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** Characters with debuffs will spam those instead of doing anything actually useful, such as doing damage or healing. This often occurs even when they have literally 0% chance of hitting. Worse still, they accept the chance of your own party members being hit an acceptable risk for said 0% chance, meaning that casters with debuffs often run around debuffing ''your team'' instead of the enemy team (bonus: you can't unlearn or disable casting debuffs outside of disabling all magic from that school).
** Characters with access to healing items will spam them: the basic healing and mana recovery items being the main culprits here. It's very rare to see these actually remain available when you go to use them.
** One notable problem with the AI is it feels an overwhelming need to move a character, even if they're just moving it one square to the side—this causes the character to take twice as long to get another turn. In addition, the movement AI does not sync up with the Action AI -—: a character may run up into melee range, only to use a single healing item and stand there, now free to be attacked by the entire enemy force.
** The AI will specifically ''not'' target the target! Specifically, if a map objective is "defeat the leader", you're far better off switching to manual, as the target will be the last thing to die, due to it having higher stats and the AI prioritizing squishier targets.
** Guest characters are ''very'' stupid, following some combination of any and all of the above. Even worse, they refuse to come into the training sessions with you, meaning that they remain low-leveled while the enemy becomes just as strong as you... [[Too Dumb to Live|not that this will stop them from charging right into them while]] ''[[Too Dumb to Live|you]]'' [[Too Dumb to Live|are trying to maneuver your army in a different direction entirely]]. This can be averted if the guest characters are a standard class -—: the PSP remake equalizes all levels across a certain class, see [[One Man Party]] below.
* [[Ascended Extra]]: Some generic enemy leaders is given Warren Report entries in the PSP remake, most prominently Moldova (previously a generic Witch, now a Necromancer who happens to be ''Nybeth's daughter''), and Hektorr (originally named Didario, this was his first name, and he's now linked further with Nybeth's story).
* [[Battle in the Rain]]: One of the most notable examples is the battle to rescue Donnalto. {{spoiler|The Balmamusa Massacre also occurs on a stormy night.}}.
* [[Big Fancy Castle]]: The Hanging Gardens (Eden), whose formal name is Heilingham Palace.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: In the original, even the "Best" ending later had {{spoiler|Valeria be invaded by the Hittites a thousand years down the road}}. It was especially bittersweet if {{spoiler|Denam let his sister die and he became ruler of Valeria, where he is either executed by an assassin or the entire nation is invaded by Lodis}}.
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** It helps that Lodis [[The Empire|doesn't give two squirts of piss]] about what other people believe.
* [[Cutscene Incompetence]]: Some of the endings lead to [[The Hero Dies|your death]]. This does not take your strength into account.
** Ravness is, apparently, the only reason you weren't slaughtered horribly during the tutorial level. {{spoiler|She may or may not get killed by a single crossbow bolt, depending on your choices. To her credit, she dies very slowly.}}.
* [[Decapitated Army]]: Most ''Tactics Ogre'' missions have taking out the leader of the opposing force as the sole goal --... and in certain ridiculously dangerous ambush situations, doing so is the ''only'' possible way (short of ludicrous level-grinding) to get through the battle without permanently losing one of your soldiers.
** This is probably what the game ''wants'' the player to do, since every enemy death lowers the player's Chaos Frame. Going straight for the leaders directly results in higher Chaos Frame due to fewer battle-murders.
** Level grinding doesn't help too much—enemymuch: enemy levels scale with yours up to a certain cap (usually "Chapter # x 10" —... so level 30 cap for Chapter 3, for example). Gear and Passive Skills become vastly important, but ultimately sending Canopus in with a crossbow to assassinate the enemy leader is the best strategy 90% of the time, ''especially'' during the various escort quests.
** This is the response when {{spoiler|Balbatos/Barbatos is executed, having lost the support of his own people}}.
* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: Numerous.
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* [[Eye of Newt]]: The reagents for necromancy magic.
* [[Face Heel Turn]]:
** {{spoiler|Vyce}} in '''''Tactics Ogre''''' undergoes a highly ''drastic'' change if one decides to {{spoiler|''not'' slaughter an entire village... he practically suddenly morphs into a sadistic bastard right in front of you}}. You can tell something wasn't right because he ''looks'' evil! {{spoiler|This is averted if ''you'' turn evil: he becomes the leader of [[La Résistance]]!}}!
** It's amazing how many of your allies will at some point try to kill you, though given the [[Black and Gray Morality|political]] [[Crapsack World|situation]] it's not surprising in the least.
* [[Fake Ultimate Mook]]: The Golem units in most of the games. They have inherently high strength and can easily withstand most physical damage without breaking a sweat. However, they have pitiful HP, and are easily slain by one or two spells. They're ultimately only useful as platforms to reach otherwise difficult to access areas, and the remake took care of actually making them tougher against magic.
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* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: Some elements are intentionally taken from Eastern Europe, especially [[Ripped From the Headlines|former Yugoslavia]] and the old Byzantine Empire. There's also the Hagia Banhamuba, which presumably has at least some resemblance to the Hagia Sophia on the outside.
* [[Faux Action Girl]]:
** For some reason, Cerya can be seen as this. She's said to be a [[Badass]] [[Action Girl]] leader of the Valeria Liberation Front and [[Informed Ability|kills lots of Lodissians... off screen]]. {{spoiler|Then, you need to bail her out from the Dark Knights, or she gets killed offscreen (only in the Lawful route).}}. And when you do get her? For some reason, she can't really hit a thing with hit rate over 50%.
** Possibly inverted, gender-wise by Lanselot Hamilton as well. Anyone who plays ''March of the Black Queen'' knows that Lanselot is one of the playable characters and can grow very powerful. In ''Let Us Cling Together''? He got cheap-shotted by Barbas/Martym (OFF SCREEN), gets himself imprisoned by Lanselot Tartaros, {{spoiler|and mentally tortured to the point that by the ending, he's turned into some sort of vegetable}}.
* [[For Want of a Nail]]: Explored via the chapter system. Characters who are ''vital'' in one timeline can be near afterthoughts in the other. Characters who would be villains in one can be some of your most powerful allies in another. The text entry describing the [[New Game+|World]] system in the post-game lampshades this slightly, explaining that duplicates, dead people, etc have all been seen in your party recently.
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* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Queen Velnotta was ''far'' from being a fair person compared to her husband Dorgalua.
* [[Gray and Gray Morality]]: ''Tactics Ogre'' is very gray and gray, especially if you choose the Lawful route. Matsuno seems like a fan of this trope.
* [[Green-Eyed Monster]]: Vyce's [[Freudian Excuse|reason]] for his [[Face Heel Turn]]. {{spoiler|When you duel him at the end of Chapter 2 Chaos, he'll mention that everyone liked Denam, but not him, as his father was an [[Abusive Parents|abusive drunk]]. He never mentions it in the Lawful route though.}}.
* [[Guide Dang It]]:
** Recruiting Sherri. You have to fight her in Chapter 4, and are told not to kill her when you do, because Olivya and her dad (or her other two sisters if you have them) believe she can be saved. Killing the squishy wizard is easy to do by mistake, but you can retry that. However, for some reason, when you ''do'' reduce her HP to about 20, she vanishes and... guess what? She didn't join. For no discernible reason, you have to go to Balmamusa after returning to Phidoch and initiate the Barnicia act, enter training, make it rain somehow, and then leave to trigger the event where she joins.
** The new characters in the PSP, Ravness and Cressida, require a great [[Guide Dang It]] understanding to get. ESPECIALLY Cressida, as it requires you to understand the Chaos Frame system which is NOT visible at all anywhere...<ref>Well, you can, but it requires going into a 100 level dungeon ''twice''. Good thing you'll end up doing just that if you're going to hit CODA 2.</ref>
*** Trying to get Ravness makes one battle near the end of Chapter 1 a [[That One Level]].<ref>You essentially cross her [[Moral Event Horizon]], and she decides to kill you, thus joining the battle, which happens to be a "Kill all" stage. If you want to recruit Ravness, you have to crowd-control her in some way because she starts very close to your units, and the enemy starts uphill, thus she can easily body-block you from getting to the ones who ''will'' end the battle. To get Ravness after this, you have to read the news and do an optional fight to save her. Then the next chapter, recruit Jenaun, a character with ''no visible ties to her'', bring him to the next [[Boss Battle]], and then wait until you get enough dialogue between him and the boss. After that, you will get an optional battle where Ravness finally joins.</ref>
** You can actually recruit ''Ozma'' on the Lawful route in the PSP version... however, good luck figuring out how to do that without a guide.<ref>In Chapter 3, during the chapter where Ozma is attempting to arrest Hobyrim and you interrupt, leading to a battle, you have to not kill her. Easy enough -: she retreats at critical health anyways. Then the game drops a hint that Ozma actually ''knows'' Hobyrim... and is wondering exactly ''what'' is going on. It gives a pretty big hint that she's playable. However, you must then play the game normally, which involves killing Oz at the end of Chapter 3... which you can imagine is probably not going to make his twin happy. But then, you must check the news that suggests of dissent growing amongst the Dark Knights, and optionally see a scene where Ozma runs off and Volaq comes to retrieve her. This then unlocks an optional battle against Ozma and Volaq... where the two and their templar knights are likely to be ''much'' higher level than your characters In ''this'' battle, you must bring Hobyrim, pick the right choice, then reduce Ozma to critical and ''not'' kill her, and ''then'' reduce Volaq to critical, causing him to retreat and Ozma to surrender. In the ensuing scene, you must pick the right option or else Ozma will think you're too wishy-washy and refuse to join you. How did ''anyone'' figure this out?</ref>
** There's also recruiting Deneb AND unlocking her special class, which can also be tedious.<ref>In the original, you only needed to buy lots of stuff from her shop and you get the option to recruit her. Sell ten Glass Pumpkins (gotten on the Palace of the Dead) to her beforehand and you get her in her special class. The remake instead causes you to go through a sidequest before you can recruit her, and increased the number of Glass Pumpkins to sell to ''thirty'' in order to get the Classmarks for her special class.</ref>
** Getting any special recipes and items. They're only dropped by certain enemies on specific stages, which you'll have a hard time figuring out [[Guide Dang It|without a guide]]. And these same enemies don't necessarily even spawn in the battles at all. And in case if that wasn't enough, the enemies won't necessarily drop all or any of their belongings. Even if you use CHARIOT, you might still have to spend a good amount of time until you'll get what you wanted. Oh, and did I mention that there's also a party level requirement for even having a chance of getting that awesome gear? Good luck [[100% Completion|hunting]].
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* [[Knight in Shining Armor]]: Lanselot Hamilton.
* [[Lawful Stupid]]: Many new players are confused at the start of Chapter 2. {{spoiler|Refusing to slaughter a town of innocents under a [[False-Flag Operation]]}}? Clearly the good choice, so why did you become ''Chaotic''? Because {{spoiler|obeying orders, no matter what you personally think of them}}, is the ''lawful'' choice... and the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic choices do not take into consideration ''morality''. {{spoiler|This was shored up a bit in the PSP remake: in the original, the Terror Knight class was Chaotic only, making it hard to justify playing as a noble knight when the only knight-like class available was the fear-inducing, lord of darkness Terror Knight class}}.
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]: Hilariously and brutally played in the PSP remake, Presance attempted to use Exorcism on living Undead... only to fail because the new system requires that undead be knocked out first before being exorcised. He remarks that it's been 15 years since he fought an undead as an excuse, [[Fridge Brilliance|which is the real time difference between the remake and the original's release.]]. {{spoiler|However, in Oelias' case in the Chaotic route, this got her fatally wounded by the undead as she failed to exorcise, and it wounded her to the point she succumbs to the wounds and die}}.
* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: Usually chucking rocks only deals 1 HP of damage. However, if you raise your stats high enough, you can cause a significant amount of damage to the enemy, especially to more [[Squishy Wizard|squishy]] [[Glass Cannon|classes]]. Plus, critical hits almost always knock back units, so a critical hit with a rock can potentially cause [[One Hit KO|an enemy unit to fall off a ledge and die instantly]].
* [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]: Magic is very powerful, especially the hidden ''Dragon Magic''. However, Warriors tend to be able to keep up, especially Ninjas and Archers. Amusingly, the strongest Melee and Ranged combat skill layouts involve giving those characters elemental weapons and the elemental support skills (at face value meant for magic using characters)... making them into an odd melee version of a spellcaster!
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* [[New Game+]]: In the PSP remake. Finishing the game changes the event map (the Wheel of Fortune) into The World; using it lets you move to important points in the story to see how different choices play out. You bring your entire end-game party with you, but don't expect to steamroll the opposition; enemies level with you.
** Events change based on who is alive or dead according to the Warren Report. Even if a character is in your party, if she or he dies in the storyline that character is dead for all future story events until you go back and avert that death.
* [[No Arc in Archery]]: You'll love that they averted this whenever you start on the top of a map, and hate them for it whenever you're at the bottom. Crossbows even get their own, mostly accurate arcs —... straight forward.
* [[Nominal Importance]]: Played with: antagonists who appear for only one battle often have detailed Warren Report entries (even if they don't have unique character portraits). Also, several characters of central importance in one path might go unmentioned in other routes.
* [[Nostalgic Music Box]]: Lanselot Hamilton has one.
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* [[Protagonist-Centered Morality]]: Heavily, '''heavily''' subverted, especially in Chapters 2+. {{spoiler|Especially on the Law side, where the protagonist decides [[Utopia Justifies the Means]] and slaughters thousands of his own countrymen under a [[False-Flag Operation]]}}.
* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]: Dorgalua.
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]/[[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: Matsuno allegedly based some events of this game off of real life events -: namely the Ethnic Cleansing around the Yugoslavian regions.
* [[Rival Turned Evil]]: {{spoiler|Vyce}}, if you pick the chaos route; {{spoiler|but he still turns against you no matter which choice you make}}.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Arycelle in ''Tactics Ogre''. Toned down in Chaotic route, taken to quite the extreme to death in Lawful route.
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** [[The Phantom Menace|"...Kill them. All of them."]]
** Some of the music takes a few cues from the ''Star Wars'' soundtracks.
** One of the enemy descriptions is: [[Harry Potter|Death Eater: A dark mage, said to practice cannibalism. They serve one who must not be named.]].
* [[Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids]]: The background of the inner conflict between the Valeria Liberation Front at first. Cerya is quite the realist and will dirty her hand to achieve her goal, while Cistina (and Folcurt and Bayin) is more of the idealist and refuses to create a nation out of bloodshed.
** Some enemies will call Chaotic-route Denam on this. As far as they're concerned, sure, he's morally unsullied, but he won't ''do'' anything, and lets ''everyone else'' get their hands dirty; Denam's ideal, but irrelevant. This doesn't stop him from becoming the military leader of Valeria, but those enemies don't dwell on the fact.
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* [[A Worldwide Punomenon]]: The [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/wc/contents_wr.htm Warren Report], which coincides with an infamous US Report on President Kennedy's Assassination.
* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]]: The remake makes big use of this.
* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: {{spoiler|The Neutral route has Nybeth almost causing this with his experiments. Same for Cressida's sidequest in the remake, on the Chaos Route.route}}.
* [[Zombie Gait]]: Sure enough, the standing-still animations for zombies suggest this.
 
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