Turn-Based Grid Tactics

Movement is counted in tiles and bounded by terrain cost. Units alternate by side, attack from adjacent or ranged positions, and take advantages from height, cover, facing or weapon type. Persistence is what separates the form from a board game: characters level up, learn skills, form relationships and, in some designs, die permanently, so a decision made on one battlefield echoes through the remainder of the campaign.

Intelligent Systems released Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light in 1990 on hardware that suited the form exactly. A grid is cheap to draw, turns need no processing headroom, and a console audience could take as long as it liked over a move. Combining wargame structure with role-playing progression gave individual soldiers names and histories, which is precisely what makes losing one land.

Two decades of tactical role-playing games follow from that merger, and the format survives because it scales down to modest hardware and up to considerable depth. Pace and punishment are the costs. Battles run long, one mistake can be irreversible where death is permanent, and reloading becomes the rational response, which many designs then legislate against with checkpoints or forgiving modes.