The number of role playing games released on a Nintendo console since the N64 aren't particularly overwhelming and could even be considered problematic. Gradually there has been some improvement thanks to old nemesis Sega and now Lucas Arts is about to launch a brand-new strategy RPG title called Gladius.

Gladius is a mythological adventure and borrows heavily from Roman history. The game has two main storylines; one tells the tale of a gifted princess called Ursula. Together with her brother she travels from town to town so she can finally get to know the real world, after being overly protected by her father her whole young life. The other, slightly harder one is about a gladiator's son whose father is murdered. The poor soul has been left in charge of the gladiator school his dad left behind and has the grateful task to maintain its reputation.

Graphics:

Visually Gladius isn't exactly a masterpiece; the surroundings do a reasonable job on reflecting the Bronze Age era but could use some more polygons. The same thing goes for the characters, though their animations, especially those of the animals, are realistically fluent. There are hardly any nifty visual effects used in the game, other than some light and explosions extras when casting the occasional spells. And even these effects could have done a lot better.

For some movies, like the opening scene, still art has been used to tell the story, with the camera moving slowly over the pictures while narrated by a clear and trusted yet mysterious voice. It's a clever way to avoid spending time and space on animations and, more importantly, looks pretty impressive.

Sound:

The musical score hits the typical ancient notes and certainly adds a little to the feel of the game, in addition that it also avoids the silence while browsing through the extensive menus.

More strikingly are the many grants and catchphrases you hear from the warriors during battles, which are accompanied by writings flowing in the air. Its fun how the warriors try to get the crowd on their side or intimidate opponents this way.

Gameplay:

The general goal of the game is that you'll have to build a reputation of your gladiator school by visiting towns and participate in tournaments. To get access in these tournaments you will have to earn cups in league assignments, which consist of various types of battles that take place in some town's arena. Also, you will have the opportunity to recruit other fighters to strengthen your school so you can win more battles and put a well-balanced squad on the battlefield.

The battle system is basically the same as a standard turnbased RPG. Battles take place in a constricted area, this could be a random encounter on the world map, or a fight in some arena. In this area you can move your characters around and set up the right positions to constantly have the advantage on the enemies before you strike. This is pretty much the whole concept, but of course it takes a lot of practice to finally get wise with it. Luckily there are tons of tips and step by step tutorials to guide you in your quest.

Gladius has 52 classes of warriors, but can roughly be categorised in 3 types, namely light, medium and heavy fighters. This kind of works like rock, paper, scissors, with medium punishing the light warriors, heavy fighters crushing medium while the light warriors dance around the slow heavy fighters. This is a good basis to set up your fighters for battles, although are by no means a guarantee to win every battle easily.

There is an extra feature you'll have pay attention to regarding the experience points system. As your school begins at an amateur level, all the fighters of your school cannot advance any further to a certain level until you win a regional tournament. Then your school moves on up and among things can have more athletes on their roster. This move increases difficulty a little bit because you have to be more selective on choosing battles or you'll be wasting valuable experience points, but it also obstructs the pace of the game, which is pretty slow to begin with.

If single player doesn't do it for you, there are two multiplayer modes, namely a co-operative mode and a head to head, the latter can be unlocked somewhere during the single mission.

Controls:

There are many ways to execute an attack on an enemy. Usually it comes down to timing your attack on a power meter or execute a couple of button combinations as fast as possible. This can be a frustrating ordeal at first because when you're not concentrated enough, you're offensive manoeuvre will do little to nothing and as a result you're almost inclined to use your simple and effective brawl attacks that kind of takes out the dynamic side of a battle. On the other hand, the idea to put some effort in these skills can be more rewarding if you get the hang of it, which shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Lifespan::

Gladius isn't a game for everyone, only the RPG enthusiast will fully appreciate the gameplay, which with 2 story modes, good for at least 45 hours each, is a time-consuming endeavour. The addiction level goes to the roof if you're a little sensitive to this type of gameplay and before you know it you will be playing this game till the wee hours of the morning. Though over time, it might just become a little bit too repetitive.

Final Say:

Lucas Arts surprises many with a non-existing franchise game and delivered an overall well-balanced title that every dabbling role playing gamer should embrace. If turnbased RPG's are your thing, then you'll not regret purchasing this title.