Here's my experience -
My brother and I are fairly well experienced with tactical RPG's. We generally play well, but we do not min-max really. We started on tactician and it has been absolutely brutal, but fun. We have had to reload probably hundreds of times and find the right combination of skills to get us through a fight. It has been enjoyable, and through the process we've naturally found combos that are rather powerful.
That said, we've never min-maxed gear, stats, and we have avoided some of those weird exploit combos. I eventually moved to a fire/water/aero/geo and fire/water/summoning setup as only at level 13-14 was I feeling like the mages were doing real damage, enough to warrant fire, and the stuns were necessary from water. So I'd say we meticulously plan everything, still, and we have definitely respecced a lot as we've adjusted and tweaked over time (little things like removing a +attribute talent for elemental affinity.. etc).
The whole time we've run a hybrid two melee / two mage setup. It's been really, really hard, maybe 60-70 hours and just finishing the second island, but it's been a fun time.
If you either a) min-max everything or b) enjoy reloading often, and strategically planning every little bit (and occasionally abusing a teleport), then tactician is good. If you enjoy some a challenge but want to just play through the game without needing to reload at least once per fight, then classic. You'll probably get caught off guard but unless you're screwing around it shouldn't end the game (few boss fights that have autosaves before should be the biggest challenges). If you are new to the genre or don't want to have a challenge, just see the story, explorer.
Last edited by Pluto; 22/09/17 07:41 PM. Reason: added detail
