Ogre Battle (SNES)

[C64_Critic]

With all this talk of Final Fantasy Tactics, I started perusing Ebay for used copies and I noticed two things:
1) The green-labeled "Greatest Hits" version of the game are all on the cheaper end of the spectrum, while the "Black Label" copies all tend to cost more. Is there any actual difference between the games, or is it just that the Black Labels were the original pressing and therefore collectors tend to want them more?
2) I have no idea why, but pretty much every FFT listing that I clicked on has a description for a completely different game, some kind of racing game apparently. What the heck!?!

[Retro STrife]

Nope sorry, Tactics Ogre (TO) is better than Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT).

In TO you control a team of 10 characters. In FFT you can only use 4.

Well neither of these statements are accurate...

FFT does generally limit you to 5 characters per battle, but I prefer that. Each battle in a tactical RPG is often at least 10-20 minutes long. Individually moving 5 characters around the battle field and assigning their attacks is fine, but it just gets longer and more tedious if you double the characters in battle. You're not controlling an army, but a small specialized force.

[Retro STrife]

With all this talk of Final Fantasy Tactics, I started perusing Ebay for used copies and I noticed two things:
1) The green-labeled "Greatest Hits" version of the game are all on the cheaper end of the spectrum, while the "Black Label" copies all tend to cost more. Is there any actual difference between the games, or is it just that the Black Labels were the original pressing and therefore collectors tend to want them more?
2) I have no idea why, but pretty much every FFT listing that I clicked on has a description for a completely different game, some kind of racing game apparently. What the heck!?!

Well it's true of all PS1 games that the black label is slightly more valuable. I think that general rule is for two main reasons: (1) as you pointed out, collectors prefer the "original" version; and (2) the green "greatest hits" labels are just hideous to look at. For both reasons, I avoid Greatest Hits when I can.

FFT has an additional reason why Black Label might be more expensive:
FFT actually went out-of-print while the PS1 was still an active console. When I bought FFT (circa 2000), the game could not be found new anywhere. I had to buy a used copy. And with supply and demand, those used copies of FFT were selling for really high prices.. something like $40 or $50. And remember, that was a different time back then.. retro gaming wasn't really a thing yet, outrageous prices on used games wasn't a thing yet, etc etc.. Used games were supposed to be dirt cheap, and here was FFT selling for the price of a new game.. it defied logic back then. Then Sony finally re-released the game around 2001, with the Greatest Hits line at $20, and that normalized the prices again. The only reason FFT is reasonably priced today is thanks to that GH re-release; otherwise it'd be a way more expensive game on ebay. But I think that higher rarity of the Black Label version contributes to it costing more. However, if you just want to play the game, there's no difference with the GH version. And the PSP version is worthy of considering too (it's my preferred version, due to the improved translation).

As for your #2 comment.. sounds like ebay screwed up the listing template for the game and has it matched to the wrong game, if you're seeing it in multiple listings. They manage to do that a lot.