Strategy is the only way to win !

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great graphics, story and game system.

Cons: Battle are sometimes too long

The Bottom Line: 
Try this game at least once because if you don't you're losing something...

Author's Review
Long ago, their was a time when strength ruled and evil held the world in it’s vile clutches…the age of Zeteginia. That’s how the new Atlus strategy game begin. The Ogre series is now well known of everyone and that new episode, The Knight of Lodis, is in his major part a good game. Ogre Battle 64 : Person of Lordly Caliber for the N64 was a quite good game, rated 8.3 by Nintendo Power. But, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis isn’t the same type of game. If you want to compare it to another game, I think Final Fantasy Tactics for the playstation is the most appropriate one. These type of game are based on strategy, which you have to developed, and also some resource management. If you want to know more about Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, read this review.

THE BEGINNING

When you begin the game, your with a guy named Rictor Lasanti. You have to choose your name (Family name will be Loeher), date of birth and six questions will be ask to you and you have to answer them. Rictor is a new commander and he lead a troop of Knight of Felis, a kingdom in Lodis. He is actually the son of the Duke of Felis. They are going in another country, Ovis, because they have been requested by a kingdom named Anser to help them in a battle against Rananculus. Anser is in the south of the country and Rananculus in the north and they are in war. As soon has they land, they get attack by a Rananculus troop. The reason why they are not welcome are simple: some years ago, Lodis have bring destruction and suffering to a lot of country because they were thirsty of power. They call it the Reformation. But now, things have changed. Even if things have changed, Rananculus people are still remembering these time… An hidden Rananculus soldier shot at Rictor but you stop the arrow and fall in the sea…you awake on a beach where a girl named Eleanor rescue you. Your are in the church of Solea. You find that your friends are in Scabellum, so you go with an ancient Rananculus soldier named Ivanna. When you arrived, Rictor want you to go separate the small troop in two so they can get the enemies from the flanks. That’s how things start in the game. The story is a lot deeper than this… I give a 8.5/10 for the story and game environment (beginning that give you the taste to continue).

GAMEPLAY

That will be a long part because the game play of strategic game are very complicated (Those game must be programmer nightmare !) First, you start with a troop of five guys. Each person can have different class. You can be a wizard, an archer, a soldier, an hawkman, and a lot more. Each have special abilities. For example, a wizard can learn spell, an archer can attack with a bow, and an hackman can fly, so a move faster on the battle board. You can upgrade people abilities by buying better weapon and armour. They also level up…

Level up, battle command and the battle board

The battle board is composed of several space where your characters can travel. (The battle board is where you fight so it can be in a city or any terrain in the game.). Each characters have an amount of space he can travel in one turn. Space can also go up or down in altitude so that some type of character can go up to great altitude. The amount of space a character can travel is determined by the class of the character or abilities he may have learn. For example, hawkman can fly, so altitude doesn’t concern them and they can travel a lot faster. When you start a fight, you choose the guy you want to move, and space you can travel to will be indicated in colour. After he move, depending on the weapon he have, he can attack, spell a magic or standby (end turn). Each time a character successfully attacked an ennemy, he is granted with experience. When a character reach 100 experience points, he level up. Level up, like in RPG, make the strength, defence, intelligence and agility better.

Spells, Elements and Attack

In Tactics Ogre, the wizard do not come in the battle with MP (Magic Point) already filled up. It’s when the wizard have passed a turn that he begin to earn MP. When he does, depending on the amount he gets, he can cast a spell on an opponent. In FF Tactics, wizard was obligated to wait some turn before he could cast the spell, but not in Tactics Ogre. When you ask for a spell to be done, it is. However, it can be miss. Each spell have an element. Their is four elements in Tactics Ogre: Wind, Earth, Fire, Water and each are represent by a symbol and colour : Water = blue, Fire = Red, Wind = Green, Earth = Brown. Their is also Virtue and Bane that are not element but just opposite type. Each elements are opposed and each characters have an element. Fire is oppose with Water, Wind with Earth. So, if you hit a guy that have Fire with a Water spell, this will do great damage to him. Now about attack: With sword and other weapon except for Bow, Crossbow, Whip and Spears, you have to be next an enemy to hit him. If you attack in his back, he will not counter the attack, but if your are not, he will. He may also stop your attack with guard, something you can also do. For spears and whip, the range is of two Space (or Panels). For Bow and Crossbow, it’s depend of the type.

Treasure and Abnormal Status

When attacking someone, the panel you are on may give you an HIDDEN TREASURE which can be weapon armour or Item. Item, are in great part curative one. When you defeat an enemy, he will drop a treasure and by going on the panel he left it, you will collect it. Enemies can inflict abnormal status like poison. To cure them, it’s like in RPG, you use an Antidote. That’s about it for this.

Other things

When battling, you can earn emblems which are used to upgrade your character class. Doing so may take down some stats but grow others. Each characters have talent that can be learned with items like magic scroll to learn new magic or by levelling up. You can hire up to 32 characters but can only use 8 per battle. You can do training to level up your guys, you can exchange goods with other Tactics Ogre players (and maybe characters, I don’t know…), you can divide you troop into two groups, persuade enemies to come with you, and maybe other things I forgot. So you see, the game play of this game is very deep.

Because it’s well done and can make great strategy with this, i give the game play a nearly perfect score of 9.5/10

GRAPHICS

Graphics are real good too ! They are not as good as FF tactics one, but I can tell you that someone that just played a little at FF Tactics would tell that they are the same. So, for a GBA game, this game have real great graphics. Battle animation and Spell are fun to see and the town are colourful (something i like to see in a game). Battle board are well designed and they are not all the same. So, for the graphics, i give Tactics Ogre a good 9.5/10.

SOUND and MUSIC

They are good for this type of game but nothing new again…I have nothing more to say about it except that it’s normal music and sound. For a strategy game, it’s okay ! 7/10

Atlus have done a great job and all GBA owner will be happy to know that the Ogre Saga still on the rail! You will have tons of hours of play with the Quest mode that unlock quest when your are playing the main mode game. So, you can take you game characters and let them enter quest to earn War fund that are utilised to buy Item and Hire guys. With the possibility to change class, you could start one hundred game without it to be the same always. So, have fun and buy this great game if you like:
1- Strategic game
2- The Ogre Saga
3- Long life game
4- Great graphics game

I give Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis a good 8.5/10. Why not more? Because it’s too linear in the story and the complexity of the system that can be hard to understand all. Sometimes the battles are too long. But anyway, it’s a great game !