Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (Game Boy Advance) review "Ogre Battle has become a fairly popular series on American shores, and for a good reason. Tactics Ogre found its way through Atlus, and I looked forward to playing this game. I am sad to say, it was not near as good as I dreamed. The game became almost a chore to completely beat, and I would spend weeks on end not playing it, because I really did not have the ambition to go play it. There are some positive aspects to Tactics Ogre, but for every positive there is a negative. "

Ogre Battle has become a fairly popular series on American shores, and for a good reason. Tactics Ogre found its way through Atlus, and I looked forward to playing this game. I am sad to say, it was not near as good as I dreamed. The game became almost a chore to completely beat, and I would spend weeks on end not playing it, because I really did not have the ambition to go play it. There are some positive aspects to Tactics Ogre, but for every positive there is a negative.

STORY (18/20): Ogre Battle is a series known for epic stories about the land of Lodis, and the church involved in that area. Tactics Ogre keeps that same principle. The main character is part of the Lodis army, like most characters are, and once again he leaves it because of the corruption. This leads him against the Lodis Army, and to a search to recover a sacred spear, and to stop an angel from resurrecting. The story at times seems to drag on, but overall it is very interesting and fun to watch unfold.

GRAPHICS (12/15): The Gameboy Advance is capable of fairly complex graphics, equivalent to that of the Super Nintendo. Tactics Ogre looks fairly colorful, and the lands look really good. I mean, the amount of power spent on grpahics is not much, because most of it is still, and really not very detailed, but for what it is used for it does its job well.

SOUND (5/10): I never really grew that fond of the music present in Tactics Ogre. At times it was repetitive, and even if the music was different for some reason it just felt the same. Nothing really ever stuck out as memorable music, and I never went around humming the tunes from Ogre Battle, like I had done before for many videogames.

GAMEPLAY (26/40): If you have ever played Final Fantasy Tactics, you will understand this game immediately. There is no travelling involved, or commanding multiple troops. In Tactics Ogre all you have to do is control one group of 8 characters through around thirty or so battles. These characters must be equipped with army and swords, and can become a whole barrage of classes. So far so good, right? Well, it is. There is alot of control with what you can do in Tactics Ogre by commanding troops, however this gets repetitive fast. All the battles usually require the same tactics, besides those that occur in water, which may need a bit different approach.

So the game is based on battles and your troops. Therefore all the troops better differ in skills and power, correct? In truth this difference really isn't that big. Dragoons, Sword Masters, Hawkman, and all types of creatures play with nearly the exact same skill. The only difference is type of movement, and with some characters the power of the weapon that they weild. There is also a barrage of magic to be used, which is very useful in battle, in particular the summon spells. However it takes alot of time to get the MP, to do this.

So the game is basically the same strategy used over and over, correct... Sadly enough, it is. At first it is confusing, and really not to much entertaining cause you don't understand it. Then it gets addictively fun for awhile, but then you master it, and it justs get old. You will soon find yourself looking forward to the end, and most good games should not have that problem.

REPLAYABILITY (5/10): Tactics Ogre is a fairly long game, with a large collection of classes. So when you finally beat the game, which takes about thirty-five hours, you can always return to get that Angel Knight or Dragoon. There are alot of different combinations you can get in the game, and if you are really a dedicated player you may try and to create those different combinations, plus there are 5 different endings, but each of those can be gotten on one save file, and past decisions do not really effect it. All in all, the game has the ability to replay it consistantly, but not the entertainment value.

DIFFICULTY (3/5): Tactics Ogre is fairly difficult, especially if you want to get your characters up to the strong abilities and want to have an ability at defeating the final master. You will need to train your people before long battles, and at times battle tactics will be very significant. That and if a character dies, you lose him or her for good. However, once you get the little things down it just takes time and you will end up beating Tactics Ogre, likely.

OVERALL (69/100): I expected a great deal out of Tactics Ogre, a game which I hoped would turn out to be everything Ogre Battle 64 was, and even more. In the end, I would be dissapointed by this game, because it did not have that feel at all. They used a different battle method, which I did not at first have fault with, however that battle tactic just didn't have the entertainment as the past installments. Unless you really desire to play the newest creation of the Ogre Battle series, I do not reccomend that you purchase this title. It just is not worth the time nor the money.

Community review by ratking (June 22, 2003) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.