Ogre Battle

STORY

Ogre Battle is more of a strategy strategy rpg than a story driven strategy rpg. On there's a story but not an in-depth one or one that's really good. To sum it up. You ,the player, is a new hero who must re-unite the land of Zenobia against the evil Black Queen. Simple enough story and objective. Go from one battle map to the next progressing the story along the way. Now how the story unfolds depends on the path you take. Ogre Battle gives you different paths and multiple endings. You can help the true ruler, Prince Tristan, ascend to his throne or you, yourself, can become the new ruler. In the end of the game, you can become a good guy or a bad guy. Despite these unique features, there game still lack an in-depth storyline. Even the ending is very weak and not in-depth at all. The best ending you get isn't that great as well. As I said earlier, this is more of a driven strategy, strategy rpg then a story one.

Score: 5/10

CHARACTERS

The game does feature alot of characters which is expected from a strategy rpg game. Some of the characters that will join you can be former enemies to hidden ones. Not all the recruitable characters will join you though unless you meet their requirements. Despite the many characters, there's isn't a whole lot of character developement at all. There's usually one or two dialogue exchanges and that's about it. The sequel, Tactics Ogre, will shred some better light on their backgrounds than this game. I give it a 5 only because there are alot of unique character presented in this game.

Score: 5/10

GRAPHICS

The graphics is your basic 16 bit one. Nothing outstanding at all. And it's not even the best 16 bit graphics out there. There world map is uninteresting and the characters designs in the text dialogue isn't that good. The sprites designs in the battle fights are good though. Still the graphics isn't exactly this game great points. An average 16 bit graphics here.

Score: 5/10

MUSIC

The music in this game is a little above average or maybe just average. There are a few tunes available which is better than most games I guess. Still it's not that great. Don't expect earth shattering tunes like in the FF series.

Score: 6/10

GAMEPLAY

For obvious reasons, the gameplay is the strongest part of this game. Now the game is like most strategy rpg where it consists of going from one battle map to the next battle map. Now what is great is that it lets you choose which way you want to go thus shape your own outcome in the end. Good for replay value by the way. Basically you have many fighting units where each units can consists from 3 to 6 fighters. Each unit will be lead by a main character or sub-main character. The rest of your fighters are made up of nameless sprites. At the start of battle you have to position your units around the cities where you want them to be and then move them to your objective. Your objective of course is to liberate the surrounding cities under enemy control and head toward the city where the enemy boss is. The battle system is a basic turn base one where rpgers should be familiar with so no need for me to go into details here. Each fighters are group into a fighting class including your monsters. Once they reach a certain level, you can promote them into a better fighting class.
Now the game uses a tarot card and emotional system. The tarot cards are basically your strong summon magic cards. You can get tarot cards from enemies but mostly by liberating cities. Each tarot card has a certain effect on your hero. This goes into the emotion system. Now the game uses an emotion system on your hero. This emotion system is the measurement of the hero popularity towards the common people. This will effect whether or not you are a good guy or bad guy at the end of the game. A good emotional bar of course means the people love you and thus consider you a good guy. Everytime you liberate a city, you have to draw a tarot card. Some cards will give you a good emotional boost while either you give you a negative boost. You can also get a negative boost on your emotional bar if you let the enemy take over a city that your have under control. This is pretty much the basic of the entire gameplay. It's very addictive and fun.

Score: 8/10

EXTRAS/REPLAY

Now there are some really good extras available in this game. You have many hidden cities which can be very hard to find, to hidden fighting classes, to hidden characters. There are even special items and weapons to be found. My best advice is to go out and spend money on a strategy guide. It's worth it.The replay of course comes from the many different endings you can get base on the path you choose. This is clearly the second strongest part in this game.

Score: 8/10

Overrall Ogre Battle is a excellent 16 bit when it first came out. But in this day and age where so many rpgs has been release since then, Ogre Battle is little more than an average rpg game. If you are looking for a really good 16 bit strategy rpg game, you should head over to Tactics Ogre. It's one of my personal favorite. If Ogre Battle was designs like Tactics Ogre, then I would probably enjoy it a little bit more.

Final Score: 5/10

~Chi