As far as optional characters go in Tactics Ogre: Reborn, Ozma is widely known as one of the best. She has the lowest RT on the cast, meaning she will almost always act first in battles, has a unique Finishing Move for whips, an underused weapon type, and she has fantastic offensive stats.
The only issue is that many will miss out on her because her recruitment method is a bit opaque and obscure. If you don't perform the right setups, you simply won't be able to recruit her, missing out on a unit that could be the key to your late-game strategies.
How To Recruit Ozma
The first thing you need to know is that while she is recruited on the shared Chapter 4, you can only recruit Ozma if you followed the Lawful path of the game. This means obeying the duke and razing Balmamusa at the end of Chapter 1.
Here are the steps you must follow to recruit Ozma:
- You must have recruited Hobyrim in Chapter 3 - to do this, you must keep him alive in the battle against Ozma at Rhime and then recruit him in the cutscene afterwards.
- Right at the beginning of Chapter 4, read the Talk topic A Rift in the Dark Knights in the Warren Report. You must do this before you complete the story battle at Mount Hedon.
- After completing the battle against Sherri at Hagia Banhamuba, make sure Hobyrim has at least 50 Loyalty.
To check Hobyrim's Loyalty, open his details in the Party menu and use the Help button and hover the cursor over his name. The box at the bottom of the screen will display a message. If it says, "This unit supports you in all things - a loyal ally to the end" or "This unit often speaks on your behalf to win others to your side," you definitely fulfill the Loyalty requirements.
If it says, "More often than not, this unit speaks in support of your decisions," this might be enough - this quote is given for between 41 and 60 Loyalty. If it says anything else, you'll need to increase Hobyrim's loyalty. You can do this by increasing his skill ranks and recruiting Lodissian enemies from story battles to your party.
If every condition is fulfilled, you can head to Krysaro to begin a battle.
Optional Battle: Krysaro
|
Enemies |
Leader: Volaq (Knight Commander), Ozma (Knight Commander) |
|
|---|---|---|
|
13x Templar |
||
|
Deployment |
12 Units |
|
|
Victory Conditions |
Defeat Volaq and Ozma |
|
|
Bonus Objectives |
Win with a Swordmaster in your battle party |
EXP +1,100 |
|
Perform an action to debuff an enemy |
Ice Charm x1 |
|
|
Win with an Archer in the battle party |
Intelligence Charm x3 |
|
|
Difficulty |
★★★★☆ (4/5) |
|
You must deploy Hobyrim if you want to recruit Ozma! On his first turn, you'll get the option to pick a dialogue option:
You must pick "Yes... I am Hobyrim."
To recruit Ozma, your actual goal in this fight is to defeat Volaq entirely, but only reduce Ozma to critical HP - which will happen and ten percent of her maximum HP.
- Unfortunately, Ozma starts very close to your starting position and has all the boss buffs that you're used to. She will be a massive pain in this fight, often taking out your weaker units with her whip Finishing Moves. You'll want a great deal of healing power to survive this fight.
- Your primary target should be Volaq, followed by the Templars with healing skills. There are Templars with the usual healing spells - these are the two that begin right at the back of the stage - but there's also a Swordmaster with Harvest Dance who will heal their allies if you let them. Take out all three of these before focusing on Ozma. There are also two Knight-like Templars with Heal spells, but they usually prioritize attacking. Deal with them if they prove annoying, though.
- If your strategy relies on movement, take out the Rampart Aura users as a point of priority. If you're more ranged, you can ignore these and pelt Ozma with attacks once Volaq is defeated.
- If Ozma dies, you won't recruit her. When she's low on HP, take care not to use attacks that have a higher chance of inflicting critical hits and avoid critical hit buff cards.
You're outnumbered by a wide margin in this fight, but with such a hyper-specific set of objectives (Kill Volaq, deal with the healers, weaken Ozma), you should be able to end the fight without too much trouble.
When you satisfy these requirements, the fight ends and you're thrust into a cutscene. It is important here to pick the "As I owe you for my father" option or you won't successfully recruit Ozma. With that done, you'll gain Ozma and a handful of Knight Commander Classmarks - only Ozma can use these, though.