Have you played Ogre Battle?
I haven't, but the GBA remake is on my "to play" list. I enjoy strategy RPGs but have to be in the mood for them. Learning about the gameplay mechanics you listed make me excited to play it! I had no idea!
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (the GBA one) is its own thing, not a remake. I haven't played it, so I can't vouch for it, but considering its pedigree I can't imagine it being bad.
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (the sequel to
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen) has radically different gameplay than its predecessor. It was remade for the PSP, which may be what you were thinking of. It plays more like
Final Fantasy Tactics—or rather
Final Fantasy Tactics plays like it, since it actually predates that much more famous game. That's because the same person (Yasumi Matsuno) directed all three;
Ogre Battle and
Tactics Ogre at Quest, then
Final Fantasy Tactics at Square.
Anyway, to distinguish between the wildly different styles, later games that played like the original were called Ogre Battle (
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber and the Japan-only
Legend of Ogre Battle Gaiden: Prince of Zenobia), and games that played like the sequel were called Tactics Ogre (of which there was only
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis).
Unfortunately, I think we're unlikely to ever see another entry in the series, because Square now owns the rights to it and it doesn't have "Final" or "Fantasy" in the title.
My favorite place to grind is on the side quest for Robo at the factory. I have played that chute more times than I care to admit!!
Same here! This is where I grind for the easy tech points (Gold Stud ftw) to get everyone's full techs. And then the Black Omen for the EXP.
My favorite spot for TP is the Mountain of Woe. Shortly after the first save point, there's a chain off to the right. Kill the group of Gargoyles and Bantam Imps that appear, then follow the chain to an island with a Rubble on it. Unlike other Rubbles, this one respawns when you re-enter the screen. Kill it, run back to the save point, save, soft reset, load, repeat. You'll have to fight that group each time, but it's easily dealt with. If you don't feel like resetting, you can leave the screen the same way you entered, but you'll have to fight an extra group of Gargoyles that way. At 100 TP per Rubble, you can get everyone except Magus all their techs fairly quickly. The only snag is that the Rubble's huge evasion means it will sometimes escape and leave you empty-handed.
For regular EXP, the Geno Dome conveyor belt is my favorite spot in the original game. You can't beat the convenience of enemies lining up to be killed! In the DS version, however, there's an even better spot in the 12,000 BC Dimensional Vortex where you fight two Snowbeasts. Each one is worth 2,200 EXP, they respawn if you leave the screen, and it's a very short walk to do so (although it's quite a long walk to get to this particular screen in the first place). They have a lot of hit points, but by the time you can access this area your (non-water) AoE techs should make pretty short work of them.
