Gladius
- October 27, 2003 13:52 PM PST
- Email this!
It?s a dull battle between gladiator brutes in the Gladius world.
Creating an epic role-playing game based on the bloody exploits of angered gladiators seems like an oxymoron. How can you weave a compelling story into the fine craft of disemboweling hordes of beastly warriors? Gladius claims it offers this and more, but after a few swings with this hefty sword, it?s clear that this game suffers the humdrums of a not-so-great role-playing game.
Rival Schools
Gladius puts you in a fictitious land dominated by gladiator traditions. After choosing from two main characters, you?re off to form and lead a fighting school where the curriculum is all about how to best defeat your opponent. You and your band of bad-ass combatants travel to different towns, recruit wannabe warriors, buy equipment, fight in the local leagues, and if you?re ready, battle in the championships. As you venture to distant areas, you slowly learn through standard cut-scenes that there?s more than just blood instincts on your path to glory. Unfortunately, though, the well-written script doesn?t outweigh the uninteresting and long, drawn-out story.
Take a Skill Pill
The actual gameplay of Gladius is innovative, but the execution is just as slow as the story telling. Combat is dished out through turn-based clashes; when an arena is filled with at least a half-dozen pugilists, the action tends to be very, very sluggish as you wait patiently for your next turn.
Tactically speaking, however, Gladius shines with tons of options. The game enables you to flex your logical mind in true character-building fashion. Before each battle, you can equip your team with a dizzying array of weapons and armor that all correspond with different elemental powers: earth, wind, fire, and water. Moreover, you must continuously keep yourself updated with each fighter?s skill stats, like weapon accuracy, hit points, damage, and so on. It?s up to you to make your team as optimally fit as possible based on their physical data. You must also take in to account the many different arena layouts, which can consist of elevation changes and random obstacles that might help in your overall assault on the enemy.
While all of the preplanning may be solid, it?s the actual battles that don?t seem to be balanced. Determining the amount of damage you give out depends on the timing of your button presses, which can quickly become frustrating. Even if your warrior is at a higher skill level, you can easily lose a battle to a lesser opponent just by missing a button tap. Even worse, you have no control over how you defend yourself?it?s done automatically, which only adds to the disappointing gameplay.
Victory Is Not at Hand
Only minor visual differences separate the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube versions. As expected, Gladius looks just slightly better on the Xbox than on the PlayStation 2; the GameCube version lacks the overall shine and polish, but still looks mighty good. A strong audio presentation, complete with great voice acting and some well-orchestrated background music, doesn?t skip a beat in any of the versions, too.
Sadly, though, a strong graphics and sound package doesn?t make up for the overall impression of Gladius. The controls are maladjusted, and the story doesn?t unfold like an RPG story should. Mixing the two together only worsens this adventure into an unforgiving trip into gladiator lore.
