Welcome to the start of my playthrough of LucasArts’ “Gladius”, a tactical arena fighting game for the PlayStation 2.
Wow. What to say about this game? I first heard about this game only a couple of weeks ago — I guess I’d entirely missed it when it came out in 2003. I ordered a copy from eBay. It arrived yesterday; popped it into the PCSX2 emulator and it came right up.
There are two stories to choose from; that of Valen, a gladiator earning fame in Roman Imperia; or Ursula, a warrior seeking glory in Viking Nordagh. Ursula’s story is marked as “beginner” level, so I started with her.
Witches gathered for the birth of King Orin’s first child, a daughter of prophecy. When his wife gave birth instead to a son, he angrily sent the witches away. Moments later, his wife delivered another baby, a girl, Ursula. Fearing the witches retribution, he hid the children away, and only ever talked about Ursula as her brother Urlan’s younger sister.
The story continues as impressively staged cutscenes as the twins travel from arena to arena, seeking fame and glory on the battlefield.
King Orin has tasked Prince Urlan with starting a gladiatorial school, and to take his students to compete in skirmishes and tournaments across Nordagh to build fame, wealth, and hardened soldiers with which to fend off imperial incursions from the south. Urlan reluctantly agrees to take his sister as his first student, and together they set off to train away from the suspicious eyes of the court, lest Ursula’s burgeoning magical gifts draw the attention of the witches.
It’s unfortunate that a chance encounter on the road puts them on her trail…
The gameplay is very familiar to anyone who has played a tactical RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics in the past. Characters move in order of their “INI” — initiative — stat. Players can opt to move, move and attack, attack, or use a special skill. These special skills can be purchased with points gained from leveling up.
Attackers can gain advantage by being higher than their opponents, or attacking while the opponent is focused on attacking another fighter.
There’s also a rock-paper-scissors relationship between fighter types. Heavy fighters are strong against medium fighters, who are strong in turn against light fighters, who then have an advantage over heavy fighters.
Winning battles earns gold, certificates, and fame. Certificates allow the school to enter higher level tournaments. Fame is often required to even be allowed to apply. During battles, actions seen as honorable or dishonorable by the audience can raise or lower their favor, which grants power to the team that has it. It’s good to spend the first few turns in battle seeing what the people want, and then giving them more of it. Fame doesn’t come cheap, after all.
Once out of the tutorial fights, the twins can roam freely around the overworld, visiting the arenas of neighboring towns, gathering rumors from random travelers, buying from the occasional merchants and so on. I’m told that following up on rumors will allow me to find new recruits with special abilities. I did hire a couple, but so far, there’s only been 2-on-2 fights and I haven’t had a chance to use them.
The fights so far seem to be a lot less complicated and a lot smaller than the ones in Final Fantasy Tactics or Ogre Battle, but then again, I have just barely started. I’m sure things will get a bit heavier once we reach the big leagues.
I’m playing Gladius on the PCSX2 PlayStation 2 emulator from the original game disk with an XBox controller on Windows. I’m having some glitches with certain particle effects being shifted to the left or right a bit. Not sure if that’s me fiddling with settings, a problem with the emulator, or a bug from the original game.
