There are those of us out there that have the dexterity of a camel in mittens. We'd love to play Prince of Persia or heck, even a Sonic the Hedgehog, but beyond the early days of joysticks and Pacman we've just never gotten the hang of gamepads. This leaves a lot beyond our enjoyment.
Fortunately, there's Gladius from publisher LucasArts.
In the great wars of men, Imperia, the richest and most civilized of four nations, found defeating the barbarian peoples of Nordagh impossible. The hatred between the nations was so great it brought unheard of evil into the world. In a desperate attempt to destroy the evil before it destroyed all men, the Valkyrie protectors of the peoples came forth and sacrificed themselves in one final desperate battle. Evil was defeated, and an uneasy truth existed between the peoples of Nordagh and Imperia.
The gladiatorial games of old were key to keeping this peace. No longer able to slaughter people in open war Nordagh, Imperia, the Windward Steppes and the Wastelands took to the games as a way to satisfy their appetite for violence. Entire economies grew up around the games, and different races and creatures of shapes unheard of fought for many years.
However, prophesied was the coming of a woman who would be born in Nordagh. She would bring all of the worlds back to darkness. The Galdr (witches) searched for this woman, but the King of Nordagh hid her. Strong-willed, a powerful warrior, and imbued with inexplicable powers she could not be held in her land once she came of age. With her brother Urlans, Ursula — the chosen one — set out to compete in the gladiatorial games and build a school of such renown that no one would question the abilities of the barbarians again. Little did they know that along their path would be Neferiti working towards her own goals of rule.
Gladius is rich in story. Along the path of training you will gain both key characters in the story who become part of your school (Valens, Eiji) and random gladiators you use to fight in the leagues and tournaments. There is an abundance of story, but a curious gladiator will find a rich history of all of the lands and communities if he takes the time to speak to the shopkeepers and characters along the way.
Gladius has two levels of play, beginning and advanced. One begins with the protagonist Ursula in the land of Nordagh, the other with Valens in the land of Imperia. Having spent more than 120 hours playing Ursula I cannot yet answer as to the storyline for Valens, although research tells me they will converge at one point and become the same regardless of where you begin.
The basic premise in Gladius is to build a school of warriors and compete in the leagues of each town, then the town tournament and later the local championship. In defeating a championship you are awarded an increase in school ranking (from amateur to semi-pro to pro) and the ability to enter a new land and learn anew.
Gladiatorial fights range from "defeat all opponents" to "points battles" to "king of the hill" and everything in between. A diverse school of different gladiatorial types, races, and genders is a requirement. Some leagues require all women; others that you have qualifying warriors from one nation, and still others dictate that you have only beasts, a popularity score of a certain level, or any of a number of varied combinations of these. You will have your main characters that tend to advance faster than the rest of your school, but your entire school is important.
Each class of warrior has its advantages and disadvantages (when someone learns what has an advantage over scorpions, please let me know). You have light, middle and heavy classes; arcane and support classes; animals versus humans (bipeds would be a more apt description). Warrior weights have advantages and disadvantages over one another. Archery, usually the be-all-end-all of warriors does often have an advantage but don't think you'll be plinking down your opponents for hours. The arcane classes — summoners, channelers, mongrel shamans — can be easily overlooked but don't. They're tedious to play at times but necessary. There isn't complete balance among classes in Gladius, but in truth, there shouldn't be.
Death only exists in wilderness fights. The best doctors and hospitals are available in the games. This has the wonderful effect of requiring few saves. If you lose, you just fight again. Every statistic imaginable about your school is available to you through the interface. I can tell you that over time I was winning two of three battles on the first try. Some I was never able to defeat.
Fighting the games is enjoyable. Basic information about a league is available before beginning each battle. Unless you're fighting a series battle, you have the ability to see your opponents. From this, you choose the most apt warriors from your school to battle. This is only a problem when you enter an arena you've never fought in before. Height and position can present you with an advantage (or disadvantage) and only after entering the arena the first time will you know if you've chosen properly. Of course, the league may just throw obstacles into the arena, and then your knowledge from previous battles becomes moot.
Gladius is turn-based, but not classically so. You can view the order in which commands are to be issued, and then do your best to place your gladiators accordingly. You also have the ability to place orders so that they extend beyond your own turn and finish in another players turn. This can be to great advantage if it gets you where you want to be in one move, but at the same time, you don't know what orders will be issued by your opponents. What seemed like an advantageous position when you issued the orders suddenly leaves you in the open with no opponents nearby or completely surrounded. It's a very clever means of giving a somewhat RTS feel to the game without overwhelming the player by having to manage what can be four of their own gladiators against 12 opponents in real time.
Combat itself can vary from simple to complex dependent upon the tastes of the player. Each swing of a sword or casting of a spell requires the manipulation of a slider. The sliders vary in target position, target size, position, speed and combination of keys. Each class — barbarian, ogre, samnite, bandit, channeler, undead summoner, legionnaire, archer, hero, centurion (there are MANY, MANY more) — has a different slider, different combination of keystrokes and different effect. If this becomes wearisome, you can turn the sliders off and allow the game to use a random number generator to determine the outcome.
Beyond the basic hack-and-slash attacks there are defenses, missile attacks, spinning attacks and affinities. The affinities correspond to the Valkyrie who fought in the Great War. Fire, water, earth and air attacks are available both as offensive and defensive qualities. When attacking, it adds yet another facet to deciding exactly whom and how to attack.
There is a very distinct RPG component to Gladius, and it is from this that each gladiator chooses what skills are available to him. Each level increases the basic stats of the warrior — constitution, power, health, etc. — and gives the gladiator 15 job points to spend. With the exception of the affinities — four affinities of four increasing degrees of intensity — no two classes have the same skills to choose from. Hints are given as each battle loads, and a common one is not to spend all of your job points immediately as no one gladiator can have all skills. This is VERY good advice. Available to you are combination melee or missile attacks, special attacks, magical attacks, affinities, innate skills (don't ever underestimate these!) and increased abilities in previous skills. No two gladiators have to be alike. I carried two bandits with me whom I purchased at the same time yet 80 hours later had very different skill sets.
Some of the little attentions to detail made a great difference in gameplay. You can customize the look of your school — skin, hair and most importantly armor color and style. This really helps to make them visible on the battlefield. The UI has some very subtle abilities to it that were extremely useful. The use of a melee attack is based on the number of skill points (one gained each round) needed. When determining when to use an attack the UI lets you know exactly how much affinity you will gain if successful. You can fully ID your opponents, but even the basic information of their affinity and health is enough to help you determine with whom and how to attack. The care taken in the UI itself would take up a review on its own.
No RPG would be complete without equipment. With each level the ability to equip new weapons, shields, armor, helmets and items becomes available. Some are found by defeating an opponent in battle and recovering his equipment, some from chests, and much from an enormous amount of shopping. Each shop carries different items, different levels and different affinities. Shopping will become a major part of your game time. The good news is you have a supply train that you carry with your school so you can buy in advance of use or in quantity.
Finally, an important part of gameplay is simply pleasing the crowd. Like any competition, the support of the crowd will increase your ability to perform. Having a satyr can be incalculable in this because the crowd LOVES to see him perform.
Somewhere in this review I should mention that this game has a great sense of humor. You'll smile...and often.
Gameplay-necessary graphics are stupendous. With each change of armor, weapons or skin color you'll see that change in your gladiator. Because you play in third person, great detail is not truly necessary. When you are up close and personal you do see that much of the detail is simply shading, but as its unnecessary for the enjoyment of the battles themselves, it's unnecessary to have more than what you are given. The stadiums are all unique, some terribly so, and help to add to the difficulty in completing a league. Don't look at the crowds. They're merely background and done in such a manner as to not do the rest of the game justice.
The spell-effects — I'll just say they've been well taken care of.
Gladius both shines and falls flat with sound. The voice acting is stupendous. As Ursula and Valens developed a coy relationship, it was purely through voice acting that you felt this occurring and actually looked forward to more of it. The music is appropriate for each land you fight in, but it quickly becomes tiresome. When fighting, your gladiators have a series of battle cries. Unfortunately, they either don't rotate often enough, there aren't enough, or the system gets caught in a loop of repeating the same ones over and over again. I played many hours with the sound off completely.
Any game that you play for 100+ hours is bound to have some areas you'd like to have seen made differently. Gladius is not a fast game, and when choosing an attack that requires large effects, you sometimes have to wait three to five seconds for the standing animation to complete. This may not seem like much until you're on your 400th battle and your 40th attack within a battle.
The ability to equip armor and weapons from the school or shop can be tedious. You can't equip from both in one place. This means going to the school, equipping 20 gladiators and then the same from the store and then back to the school, etc. Combining the two would have saved some tedious shopping.
Load times are slooow. This could be a function of a first generation PS2 or simply that the game is so large. Nonetheless, I felt it.
Hints
I enjoyed this game, and at the end of this review, I will recommend it quite highly. However, some items I'd wished I'd known about when starting.
I'm hard pressed to come up with a reason not to recommend Gladius, perhaps that it's a great time sink. Fortunately, its designed in such a way that you can play for as little as 15 minutes or as long as 12 hours. For someone with limited dexterity, such as myself, to find a console game that can be manipulated, not only to my advantage but to the end, is a blessing. The storyline is engrossing. I just wish there'd been more of it in the middle of the game, but nonetheless, I look forward to the sequel simply to see what happened! Now, off to try the alternate storyline.
I'm a mother of two boys, ages 7 and 10 and live in the chaos that ensues. I've a permanent disability that keeps me homebound, so books, kids, games and books are my constant companions. Oh, and books, too. *grins*
My children both play games so I often play them first, getting to know exactly how something may effect my sensitive and easily stimulated older child vs. my stoic and imperturbable younger.
I like games for games; for the pure enjoyment of them and believe that no game is wholly bad, though some are real stinkers.
I also have the dexterity of a camel in mittens so find playing FPSs difficult (and I also don't like the gore) and RTSs at times can stump me. I just can't seem to move quickly enough to keep up with them. Some of my favorite games are arcade games and I'll spend 3-5 years on the same 5-6 levels because I just never get any better. But, I have fun.
