his strengths reaching their full potential) makes a lot of sense thematically…

@@borjankosarac3645 It does, though the strengths largely come from his free stats. The Ranger is an odd duck of a class, but a cool way to set him apart.

I love Vyce, is my favortie character!!!

I agree with you, and I like that Final Fantasy Tactics improves on that formula by separating "Vyce" into Delita and Argath in that sense, one a childhood friend who goes down a different path based on differences in ideology from the protagonist, and the other a deeply insecure and vindictive man who lashes out against the world. I think "Vyce" would have worked better if he was two characters from the onset, with Law and Chaos determining which character lives or dies. I think the story would have gone much more naturally in that case.

I agree mostly, but his lawful route characterization can still make a little bit of sense if you think about it. It's one thing to be pissed off at people for not wanting to fight, but that does not mean one would be down to slaughter them just for that reason.

@@eduardobarboza9499 True. It just seems to me that Vyce wasn't the kind of person to lecture others for "Crossing a Line" up until that point. He seemed so irritable and self-centered, so it's just very odd to see him suddenly taking a hard moral stand for people he insulted a few minutes earlier. I feel like the voice acting in Reborn probably adds to this problem, since if you only have text to go on it might be easier to read Denam and Vyce as more gray characters who could go either way. But the the voice acting portrays Denam as pretty calm and collected while Vyce seems like he's very emotional, bordering on unhinged already.

@@dudemcguy1227 I agree with you on this bit -- I think that it isn't Vyce's refusal to kill the Walister at Balmamusa that is out of character, it's that he tries to reason with Catiua and Denam instead of lashing out at them.

I’m meaning to write a post with stuff that I thought outlined this, but since you mentioned it here I’ll add to it: Leonar cannot forgive himself for his actions at Balmamusa, he knew from the start they were reprehensible, but he went through with it because he couldn’t see another way out of their situation - the Walister needed a unifier and on Chaos/Neutral it’s a successful False Flag Operation (on Law, well…) On Neutral, where Ronway wasn’t going to sell out to Lodis (if only because he felt cocky due to his position there), Leonar followed him to the end for Walister; on Chaos, he feels that Ronway will go further down a horrible path and on top of that he does secretly admire Denam’s morals… So he sends the most loyal of the Duke’s followers to be killed by Denam and eventually intends to die himself; this lets Denam claim the moral high ground while proving his ideals, so Leonar offers to duel him to the death before leaving the cause of the Walister in better hands.

I learned English as a second/third language from a pair of slavic languages (most people can't tell though because I learned it just early enough to avoid a foreign accent), and even though I can see how it can be a real pain to learn it through academic means, it's probably the easiest of all languages to learn by immersion simply by the fact that so many resources and so much high quality media is available in it. By comparison, I had a great deal of struggle trying to learn French. But that said, I found Jorge Luis Borges' comments on English quite true, even though he was speaking from the Spanish point of view. "Firstly, English is both a Germanic and a Latin language. Those two registers-for any idea you take, you have two words. Those words will not mean exactly the same. For example if I say “regal” that is not exactly the same thing as saying “kingly.” Or if I say “fraternal” that is not the same as saying “brotherly.” Or “dark” and “obscure.” Those words are different. It would make all the difference-speaking for example-the Holy Spirit, it would make all the difference in the world in a poem if I wrote about the Holy Spirit or I wrote the Holy Ghost, since “ghost” is a fine, dark Saxon word, but “spirit” is a light Latin word. Then there is another reason. The reason is that I think that, of all languages, English is the most physical of all languages." English is an absolutely beautiful language. It is more difficult perhaps to rhyme in English compared to other languages, but I think that only tends to work in favor of English verse by virtue of its flexibility and connotative variety. I love writing in this language.

She is the propaganda machine of Balbatos. She wrote a lot of anti walister text to strengthen Balbatos nationalism. She is also the only person who explains how the blood war actually started in N route.

That's when she got woke to Walister Privilege.

The guys also talked last episode about how often “smart” people, “educated” people develop a contempt for those they see as intellectually inferior. Which can be strikingly close to how certain parties justify supremacist ideologies… think about how the study of skulls from the 19th Century (initially a curiosity for anthropologists) became subverted in the 20th Century to dehumanise non-Caucasian peoples.

You’d want to hope they’re following the guides for Ravness, Ozma and Occione because they missed any discussion about the Cressida recruitment sidequest (which adds to how Nybeth is shown on Chaos)… If they don’t they’ll miss out on the best Law route stuff as well as a lot of the epilogue stuff (Jeunan doesn’t have a solo scene, only the one with Occione because that was pre-PSP version). Honestly, while I don’t fault them pacing it like this they probably need at least two more episodes to the end of the final route instead of just one.

Mostly agree, good comment. Thinking about the 2 games next to each other I've more or less landed on: Tactics Ogre = more ambitious, Final Fantasy Tactics = more refined.

@@dudemcguy1227 I love this comment thread. I think it would be really interesting for Mike and Casen to compare Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre at the very end of the podcast, given the similarities between the two games. I agree with DudeMcGuy's comment that Final Fantasy Tactics, in many ways, feels like the "more refined" version of Tactics Ogre's Chaos Route, though I think they spotlight different themes in their games. Despite Ramza being more coherent overall as a character, I find myself liking Denam more because one is engaged in the process of character construction and can plausibly paint three different portraits of Denam in Law, Neutral, and Chaos respectively. It boils back to storytelling preferences, especially with regards to the protagonists, and whether one prefers a well-told, tight linear story, or a more sprawling story with occasion for the player to make active and meaningful choices to shape the narrative. I did feel that Final Fantasy Tactics was most interesting when it focused most on the political plot in Chapters 1 and 2, and given that it was more or less the focus of Tactics Ogre throughout the entire game, I love the latter game more than the former game for me.

I for one feel that Princess Ending is the least satisfying on Chaos because in a way, his high-minded values make him losing sight of his sister’s feelings and failing to save Catiua the most potent… this is not a story where believing in a firm ideal is truly the best way to act. Of course, there’s the flexibility, like how easily he could instead go Neutral instead of hardening his convictions for better or worse; then there’s Law, which is paradoxically the best and worst path (certain people can live but several who I feel were very short-changed cannot here…)

He looks so much like Big Boss/Snake Plissken that it feels like a waste that he didn't sound more like solid snake tbqh... I have a whole schizotheory on how Tartaros and Balxephon are lowkey way too similar to Ocelot and Big Boss for it to be a coincidence, and how strange it is given this game predated Metal Gear Solid by 4 years. When you look at how Warren describes the Loslorien Dark Knights -- they're espionage wetwork specialists... they conduct tactical espionage operations.... they're led by a charismatic one eyed ubermensch.... his second in command is a mustachiod torturer who was once a double agent... um.... are these dark knights or are they diamond dogs. I wish Tartaros could have sounded morel like Big Boss, man, he so needed it.

@@orcbrand I had Steve Blum's voice in my head for Tartaros so I think our interpretations were not far off 😂

No you're right actually. The internet paradoxically both trivializes and escalates disputes. The ending of MGS2 nails it: "...[I[n the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always accessible. Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander... All this junk data is preserved in an unfiltered state, and growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down social progress, reduce the rate of evolution. [...] The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths. [...] You exercise your "freedom" and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdraws to their own gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds leaking whatever "truth" suits them into a growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth."" In the real world, one must compromise, one must accommodate, one must reconcile, or one must contest and fight, and bear the risk of loss. It is possible to be invalidated in the real world and reconcile himself to changing his viewpoint to better fit in with the real world community. But this is not the case on the internet. There is no need for compromise or reconciliation, and in a contest or fight there is no real risk of harm or loss. No one ever wins an internet argument, and no one ever loses, and if one's opinion is not valid to this group, it's valid in this group. We never need to change our minds on line. We never need to compromise. We never need to accommodate. But we also can never truly dominate. We are never truly vindicated. Conflict in the real world isn't like that, and has never been like that. But online, it's the only way it can ever be. But when real world communities are weak, internet communities dominate the social zeitgeist, which forces real world conflict become inevitable because online communities are rhetorically aggressive, but by the same token, they are rather timid in real life, and so the inevitable result is likely unfavorable to them... and so the cause of much cognitive dissonance, and further devolution of understandings. By having abstracted social behaviors through digitization, we have divorced sociality from existence within physical society. ...naturally, this induces madness.

His change of heart isn't too complicated when you fully understand he's a deeply insecure/reactionary person at a major branching point in that chapter. You abandon the mission his jealousy spikes, you agree to the genocide he realizes you're just as capable of being crazy but he gets the advantage to confabulate things as if he would never have made that choice ever. That's why he becomes more willing to forgive you in law path: he knows deep inside he could have done the same under different circumstances.

Another point with Vyce, is that on Neutral he’s calling out to Catiua, the one person he (kind of) cares about, almost wistfully… Then on Chaos, he’s pleading for mercy and screaming for Denam, the only person left who still cares for him and WOULD have saved him if he could. Then there’s Law… really, beneath the hatred he professes he’s ultimately just a terrified child lashing out at the world and his childhood friends.

@@Gaarkukan21 That's fine and I'm glad Vyce worked for you. He was the major sore thumb in my enjoyment of this game's storytelling, and I think it would have been stronger overall if Matsuno had divided Law and Chaos Vyce into two separate characters.

Both of Vyce’s canonical deaths are interesting, and they do what a good branching-storyline game SHOULD do: show different aspects to a person. On Neutral, he’s so consumed by his hate for Denam that he’s a fugitive, mentally breaking to the point he’d take Ronway out despite there being no way to escape alive, and with Catiua’s name on his lips; on Chaos, he tries playing everyone to get to the top until he overplays himself, crumbles into the scared little boy he’s been trying to pretend he’s not, and goes out crying for help… and begs for Denam, the friend he scorned and the only person left who still cared a wit whether he lived or died. Leonar is another great example, and they’ve seen two of his ultimate fates; I wonder what they’ll say about his Law portrayal. He’s actually one of my favourite characters in this game because he’s so consistently written and even with the changes in circumstances he doesn’t ever stray from his goal of preserving the Walister.

They should get them from Burak_C, who has been compiling a lot of scenes and finished the Coda ones in full; easiest way to not tear your scalp bare while getting the story content there.

Funny you mention that, because I was thinking of Jaime when they talked about how unsympathetic they found Hektor; fact is, the cultural values were different in the setting/time period these stories are based in. Our world didn’t hold those values collectively in society until AFTER the Nuremberg Trials…

Honestly, I agree. Let's be real -- it was super unlikely that either of these two would've ended up doing anything but Chaos route if they played blind and naturally. So at that point if they're talking about efficiency for the show, it isn't really any more efficient to do Neutral first than to do Chaos. They're Worlding back to the same point for the Chaos/Neutral split, and if they ended up with two different endings for the Chapter 4 episode it would've made for an interesting discussion. I don't want to sound like I blame Ivan, because I think that his logic and intention make sense, but I don't see them doing PotD or CODA's for this show. I just think that making them go Neutral first disserved them -- because that route was never going to be satisfying to these two people, and if they don't cover endgame / post game material, it really isn't even a matter of efficiency anymore.

As someone who dislikes Vyce, Delita, Diomedes, and all variations of this childhood best friend character from Ogre Battle games, it was Chapter 8 (CODA 4) that really made Vyce's Neutral and Chaos versions snap into place for me as real people. Without spoiling things while they're still only halfway through the full game, Vyce's story kind of works for me now, and the game would have benefited from going into depth on it earlier.

CODAs were such a good addition to this game, for multiple reasons

Vyce is genuinely laugh out loud hilarious in the original translation of chaos because of just how arrogant and rude his dialogue is. Alexander O. Smith is wonderful but there is no way to match the *absolutely unhinged* writing that Vyce had in 3C on the PSOne. Balxephon: And how can we help you? Vyce: How can you help me? Paint my house? Feed my horse? Massage my stinking feet?

I assume neither of them recruited Cressida. It's a pity, as it's actually possible to have the chaos frame to recruit her purely via choices, with no grinding.

@@disclaimin Since it's the second route, too, they can view the chaos frame and easily see if they've got it or not. But I figured even if they didn't succeed, we'd get to see all the Oelias/Dievold quests from Chaos and Cressida's speech before she joins/doesn't, plus all the character development it adds to Vyce and Hektor. I'm glad they're doing Tactics Ogre, but they're making some very odd choices to skip important story moments. It's possible they're going to do them in the Law Route (Ocionne makes more sense there anyways), but... not for Oelias/Dievold in Neutral, perhaps the most WTF story moments in the entire series, or Cressida in Chaos. I'm also starting to worry that they're going to skip CODA when it has the best, most comprehensive of the endings with so many interesting parts to it. When LUCT hit, I stopped in CODA 2 because I (stupidly) thought it was all just DLC-style fluff. When I finally beat CODA 2, 3, and 4 in Reborn, I was mad that I'd skipped them in the past, they added so much richness to the story, plus some extra connective tissue between the game and its sequel. I worry that the idea that PotD is 115 floors is keeping them from going in, not realizing there's palace guides/routes/etc. Like if I wanted to face the secret boss on floor 100, I just use the palace guide to teleport to floor 75, then it's eight very fast maps to 100. It'd be a shame for a podcast that concentrates on story and lore to specifically skip the best story and lore moments.

@@ValeVin I think there might be some confusion about the main purpose of this podcast. The main focus is actually only on thematic storytelling analysis, not Lore or character relationships. The podcast really tries to analyze the core idea or message (theme) that the creators were trying to convey with the overall story, and (in their opinion) how well the game managed to convey that idea using all the tools it has available (characters, setting, dialogue, gameplay mechanics, music, cinematography, etc.). In the case of Tactics Ogre Reborn, their development history research pointed them to Matsuno's quote about "How conflicts are resolved" and then early on in Ch.2 Chaos, Mike honed in on Canopus' line "Justice and War seldom keep company". They have been more or less analyzing the whole story mainly through those 2 statements/ideas. They will cover characters and interesting pieces of Lore only if that content is important to analyzing the core theme,. Which is why they've spent a lot of time discussing Denam/Catuia's relationship since it is pivotal to the story's conclusion and "how conflicts are resolved". Or why in this episode they spent some extra time discussing Gildora, since she's the best example of a radicalized partisan. But then they completely skipped over other boss characters like Marino. They have discussed Nybeth's philosophy and his interactions with Denam. But they would probably tell you that uncovering the details of Nybeth's family relationships, while really interesting Lore, is not super important to understanding or analyzing the core Thematic point of the story. Or at least it does not appear to be, which is probably why a lot of those Nybeth/Oelias/Cressida interactions are split up across multiple routes or in the optional content. A reward for players who go the extra mile to search out all the story content the game has to offer. But exploring and discussing every story beat that the game has available is not the purpose of the podcast. If recruiting Cressida gives additional lore and characterization to Hector and Nybeth, that is really cool. But Hector and Nybeth themselves aren't quite as important as the other characters (Denam, Catuia, Leonar, the Lancelots, Ronway, Brantyn, etc.) when it comes to analyzing or understanding the core theme. In fact, if Cressida was very important to analyzing the core theme, but her recruitment is difficult to achieve without using a guide, they might actually see that as a negative aspect of the story/game.

Though with all that said its possible that Ivan will return for the last episode to bring up anything that he thinks is important that they might have missed while he was gone.

Don't be too hard on them for missing any given subplot in a route, trying to fit a chapter per week into this podcast while also juggling work/family responsibilities is a lot of work -- I can attest to that personally. There is a good chance the guys won't end up doing the Occione quest which has the conclusion of the Jeunan arc, either. However, they will cover Ravness and Ozma in the law route, as far as I know - at the very least I can confirm that they don't miss recruiting Dame Ravness lol. Original plan was to cover this game in 10 episodes, and even with skipping over a number of things, it already looks very likely it will end up 11 episodes long. So I know it's a bummer that stuff like Cressida seemingly got skipped, I hope you understand. I too would have loved to see how they reacted to that quest -- not the least because it's the only opportunity the game gives for the player to actually kill Vyce LOL For the final episode, barring any unforseen scheduling issues, I will be joining, we have also invited Coffee Potato, and though as far as I know Warren Report won't be available to participate, he has been given an invitation to submit a prerecorded segment for that episode as well. Aside from the general post-game content discussion, we will also do at least some gap filling discussions about content that was missed or not deeply addressed during the main game.

You should take your time man, you don't have to put yourself under the same time constraint as Mike and Casen, it's a big game and there's no shame in going through it slowly. If anything you get the privilege of having the discussion immediately available to you as soon as you beat the relevant milestones!

Most likely three more episodes.

Ronway becomes magically stupid whenever Denam is working for him. You could forgive Neutral path takers for assuming smart Ronway portrayed in the early chapters of Chaos would stay in Neutral. But for some reason Denam makes him seethe uncontrollably to the point of ignoring everyone else around him that wants him dead.

What sort of key characters / conversations are they missing? Again, as stated many times in this podcast, this is an analysis of theme and storytelling, not an exhaustive coverage of lore. I don’t think Mike and Casen are interested in lore for lore’s sake, but in how they further flesh out the central theme of how conflicts play out in history. If you have any points to add to that, or any nuggets of insight, there’s always the comments section to talk about it. If relevant, Mike and Casen will bring it up in the podcast.

​@@michs7451what's wrong with you people? Any criticism in the slightest has you guy's all defensive

@@lawrenceragnarok1186 It's not about being defensive. I was asking him for a clarification on what "key characters / conversations" Mike and Casen were missing, and on the extent to which it cohered with the stated aim of the podcast (thematic, storytelling analysis). This channel has seen its fair share of critics who want Mike and Casen to cover every bit of lore, and this is just not what they set out to do (comprehensive lore coverage of everything Tactics Ogre). It's unfair to blame them for a goal they never set out to achieve.

@Real2KRosters also seems to be coming from a place of good faith so this is my attempt to understand where he's coming from.

@@michs7451this series would have been interesting if they went in blind and talked about what paths they chose instead of being told what to do.