Gladius (video game)
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| Developer(s) | LucasArts |
| Publisher(s) |  LucasArts Activision |
| Platform(s) | Xbox, GameCube, PS2 |
| Release date | October 29, 2003 November 28, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
Gladius is a tactical role-playing game released in 2003 for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 video game consoles.
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[edit] Overview
The game allows the player to build a school of gladiators and take them into battle against opposing schools in a quest for fame and glory. The plot focuses on several of the main characters and slowly affects the decisions of the group, eventually leading to a final large battle that tests the skills of all members of the school. Upon starting the game, the player can choose between a school in Imperia, home to a strong military mentality and soldiers who consider their northern neighbors uncivilized and bullish, or a school in Nordagh, where witches and woodland beasts dwell, and who in turn detest the Imperials for their desire for greater conquest.
The gladiators have the opportunity to travel through four distinctly different regions on their road to the ultimate championship. Depending on the player's school choice, he or she begins in either the Northern lands of Nordagh (Barbarian school), which has a culture similar to that of 'Nordic' lands, or Imperia (Gladiator school), an Imperial Roman land. Upon completion of these two stages of play one proceeds onto the Windward Steppes, a grasslands region dominated by archers and beasts, reminiscent of the steppes of Asia, followed by the Southern Expanse, a desert region filled with spellcasters, nomadic warriors, and insects. The latter is an area reminiscent of Egypt; the main insects of this region are beetles, which held a high importance in Egyptian mythology, and scorpions, a staple arachnid in any desert region. The conclusion of the game takes place in and around the large central arena of Caltha in the Imperial Region.
As in many role-playing games, players outfit their characters with gear to increase their abilities, and as they win fights, they gain experience which allows them to don new equipment and undertake new quests. Additionally, winning certain hidden or difficult contests allows the players to recruit unique character classes such as yetis, minotaurs, and the undead. Fighting in Gladius follows a turn-based mechanism, but with a twist. There are "swing meters" - like those found in many golf games - that determine the accuracy and effectiveness of strikes. For those who enjoy more traditional turn-based strategy role-playing games, the meters can be disabled in the options menu. This tends to increase the difficulty level and force the player to rely more on sound tactics than nimble fingers.
[edit] Heroes
The storyline focuses on one of two heroes, although both storylines merge for a significant portion of the game. Ursula, voiced by Scooby-Doo and ER actress Linda Cardellini, is associated with the "beginner" path, although the main difference is in which land the player first competes in. Valens, voiced by Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor of Smallville fame), has an additional hero as a part of his school for the first half of the game.
The main characters of these storylines are automatically made members of the school. There are six heroes total, but players will never have more than five in their school at any one time, and eventually two will drop out, leaving sixteen remaining slots to fill by the end of the game. The other main characters are generally of the recruitable categories, although they frequently have special abilities of their own. Their participation in battles is, on occasion, mandatory. These other heroes include Urlan (Ursula's brother), Ludo (Valen's best friend), Eiji (an archer), and Gwazi (a secutor). Both of the main heroes, as well as Ludo and Urlan, are considered medium gladiators.
[edit] Gladiators
The game employs a rigid rock-paper-scissors approach to character classes and combat. There are three main classes of characters: heavy, medium, and light. In the same pattern as rock-paper-scissors, heavy beats medium, medium beats light, and light beats heavy. Barring a large level gap or terrain advantage, this pattern will almost always hold true in any one-on-one battle. There are also the support and arcane classes, which are neutral in the class relationship but generally about as tough as medium characters. Finally, there are several bosses, such as the affinity beasts and the Dark God, Mortuus.
Every gladiator the player encounters is classified into one of five categories:
- Heavy classes are slow, powerful units with a high capacity for damage, but low speed and accuracy. In later levels they can become immune to most status effects.
- Centurion: The Imperial Centurion, while not quite as powerful as other heavy classes, is useful for the numerous status-enhancing skills it can use on itself and the rest of the player's school.
- Cyclops: The only heavy class to use medium weaponry, the Cyclops can use its singe eye to shoot lasers, petrify enemies, or cause fear.
- Minotaur: The Minotaur is a powerful warrior. It is unable to be flanked and its critical attacks gain an extra boost in damage. Only one can be recruited.
- Ogre: The beastly counterpart to the Samnite, the Ogre is capable of providing leadership to Mongrels (and Mongrel Shamans) as well as using a variety of stench-related attacks.
- Samnite: One of the three historical gladiator classes in this game. The Samnite earns its heavy classification by using its bulk to shove enemies out of the way, allowing for tactical control of the battlefield. They can also attack more than one spot at a time and their damage capacity is second only to the Minotaur. Galverg fits into this class.
- Yeti: Only found in Nordagh, and with only one able to be recruited (a second can be rented for individual battles), the Yeti sacrifices defense for damage. It can also roar to increase its damage even further and can breathe freezing vapor.
- Medium classes are all-around fighters with average scores in every category.
- Valens/Ursula: The main heroes of the game, these two possess several exclusive affinity powers.
- Barbarians: Barbarians are a heavy-hitting medium class that can also transform into an animal form. They sacrifice shields for larger weapons. Urlan is a barbarian-type warrior.
- Legionnaires: Legionnaires are standard infantry units of Imperia, and often gain certain bonuses in the presence of Centurions. Ludo and Mutuus are Legionnaire-type warriors. Dark Legionnaires, regular Legionnaires with dark affinity powers, are an unplayable variant that appear as enemies late in the game.
- Murmillos: A fusion of the medium and support classes, the Murmillos can throw their shields great distances to damage enemies, and can hold their own in close combat. They also gain a defense bonus against ranged attacks. The name Murmillo is derived from an actual gladiator class from Rome.
- Undead Legionnaires: As the name suggests, the Undead Legionnaire is a skeletal Legionnaire animated by dark magic. They wield dark affinity powers and can self destruct to inflict damage.
- Light Characters are extremely fast and nimble. Though their damage capacity is low, they are able to move twice as fast as most heavy characters and are far better at dodging.
- Bandit: The bandit is generally a criminal working off debt in the arenas. It's perhaps the paragon of a light class, specialized at stunning heavy classes and doing increased damage when attacking enemies from behind.
- Berserker: Natives of Nordagh, the Berserker is an unarmored warrior capable of hurling its weapon for ranged damage, or debilitating its foes with assorted battle cries. Additionally, the Berserker is capable of entering a state of rage where it effectively transforms into a heavy class.
- Dervish: Natives of the Southern Expanse, the Dervish is a dual-wielding warrior completely immune to air attacks. They specialize in making their enemies bleed, causing continuous damage over time.
- Mongrel: The Mongrel is a weak gladiator, capable of backstabbing like a Bandit. Aside from this, the Mongrel possesses a series of progressively powerful kicks, and has the ability to poison opponents.
- Satyr: The most fragile of the light gladiators, the Satyr uses songs, stunning abilities, and area-affecting fire breath in place of normal attacks.
- Secutor: One of the three "historical" gladiator classes, the Secutor is a more combat-oriented variant of the Bandit. It loses the ability to incapacitate heavy classes but gains several combat abilities like the dreaded Surprise Attack (doubles damage from behind) and the dirty ability to toss sand in an opponent's face, slowing them down.
- Support Characters are the ranged units of the game. In the rock-paper-scissors relationship of the main classes, they are neutral, but all support characters are weak in melee combat. As the name implies, support characters are often used to support other characters by attacking from a distance.
- Amazon: Found in the Windward Steppes, the Amazon is a beautiful, bikini-clad female archer. Aside from their bow skills, they can inflict numerous status effects on male gladiators.
- Archer: A more generalized equivalent to the Amazon, the Archer is the ultimate ranged character. Their attack range is second to none, and they can fire numerous trick arrows (explosive, poison, etc).
- Peltast: A military support class, the Peltast derives its name from the javelin-auxiliaries that complemented Greek phalanxes (the Roman equivalent was the Velites). Though lacking the shapeshifting powers and exclusive equipment of the Gungnir, the Peltast can use its ranged abilities at a reduced SP cost.
- Gungnir: The Nordagh counterpart of the Peltast, the Gungnir is a javelin-carrying soldier who can perform adequately in melee due to the ability to shapeshift into a bear.
- Arcane Characters are the spell casters of the game, able to quickly gather affinity to attack from a distance. They are also neutral in the class relationships. Arcane characters are even worse at melee combat then support characters, and their damage is lackluster at best.
- The Channeler is a toga-clad female and the primary caster of Gladius. She can steal affinity from a target, then use it to cast a variety of spells, ranging from healing to powerful fireballs to freezing icestorms.
- The Galdr use song-based magic to enhance their allies and impede their enemies, while their ability to peer into the future makes them excellent at dodging. They are not a playable class.
- The Mongrel Shaman is a more martially-oriented caster. Retaining the melee capabilities of its Mongrel counterpart, it also possesses low-level spells like freezing and poisoning. The Shaman gains double affinity each time it hits an enemy.
- The Summoner can generate its own affinity to summon a wide array of magical beasts or attack enemies with pure affinity power.
- The Undead Summoner is the undead version of the Summoner. It sacrifices most of the summoning abilities for dark magic, such as draining life, creating fire storms, or causing instant death. They can also summon Undead Legionnaires. Unlike the Summoner, whose affinity generation is more or less free, the Undead Summoner must harm themselves to generate affinity. If generating dark affinity, this damage is negligible; with any other affinity, it is much greater.
- Beast Characters are animals of various types. They are only able to equip accessories, meaning their ability to enhance their offense or defense is negligible, but their small size means they won't impede the line of sight of other characters. They also are able to weather harm better than most characters.
- Bears are classified as heavy warriors, using their claws and bulk to inflict heavy damage on opponents.
- Dark Beasts are either wolves or plains cats that use dark affinity magic. They appear as skinned versions of their counterparts, and cannot be flanked. Dark Beasts are an unplayable class.
- Greater Beasts are simply larger versions of the regular animals. They take up four squares instead of just one, and are always classified as heavy despite the class of their normal-sized versions. Scarabs and Scorpions do not have greater counterparts. Greater Beasts are an unplayable class.
- Plains Cats are light warriors who can growl to petrify opponents and inflict quick attacks with their claws.
- Scarabs are medium insects which can spit poison and create fire to attack opponents.
- Scorpions are medium insects whose ability to poison is second to none. They can throw globs of poison great distances, or jab with their stringer for a powerful attack.
- Wolves are similar to Plains Cats, but slightly slower. They possess numerous tearing attacks that cause bleeding.
[edit] Swing meters
To determine the effectiveness of an attack, the game employs two types of swing meters. Most swing meters consist of three segments: blue, yellow, and red. Blue denotes a "miss", resulting in an attack that either misses completely or causes very little damage. Yellow results in a standard damage attack that may still be avoided, depending on the chance to hit given. Red results in a critical hit, which cannot be avoided or blocked and does much more damage. The secondary form of the swing meter is a yellow bar with a small green insert, used for mainly for status-affecting skills. Here, the goal is simply to aim for the green, which will make the skill function properly.
Depending on the swing meter, the player will either be required to press a specific key once to stop the meter on a color, press two buttons in rapid succession to move the meter to a color, or press a specific series of buttons before the meter runs out. Combo meters act in the same manner as the former, but are lined up next to one-another, thus requiring the player to repeat the process up to five times.
As the player purchases higher-level skills, using the meters becomes progressively more difficult. While scoring a critical hit using a standard attack is fairly simple, the strongest skills have swing meters which can be nearly impossible to use, thus making the points spent to gain them a waste. Another point to consider is the state of alertness of the player. Given the reflexes necessary to consistently and accurately use the swing meters, and the consequences of missed hits, a tired player will inevitably fare poorer than an alert one.
The game has an option which will run the swing meters for the player, giving the player a roughly ten percent miss rate and a ten percent critical hit rate, making the most common outcome a normal strike. This can make combat much easier or more difficult depending on the skill of the player and the abilities of their school. A player skilled with swing meters can often defeat higher-leveled opponents by capitalizing on critical hits, while a player not using them must rely more on strategy since their fighters will be less effective in battle.
[edit] Sequel
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LucasArts left the door open for a sequel to the game (and hinted at one in the ending), but has not followed up on these plans due to lack of commercial success. While the game has received strong critical and gamer praises, it has not fared well in terms of reputation and sales. The game was rated as one of the "best Xbox games most people never played" by The Official Xbox Magazine.
[edit] Console comparison
The PlayStation 2 version suffers from somewhat lower quality graphics and longer load times. The GameCube version runs quite smoothly with better textures and quick load times. The Xbox version runs just like the Gamecube version yet has some additional textures that don't appear in many of the other versions. It is also the only one to have blood effect, but is not, however, backwards-compatible with the 360.
