Gladius

THE BAD:
- Little in-game plot development.
- Some graphics problems, even for the time.
- One copy of the game I owned tended to freeze.
- Repetitive.

SUMMARY:
Gladius is an older game now, first coming out towards the beginning of the Gamecube era. While being around or more than half a decade in age now, Gladius does not show it, retaining some of the best points which are currently at a loss within the industry. While perhaps a rather long game, the role playing part of it and the strategic combat design make up for it with in depth strategizing. While perhaps not the best strategy game to ever enter a console, it's one of the better hybrids, and stands as a credit to all three systems it has been on, with the Gamecube irrefutably having the best graphics out of all three of them.

The background storyline, while simplistic and rather outlandish, does make a form of sense. Indeed, the major races in the four lands are based off of ethnic groups in real life, such as the Germanic states for the northern region of Nordagh, frequented by barbarians. Imperia, on the other hand, is more like the height of Rome, and, like in real life, is in a state of animosity with their northern neighbours. Two other groups, mainly based off of African and Mongolian ancestry, though not showing it typically in the game, were also against Imperia at the time of the Great War, a time when Nordagh and Imperia were in a state of war. From the hate and blood spilt in this war, the god of darkness came forth, and tried to swallow the land. The affinity gods, of air, fire, earth and water, joined with the Valkyrie, the guardians of light, most of which sacrificed themselves in combat against the god. Only a handful survived, and they were the ones who would attempt to bring around peace to the land again.

With a lack of external threat, all the different regions began gladiator contests to find the strongest and best fighters in their nation, for the entertainment of the crowds. Eventually, these groups began to form schools, which moved to fight in other nations, as well as their own. You will be in charge of one of these schools, either from Nordagh, or from Imperia, and will lead it towards the ultimate goal; the high games at Caltha. The two story lines are thus, either you play as Nordagh, and take the role of the Barbarian princess in an attempt to escape the pampering of her home and fight in the game, but with mysterious powers that continue to pop up during their journey, or the son of a reputed gladiator in Imperia, attempting to regain the glory of his school, willing to follow the path of his father and his connection to the elements.

Gameplay in this game is definitely alright. The class system involved is fairly basic, although comprehensive enough so as to not make it too simplistic. In a quick layout, this is how it works; Players are separated into six main classes, Light, Medium, Heavy, Beast, Arcane, Ranged. Of these, three have a rock-paper-scissors thing going on, Light, Medium and Heavy. Now, Arcane and ranged don't really fit into that, but as for beasts, such things as Bears are heavy while Plain Cats are not, and so on. Now, all these characters themselves have a number of other things going for them. One, if a player stands higher than another, like if they are on a box or something, they do more damage to the opposing character, while the opposing character fails to reach you to do the normal amount of damage, which is a great way to have a strategic advantage in this game.

Two, character damage also depends from the side. If you attack from the front, then you do less damage then from the back, for example. However, you can only really attack another character from another direction while they are engaged, or fighting someone else, except for some light characters which can manage a surprise attack pretty easily. Finally, the third bit, which is crowd control. By this, I mean that the more popular you are with the crowd, and the more cheers, jeers, and yells are for your team, the more support you get and the higher you fighting abilities go, usually increasing such things as initiative, which allow you to move faster.

Character stats play an interesting role within this game. Not only is your character measured by such things as strength and HP, but such things as initiative, allowing certain characters to go first and more often, or speed, which is how many spaces a character can go per move. These stats are always changing and are incredibly important to the school, which is your group of characters. The more characters you have and the better their strengths on the field, the better they will do. Usually, stats are relevant to the type, with such things as high speed and low HP being characteristics of the rather weak bandit class, a light character, while another character, such as a Centurion, a heavy character, will have higher defense, but less speed to them.

Items in the game are very, very interesting, very unique, with tons of variety and many different effects, each doing something to your character. For example, taking a character without a weapon and giving him one might not only increase the damage he can do, but also increase, for example his defense. Often times, more damage is not the only thing you want to go for, instead opting for some more initiative, for example. If I take the main Nordagh character, for example, and replaced an ax she was carrying with a sickle, her damage will go down, but her initiative will take a huge jump, allowing her to attack more. Other items provide just boosts to affinity, the magical source in this game. Other still provide more abilities, usually innate, such as the ability to always turn to an enemies attack, or the ability to be immune to freezing, poisoning, etc... The amount of these weapons and such is even more astounding, with what must be thousands of equipable items to buy, find or sell for your pleasure.

Affinity, as mentioned before, is a major component to the game. While you can do without having a character with arcane abilities or affinities in your school, it is always important for you to know how these relationships between the characters work. The system is complex, and comes from the six affinities mentioned before. With knowledge of these, you should be able to handle much of what comes your way. For this reason, I recommend you pay attention to all aspects of the training program at the beginning of the game, instead of skipping over it. I can't tell you how many times my butt was saved because I listened closely to those speeches the first time through.

The fields that you fight on in the game, while perhaps a little lacking in what the crowd looks like, has a beautiful natural scenery, sometimes with pigs in the background of the Fluich Arena, or the odd puddle beginning to seep up into the ground by the Roanor Pit. Often times, the fields look different, with the time of day or whether coming into effect, or, at one point, whether or not the undead were about. Each are well made, and there is little consistency between them, except for the fact that they look like the places they should be in. For example, more wood and hut like structures exist in Nordagh, Ruins in the western areas, the Southern Expanse with elaborate palace grounds and impeccable marble ones in Imperia. On top of those, you fight amongst magma on several fields, in the fields on others, and even on the top of a frozen lake on a few more!

There are many battle types in the game, from the simpler versions of point battles and King of the Hill, to Vandal battles, involving the destruction or barrels, and typical point battles, interspersed throughout the game, not including random fights with thief's and such, which are the only fights except for the ending ones where the death of a character removes them from your school... permanently.

While I've already told you the background, the in game plot of the game was a little bit of a set back, but interesting none-the-less. Whether or not your main is Valens or Ursula, you will come across the same challenges at some point in the game, but with essential differences happening in each case. Often, the movement of the plot bridges gaps which appear while traveling between areas, or take place after specific monumental battles, most of which you tend to be forced into to be able to compete at the city.

Graphics in the game are a treat for a Gamecube game of the time. Excellent scenery, as mentioned, but there are some areas which are a bit more lacking then others. Often, Goblins, Barbarians and such look identical when you hit the field. While there is some change in colour, later on team uniforms will become more prominent and you will have an army of armoured gray people standing against you, than the standard you are used to. While there is no blood spatter, there is a mist which appears after each hit, and hangs around for about two seconds or so.

The world map graphics and weapon graphics are far better, in my opinion, with running water looking like running water, trees looking like trees, and paths that are meant to look wind beaten looking so. Walking across the barren wastes really does look like you are doing so, but the game lacks some of the more interesting character movements you would expect to see in a game of this age, with most movement looking the same as it would as if they were in combat in the arena. Some work could have gone into character design when it comes down to that point.

The audio in the game was good. While eventually, hearing the same music about two hundred times does get irritating, you do get some fights with different sounds, several of them being in such places as the Southern Expanse, with more faster paced music coupled with the sounds you'd expect to hear from instruments in the region. Weapon clangs and such sound correct, and the grunts of effort and screams of pain sound correct when it comes down to race and gender within the game, which I definitely approve of.

Gameplay: This is a definite focal point for the game, although remember, if you are not a fan of turn based gaming, this is not the game for you. With heavy strategic feels around it with an atmosphere of RPGs due to a nice level of character stat customization and the amount of weapons, allows for the creation of an effective and entertaining combat system.

Graphics: While still impressive, two things stood out as problems for me when it came down to graphics. One, the game tends to have badly designed audiences, with only a few of them being actual people while the others are blobs with vague head shapes attatched to multi-coloured shirt blobs of sorts. This is one thing that they could have improved upon before release.

Lasting Value: The game would have had better lasting value, in all honesty, if it had had better functionality overall. The amount of times my Gamecube froze up playing this was annoying, but worth it, except when I had forgotten to save after several hours of playing in seperate fields. The repetitive nature is also another killer or replaying value, since you really have to want to play both sides to actually complete both of the sides.

Summary: I disliked trying to find things that were bad in the game, but it was even worse when I noticed I succeeded. However, I still recommend this game to anyone who is looking for an old fashioned sword fight, or someone who just has a hankering for strategy and is not currently getting it from the Gamecube so far. For those interested in other versions, the PS2 has been the best recommended with the best hit counter, while, on the other hand, the Xbox has been declared the worse.