Guide Best Tactical RPGs
 - 20 Turn-Based Strategy Classics You Should Play

Arc the Lad Collection (PS1)

This trilogy of PS1 SRPGs was released between 1995 and 1999 in Japan, but took so long to be localised for the West that Sony America would only allow Working Designs to publish the trilogy in one complete box set. Though, as it turns out, that’s a great way to play the series. There’s a connected story running throughout the trilogy, and the gameplay expands and evolves so much across the three games that it’s fun to play them in order and experience the advancements.

What starts out as a simple tactics game gradually evolves into a fully featured JRPG, complete with a world map, towns and dungeons to explore, except with full tactical battles where regular turn-based encounters would normally be found.

It doesn’t hurt that the trilogy also has a great story – particularly in part two – some gorgeous sprite work and sumptuous orchestral soundtracks. The late US release and non-existent European presence make Arc The Lad an overlooked classic that’s well worth trying out today, especially if you’re a fan of Working Designs’ colourful localisations.

Bahamut Lagoon (SNES)

Created by a team of Final Fantasy veterans, Bahamut Lagoon is a late-era Super Famicom RPG that sadly never made it outside Japan. Which is a shame, because it’s a truly unique example of the genre.

While the tactical battlefields look standard on the surface, engaging in combat with any unit sees you transition to a battle scene in which a full party takes on another in turn-based combat, just like a Final Fantasy battle. Each party unit also has a companion dragon, which roams independently on the battlefield and follows basic commands but otherwise does its own thing.

You can feed weapons and items to your dragons between battles, and across the span of the game, they might evolve multiple times into mighty fantastical beasts. Packed full of original gameplay systems and a beautiful 16-bit art style, Bahamut Lagoon is a hidden gem that’s crying out for an HD-2D remake. Until then, the fan translation will have to do!

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)

If you want a strategy RPG you can sink hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into and boggle your mind with myriad tactical decisions, then Disgaea is the one.

Don’t let the cute anime aesthetic fool you; every battle in Disgaea is a complex system of interlocking gameplay mechanics in which you can manipulate the properties of the tiles themselves to shift the outcome of battles and rack up gigantic damage combos through insane multipliers. In many ways, it’s more like a puzzle game than it is an RPG. And if that’s not enough for you, you can also level up your weapons by diving into one hundred levels of battles inside every weapon, ensuring that obsessive players will never run out of things to do.

Endless levelling and tinkering not for you? Don’t worry, you can still enjoy the silly story, cheeky characters and Disgaea’s iconic penguin-like Prinny units.

FEDA: The Emblem of Justice (SNES)

You might assume from the title that Feda: Emblem Of Justice is a copy of Fire Emblem, but it’s actually the Super Famicom’s answer to Shining Force. In fact, most of the team who created Feda also worked on the original Shining Force, with that game’s character designer, Yoshitaka Tamaki, returning here as game director.

As such, fans of Sega’s Mega Drive tactics games will find Feda to be very familiar, especially its fantastical characters, including wolfmen and centaurs. While the gameplay hews very closely to that of Shining Force, Feda also distinguishes itself with a morality system that allows the main hero to follow either the path of justice or chaos.

The choices you make in battle affect not just the story but also which characters join, or even decide to leave, your party. In 1996, Feda got a decent remake for Saturn, including expanded story and battle scenes as well as new anime cutscenes. However, the Super Famicom version is recommended, thanks to a slightly nicer art style and a handy fan translation.

Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

Releasing the same year as the phenomenal Final Fantasy VII, this strategic spin-off initially flew so far under the radar that it didn’t even receive a European release. Those who took a chance on it, however, know that it’s actually among the greatest Final Fantasy games ever made.

Featuring a rich story by Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story creator Yasumi Matsuno, it uses classic FF concepts, most notably FFV’s job system, to deliver a tactical RPG unlike any other.

Two fantastic remakes followed: PSP’s War Of The Lions in 2007 and 2025’s superb The Ivalice Chronicles, picking up more fans along the way, while die-hards have discovered that repeated play only reveals further layers of depth to its intricate, ingenious systems.

Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS)

Fire Emblem is the granddaddy of tactics RPGs, extending all the way back to the Famicom in 1990 and encompassing multiple entries across the decades, many of which could compete for a spot on this list.

The simple but challenging “weapon triangle” system defines Fire Emblem from its peers, as does its brutal permadeath mechanic, which permanently kills off any allies who happen to fall in battle, encouraging perfectionist players to tear out their hair as they re-do brutal battles in an attempt to keep everyone alive.

This 2012 release was the first new Fire Emblem game in five years at the time and threatened to be the last, so the developers famously threw everything they could at the game, including romance options that could lead to you playing alongside your own offspring.

In the process, they not only created the greatest game in the series but also saved it from cancellation and secured its future as a fan-favourite Nintendo RPG series.

Front Mission 3 (PS1)

Front Mission 3 was the first in Square’s mech-combat tactics series to be released outside Japan and also the first to invest heavily in RPG elements.

Playing like a tactical interpretation of Armored Core, it fulfils the fantasy of piloting giant hulking machines in a gritty future Japan and distinguishes itself from other strategy RPGs through its combat system, in which individual parts of each mech can be damaged rather than just their overall HP.

Take out an enemy’s right arm, for example, and they’ll no longer be able to use the weapon they had equipped there. Force the pilot to eject, and you even have your own pilot hop out of your mech and jump into theirs, stealing it for the rest of the battle!

Outside of combat, you can customise mechs to your heart’s content, enjoy a deep branching story and browse a simulation of the internet that was quite novel at the turn of the century but now feels nostalgic for a bygone age.

A remake of Front Mission 3 recently released on Nintendo Switch. It captures the spirit of the gameplay very well, but some may find the original PS1 aesthetic superior to some of the suspiciously redrawn assets in the new version. Either way, though, Front Mission 3 offers a very deep and satisfying tactical system.

Jeanne d'Arc (PSP)

If the complexities of Disgaea are too much of a headache for you, then Level-5’s Jeanne d’Arc may be just the antidote. This cult PSP classic is one of the most accessible games in the tactics genre, with a nice, gentle introduction to the basics of strategic battles and clear, concise tutorials.

That’s not to say it lacks depth, though. There’s the “Burning Aura” system, which rewards units who team up to attack the same enemy in a single turn, while Jeanne herself can make use of a fantastic transformation power that allows her to continue attacking in a single turn whenever she kills a unit. It’s a great mechanic that gently encourages and rewards a little more strategic thought without becoming overly complicated.

Finally, the story, which takes loose inspiration from the legend of Joan of Arc, is a pleasingly original scenario for the genre, enriched by some high-quality anime cut-scenes. Keep an eye out for the recent PS4/PS5 release, which officially brought Jeanne d’Arc to Europe for the first time.

Warsong (MD)

Known in the west as Warsong, Langrisser is the first in a long-running tactics series, boasting a fun anime interpretation of Germanic fantasy and a Fire Emblem-like battle system that innovates by allowing each of your commander units to recruit a number of disposable mercenaries to flesh out their ranks in battle.

The differences between commanders and mercenaries are many, not least of which is the fact that defeating a commander will take out all of their mercenaries at once, which makes for some rich, strategic combat encounters that can prove very difficult if you don’t think carefully about your units.

If you want to play Langrisser today, then the 2019 remake is a great choice, particularly as it includes the first-ever localisation of Langrisser II. Alternatively, you can find the original Warsong included alongside fellow tactics classics Shining Force II and Shining Force CD on the rather excellent Mega Drive Mini 2.

Project X Zone (3DS)

Much like the very similar Super Robot Wars, Project X Zone doesn’t offer the greatest tactical gameplay. Many of its stages are vast, flat landscapes with little terrain to worry about or particular challenges to overcome. You can essentially win most battles by just making sure you do as much damage as possible.

But what it lacks in interesting gameplay, it more than makes up for in character, or, to be specific, lots of characters. This crossover RPG, you see, brings together multiple familiar characters from rival publishers Namco, Sega and Capcom. And boy, does it have fun with the concept.

Seeing the cast of Virtua Fighter rub shoulders with famous faces from Street Fighter or Tekken is a real treat, and the developers made sure to have fun with it, littering the script with tons of fun references. And it’s not just the biggest names that appear; there are characters from Rival Schools, Fighting Vipers and even the main guy from Dynamite Cop/Die Hard Arcade, so you can effectively take Bruce Willis into battle alongside Dante and Mega Man!

If you grew up playing classic Japanese games of the '90s, then this is a real treat.

Sakura Wars (Saturn)

This extremely popular Sega Saturn hit about an all-female troupe of musical theatre actors, who also happen to be mech pilots, features a bold mix of genres, including not just tactical combat but also visual novel, dating sim and interactive anime.

It was such a massive success in Japan that it spawned several sequels, spin-offs, a TV series and even films. We barely got a hint of it over here… The fifth game was released in the West five years after its Japanese release and went practically unnoticed, while the 2019 reboot received a global release but featured action combat rather than tactics.

Thankfully, the first two Saturn games have received excellent fan translations and are highly recommended if you want to experience a top-quality strategy RPG that plays like nothing else on this list.

Shining Force III (Saturn)

Sega’s Shining Force series is known not just for its epic battles but is also distinguished by beautiful and dramatic attack animations as well as the ability to fully explore towns in the style of traditional JRPGs like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.

While the original two Mega Drive games are some of the finest early examples of the genre, it’s the ambitious Sega Saturn sequel that is the series’ crowning glory. As well as reinventing the game in three dimensions, it also told an epic interconnected Rashomon-like story across three separately released discs, telling parallel events from different perspectives.

Tragically, only the first of these was officially released in the West, but fear not, the community has done what Sega doesn’t, and fan translations for the other two discs are readily available online.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (DS)

This spin-off of Atlus’s cult Shin Megami Tensei series – the same series that spawned Persona – stands out among other tactics RPGs for a few reasons, not least because SMT’s dark interpretation of modern metropolitan Tokyo makes for a very fresh setting for a genre that’s usually rooted in fantasy or history.

The battles themselves, in which human characters fight alongside recruited demons, feel just as original. Like the main SMT series, it’s possible to create new and ever more interesting demons by fusing two or more of them together into surprising new monsters, ensuring that your party roster never grows old.

This Nintendo DS RPG got a pretty good remake a couple of years later on 3DS, but if you ask us, it’s long overdue for another outing. If you liked 2025’s excellent Demonschool, then this is the one for you.

Super Robot Wars 30 (Switch)

This long-running Japanese series isn’t the deepest tactics game. In fact, it’s so simple it could easily be a newcomer’s entry into the genre.

This is probably intentional, as Super Robot Wars is likely to have been played by hundreds of thousands of anime fans who might not typically play strategy games. The beauty of the series, of course, is that it brings together characters, giant robots, mechs and spaceships from dozens of classic anime.

For fans of robot animation, it’s a dream game, packed with fan service, iconic signature attacks and crossover dialogue with knowing humour. Which iteration of the game you’ll consider the best really comes down to which features your favourite the characters and robots.

For example, only two games in the series have ever featured Giant Robo (objectively the greatest anime of all time), but if you’re looking for an accessible entry point, then 2021’s Super Robot Wars 30 – made to mark the 30th anniversary of the series – was the first game to be released globally in English.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (SNES)

When Tactics Ogre first released in 1995 it may have seemed relatively pared back compared to its peers like Fire Emblem or Shining Force, thanks to its relatively compact maps and battles that play out with little fanfare; just small on-map animations rather than flashy attack scenes.

But beneath the surface of its unassuming exterior is a vast number of gameplay systems that add German board game levels of depth and replayability. So much so that to call Tactics Ogre the prototype Final Fantasy Tactics is really underselling it.

This is a rich, detailed and highly playable RPG that will stay with you for years. Two fantastic remakes followed in 2010 and 2022, adding even more features, including a generous rewind system. You won’t go far wrong with either of them.

Tear Ring Saga (PS1)

TearRing Saga was developed by a new team led by Fire Emblem creator Shouzou Kaga after he departed Intelligent Systems in 1999, and the similarities between this game and Fire Emblem were so close that Nintendo actually attempted to sue Enterbrain and Tirnanog for $2 million! This alone makes TearRing Saga a fascinating piece of video game history and worth playing just to see what Tirnanog got away with.

For Fire Emblem fans, this is essentially a hidden game in the series, only made for PlayStation at a time when the real Fire Emblem was relatively dormant – an N64 version was developed but ultimately cancelled during this time.

Seeing a classic-style Fire Emblem-like game with 32-bit visuals and music is a treat, especially with a fan translation now available. If you like it, check out the PS2 sequel, Berwick Saga, which distanced itself from Fire Emblem with legally distinct hexagonal grids.

Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

This beautiful looking war game came out of nowhere in 2008 and immediately established itself as one of PS3’s greatest exclusives, as well as a bold reinvention of the tactical RPG.

Gone is the grid of old, and in its place, a freedom of movement and over-the-shoulder perspective in keeping with third-person shooters of the day. Despite the incredible new presentation, the turn-based depth remained.

The third dimension adds welcome new considerations to the combat, as does a rare focus on artillery weapons. As part of your squad, you also get to control a slow but devastating tank, which feels very empowering. But watch out! The enemy has tanks too, and they can end you in a few turns, unless you utilise your team and their weapons with the cunning of a WWII general.

Outside the battlefield, there’s a superb story, a wealth of likeable characters to choose from and endless ways to level up and customise your troops, including a relationship system that affects how soldiers function together, or not, in battle. If you want a rich and rewarding tactical game with so much heart it’ll linger in your memory forever, Valkyria Chronicles is it.

Vandal Hearts (PS1)

For many gamers of a certain age, Vandal Hearts will have been their introduction to the tactical RPG genre. And what an introduction it was!

This Konami classic immediately makes its mark in the opening battle; as you slay your first enemy unit, they immediately explode into a gushing geyser of bright red blood. It’s a shocking yet somehow also fun way to punctuate every kill, celebrating every little victory in a visceral fashion, and it immediately establishes Vandal Hearts as one of the most memorable RPGs of the 32-bit era.

Bloody outcomes aside, Vandal Hearts is an otherwise pleasant introduction to the genre, easing players in to the mechanics and gradually layering in new challenges that increase the difficulty without ever feeling unfair. If Vandal Hearts was your first ever tactics RPG then it’s a fair bet you still love the genre today!

Vantage Master V2 (PC)

Nihon Falcom may be best known for action RPGs like Ys or traditional RPGs like the Trails series, but back in their PC heyday, they experimented with all kinds of genres, including this brief tactical series.

Vantage Master is a rare case of a strategy game that plays out on an hexagonal grid rather than squares, creating a significantly different tactical challenge. The aim of the game is simple: take out the opposing master before they take you out, by summoning a wide range of strange, mythical creatures into battle.

The pixel art has a very detailed and charming style, while the customisable display windows lend the game a unique feel that console gamers may find quaint. We’re recommending the V2 version as this is the only one that Falcom ever released in English and, best of all, it’s still free to download from their website today!

Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone (GBA)

Many tactics RPGs offer a bonus to players who position their units together, either defensively or to attack the same enemy simultaneously. It’s a common feature, often linked to a relationship system that sees friendly units work together better over time. But Yggdra Union truly takes this concept to the extreme, requiring players to line up their troops across the map in cross or cardinal directions in order to grant them huge bonuses whenever they engage in combat.

The enemy can also create advantageous formations, so it’s incredibly important to seek safety in numbers. The masterstroke being that the interlinked grid-like battle maps are made up of only limited squares that require some nifty manoeuvring of your units to get the best possible links. This can make the battles feel like big puzzles that, if solved, can lead to incredibly satisfying attacks.

For the longest time, this unique and experimental SRPG was only available on GBA – and never in Europe – so it was expensive to track down an English version. But nowadays we’re pleased to say it’s easy to find on Nintendo Switch and Steam.