Gladius

Your gladiators are divided into 5 classes - Light, Medium, Heavy, Support, and Arcane . Combat works on a paper-scissors-rock style. Light beats Heavy, Heavy beats Medium, Medium beats Light. Support and Arcane classes are best used from a distance (arrows and lightning bolts, obviously.) As you go up in Level, you also earn Skill Points. These are used to customize your fighters even more! Each character has dozens of different Skills to potentially learn, but you will never earn enough Skill Points to learn them all, so you must select few that complement the gladiator to your liking the most. Once again, I recommend the Gladius strategy guide to help you choose the best Skills for each Class - there are so many branches to develop your character, it can get daunting and hard-earned Skill Points unwisely spent.

The Swing Meter is what keeps the combat from getting boring and static. Just like in golfing games, it's a meter at the bottom of the screen. You have a normal hit(yellow), critical hit(red), and miss zone(blue). It's not too terribly difficult to score critical hits on a semi-regular basis, but it makes you pay attention and be involved in how your fighters do in battle. Enemy A.I. is actually OK. During the fights where the object is something other than all-out combat, (i.e. Points Battle, Barrel Break, Defend the Statue, or King of the Hill) the computer will do some dumb things, but during true battle the computer will stomp you if you don't employ the right tactics and appropriate gladiators (luckily, you can preview who your opponents will be beforehand, so that you may assemble your team with the best advantage.) You are the leader of a gladitorial School, so you are able to recruit a large variety of fighters to choose from.

This game is HUGE. It will take a long time to go all the way through it. You must travel with your School through 4 different lands and compete in numerous Leagues and Tournaments, with the ultimate goal of being able to take on the best Schools in the High Tournament in Caltha.
Each land you travel through (Nordagh, Imperia, Windward Steppes, and Southern Expanse) all have an average of 3 to 7 towns. In each town, there are numerous Leagues and Tournaments to compete in.

Please give this game a try. If you enjoy deep and involved games that can quickly consume hours of your free time, this is a game for you. I hope this game does well, so that we might be able to look forward to Gladius II.


2 Years Of Waiting Pays Off!!   November 3, 2003
Christine A. Smead (Santee, California USA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful

Before I start to review this, let me say I had reserved this game 2 years before realease. That's how much time, maybe even more, i would wait for this game. Wow. From the beautifully done opening sequence, to the intense brutality of the galdiator rings, this game is one of a kind. It has a Final Fantasy Tactics feel to it in the sense of the way you move and attack. In my opinion, the most innvoative feaeture is the swing meters. I like how if you time your swings right, you do more damage. Another thing that just blows me away is the animations. From Ursula's spells to the incedible cut scenes.
That brings me to another point. The acting in this game is phenominal. Kudos to the actors and writers!! Gladius also lets you create your own school. This makes for a very open ended experienece. It almost follows Baldurs Gate in the sense of having a story, but not really having to go with it. You can do quite a bit without the story. That is because of the Godly world map. Yes godly. This may be one of the best world maps i have ever seen. It rivals FF7 and Wild arms 2 in terms of vastness and beauty. I honesty spent 3 hours alone on the world map gazing at its supreme beauty. The arenas In this game really bring the experience together. They are all differnt and have differnt scenarios like King Of The Hill, Domination, Deathmatch, Fast-Money, and Beast Battles. This makes for an ever changing gameplay experience that never gets old!! I also love how the characters advance. It is very easy to understand and very easy to master. This makes a gameplay experience that all can enjoy. All in all, Gladius is one of the best RPG experinces for any console. I reccomend this game HIGHLY!! It's now one of my 4 favorite games. Please Check this out!! I finish with the words of Crowe: "In the ring we die, and in the ring we are more alive than ever"


Great turn based combat with a plot too!   November 16, 2003
Lisa Shea
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

Gladius plays on the popularity of Gladiator by bringing arena combat to the main console systems. It's not Rome this time, but a fantasy planet with good and evil.

I had originally played the Demo of Gladius on XBox and wasn't very impressed. Luckily they did make some solid changes to the game by release time to add to the interest factor.

There's a basic story of good and evil, with the Queen of the Valkries giving her life to slay the demon of chaos. There are also two human tribes, in essence the Vikings vs the Romans. When you begin the game you can choose to be a Viking woman or a Roman man, both strong, young warriors.

You work your way up through gladiator combat, which is the 'peaceful' way that the two tribes work out their aggressions now. You earn certificates in various areas to allow you to fight, and move through various stages of arena level. You build up your skills, gain team members, and learn more about the plot and the underlying good-evil conflict as you go.

The graphics are reasonably good, and I have to say, I'm actually impressed with the plot. It's not just "filler" for button-mashing combat. It really does give you a sense that these characters have dreams and worries, that they have friendships and that things affect them. The characterizations and voices were well done.

There is in-arena combat which is just fought until there is a winner, and out-of-arena combat where the fights are to the death. The locations do feel different from each other, and you get a sense of wanting to gain more reputation and explore your options.

I'm much more a real-time combat person myself - I love Dynasty Warriors 4 and Return of the King, for example. I felt sort of stifled by the turn based system, having to stop and wait for my turn to move on the grid and attack. But really, I love the Final Fantasy games and those are turn based. So it's something about the moving and fighting combos that just wasn't my style. People who are more into turn based will really love this game.

Highly recommended for turn based fans looking for a quality game!


Awesome Game   June 23, 2006
Anthony (MCAS Iwakuni, Japan)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is one of those games you set the school/work clock ahead on friday to get home early for. The story line is well thoughtout and the graphics/portraits are amazing. Great by that is well worth the money.


There need to be more games like this   March 1, 2007
JimboJohnson
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This game is great. It may not be for everyone, but I love it and everyone I know who even remotely enjoys strategy games has fun playing it. I own it for the XBox, but I sold my Xbox to get an XBox 360 and the game is not backwards compatible. When I found out it was coming out on the PS2 I had to order it. My roommate has a PS2 and we both can't wait to play it again, despite the fact that we've each beaten the game twice. To me this game is an instant classic. I played over 150 hours my first time through, and I'm looking forward to a third time through. The turn based strategy gameplay is like a complex game of chess (except way more entertaining), and the meter and button combo style special moves are a refreshing change of pace and add chance and excitement to the battles. Eventually you get so good at the meters that it's second nature and you learn the best army to take against the opposition, but it still retains it's fun factor. Repetition is inevitable, but the complexity of the characters and classes, as well ad the relative open-endedness of the storyline make this easily one of the top ten all-time games I've ever played.