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Such potential, but it falls short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: June 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Gladius won't be released until August 2003, but here's a review of the demo they've recently released in gaming magazines.

First, the premise. After years of warfare, the lands are peaceful. The only combat remaining is in the gladiator rings. Your brother-sister team, Ursula and Valens, bring together a small team of fighters to gain glory on that field.

In essence you're playing a turn based combat strategy game, a la Final Fantasy Tactics. The graphics are reasonably good, with the cut scenes showing far more polish than the actual gameplay. I would have thought a brand new XBox game would have better in-game graphics, but the graphics reminded me of an old Playstation Final Fantasy, with little bursts of blood-mist when someone hits, and non-exciting backgrounds.

You have nice arrows indicating how far a character can move during a given turn, on a large arena which easily exceeds your screen width. You can sneak around an opponent and hit them from behind, giving you a bonus. You have options of various attack styles and learn skills as you go.

Unfortunately it's exceedingly easy to mis-click and there's no going back when you do. It's easy to loose track of where people and opponents are with them being off-screen from each other, and when it's someone's turn the focus does not move to them, so you have to scroll around to hunt them down.

Usually music and sound don't bother me one way or another, but I have to say the background music for this game was REALLY annoying to me, and began to wear on me quickly. This is really quite unusual, because I happen to *love* the Gladiator soundtrack, have it on CD and play it constantly. So if anything, I should be a person who could play Gladiator-themed music 24 hours a day. To have this music drive me completely insane so quickly was quite a feat.

In general, we weren't very impressed with this. It was so awkward to move around and get through a battle that by the end, when the trio of judges gave their mild polite clapping as your "winning moment", we were really just happy to have it over with.

It might get much better as they finish off the game for its true release, I guess we'll see! Being a huge strategy fan and a lover of the Gladiator genre, I would REALLY like this to end up a wonderful game.

Disappointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: November 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I heard that the folks who put out KOTOR were doing a turn-based strategy, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, Gladius falls way short.

There really isn't much to the strategy aspect. There are 3 classes of player size, and 4 classes of magic that apply to weapons and armor. You use these in deathmatch, king of the hill, capture the flag, and damage contests.

Game play during combat is just like every other game where you swing something. Watch the little bar at the bottom of the screen and try to hit the button at the right time.

Other than that, the graphics are good, but the music is repetitive. That's about all I can say.

I gave it 3 stars because I did get about 7 hours play out of this, but most of that time was spent hoping it would get more interesting. Wish I had rented it first.

Like losing?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 10
Date: February 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Gladius plays like FF Tactics and Ogre Battles except for the fact that you start out every fight with a massive disadvantage. You will never get the first turn, the enemies will always get 2-5 turns for your one. It gets to be very frustrating losing simply because the other team is getting 4x more attacks than you. This game is not hard because you have to think or plan out a strategy its hard because the deck is stacked against you in every fight.

A Huge Disappointment!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: November 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This being one of those more anticpated titles, I must say I probably had too high hopes for this one. Alas, they were more than crushed when I actually started playing...

First of all, the storyline/acting bits are ridiculous. Imperia? Come on, real historical names/places would have made it 100 times more enjoyable.

Second, and most important, the fighting is TURN BASED! What a stupid idea; your character stands there and basically does the same move, then stands there and takes a shot from the other guy. Then it has this whole complicated movement system that is totally unbelieveable and even more un-fun.

Don't waste your time with this one; I gave up after about 45 minutes and popped Madden back in the console. Good thing is was only a rental!

Wasted potential

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 28
Date: July 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

before i played the demo of this game,i thought it would be awesome,like a better version of rune from the ps2,but alas,i was sorely disapointed.I was looking forward to the fast paced action that made the movie gladiator exciting to watch but this game is turn based.Turn based!what were they thinking.I know there arent that many turn based games around so its a change of pace from the norm,but why on such a cool looking game?i was sorely disapointed.

Yawn...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 45
Date: September 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game should be in the Platinum Hits sections. No, make that the Old Copper Penny section. Paying anything over 10 bucks for this game would be a mistake. Only hardened RPGers will like this game (you know the type--the guys who sit over by themselves and even the computer nerds won't talk to them). After Sudeki, Fable & Jade Empire comes out, Gladius will be relegated to the Bargin Bin right next to Pong. Anywho...this game is about as much fun as visiting a friend's dying grandmother in an old folks home (unless of course, you enjoy that sort of thing).

Gladius? Blah

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: July 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game started out great. During the first half of the game I thought I was playing one of the best turned based strategy games ever made. The character classes were unique, interesting, and fun. Unfortunately, that did not last. The last half of the game is an exercise in boredom. The caster classes enter the game during the last half and proceed to use the same abilities over and over. Wonderful animations such as "steal affinity" or "summon power" were used so many times the sounds and animations have been etched in to my brain. Surely, the developers and play testers found this to be rather mind number and annoying too, this would have been an easy problem to squash, and really detracts from the game. The casters are bad, but they are not the worst part of Gladius.

The absolute worst part of Gladius is the totems on the arena floor. These wonderful objects get one turn per round and do the same thing each and every round. Very bad and very boring. The later tournaments have as many as 8 totems on the arena floor. You will spend more than half of your playtime watching a totem spin and spit out some form of magic. It is painfully boring and completely pointless. After playing a series of 2 vs 2 gladiator battles with 8 totems on the arena floor I completely lost interest in this horrid and extremely boring game.

I would sooner scratch my own eyes out than finish this game.

best game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

gladius was the first rpg that i have ever played this is by far the best game ever everything about this game is good you play as valens or his sister ursula as you battle and many arena to become the top gladiator i give this game a perfect 5 out of 5 its the best

Still one of my favorite Xbox games!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a very deep turn-based rpg, although light on story/plot. If you are into turn-based combat, stat-building and item management, you really need to give this game a spin.

A campaign can easily take over 100 hours of play if you want to complete everything. The number of weapons, armor, misc items, skills and character classes is incredible. It is very satisfying builing up your gladiator school and experimenting with different combinations of combatants, skills and items. As the game progresses, different types of battles are introduced and conditions are placed on battles to keep things interesting. Side quests, unique items and characters can also be discovered. There is so much to this game!

Once you are experienced, the game can feel a bit easy, but there is a simple code to increase the level of your opponents: (Pause at a league office and press: Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Left, Left, Left, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up, Down). You can repeat this code and increase enemy levels more than once for some real challenges.

Addictive, extremely replayable, leaves you wanting MORE!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I found this game as I was wading through a huge bin of used games at a local Gamestop. I had never heard about it before though I love Roleplaying games and anything having to do with swords and magic. Anyway - at first I wasn't sure if I would like the turn based play but I soon realized that it is extremely compelling. This game has now turned into my favorite game to play on my xbox and I am really hoping that Lucas Arts creates a sequel. I love all aspects of this game from the funny banter between Ursula/Urlan to the ability to equip and modify your gladiators. This game is never the same game twice mainly because there are infinite combinations of gladiators, skills, weapons and magic. My husband also likes the fact that we can jump into each other's game at anytime just by hitting "start" on the other controller. When you get to a certain point in the game you can do head to head competition and we love that also. Highly recommended for those who love games like Morrowind, Oblivion and Baldur's Gate. My only complaint is that I wish I had known about this game when it came out in 2003!

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