Ogre Battle 64

"A retrospective look back at a classic"

Ogre Battle was released roughly 10 years ago, back in the 90s when the N64 and the PS were the stars of the show. It was one of the few RPGs released for the 64 (and one of the last), and probably the most complex but enjoyable.

At its core, OB64 is a real time strategy game intermixed with the melodrama and mini-management of the best Japanese RPGs. It can be closely linked with the ‘Tactics' style games, but differs greatly because you lead your battalion on huge battlefields. There is A LOT to this game, which frustrated me to no end when I first bought it in 8th grade (and eventually got rid of it, only to buy it again a few weeks ago out of pure nostalgia).

Taking a retrospective look back, I will review this classic from a revisionist point of view. When you first play a game and are an utter n00b at it, you tend to overlook its finer qualities. But upon playing it later with a fresh mindset, one can better appreciate it for what it really is.


1. Graphics 10/10: Possibly one of the best looking games on the 64. I loved the look of it when I was a kid, and I love it now. Other reviewers can do justice to this portion of the game better than I can, but I can't complain at all about the look of the game. It's just so darn pretty that your eyes burn after a while (I'm not kidding, I have eye drops on hand for when I play it too long).

2. Sound 10/10: Very mood setting. There's a track for almost every theme in the game. Optimism, grimness, difficulty, domination, shock and awe…those are some of the feelings that come to mind when I play the game and hear the music playing. I honestly thought about trying to find the game's soundtrack being sold online.

3. Story 10/10: Probably the most deepest game on the N64. The folks at Atlus knew what they were doing. It makes you think. There's moral quandaries to be had in this game that are not ever found in other N64 games. For an N64 game that went this deep, it can be easily compared to the morally ambiguous philosophical themes found in KOTOR II.

To be honest, a young gamer wouldn't appreciate the game for this reason. I didn't. But years later, I can look back and say that this is one of the game's strongest points going for it. Kudos to the developers for putting this much work into a game on a console that was soon to go extinct.

4. Gameplay 10/10: There's almost too much to list. But I'll try to explain to the best of my abilities.

- Battle: As an RTS, you're given an army to command. On the battlefield, you can field up to 10 units, each containing up to 5 characters. Combat is turn based when you attack an enemy unit. Your units have stamina meters that fill up when they march for a long time, and will have to sleep to recover stamina. Or they can use various expendable items to restore stamina.

- Characters: Besides the player character and associated NPCs, your basic characters are all character classes. Knights, Berserkers, Sorceress', wizards, clerics, etc. Beginning characters are called generic ‘soldiers,' and come in groups of 3. When they are upgraded through battle, they become either fighters (melee basic characters) or amazons (ranged basic characters) based on the gender of the unit leader. From there they go to the advanced classes (you upgrade them on your own, if they meet class requirements – STR, DEX, INT, etc, and even low or high alignment). And from there are the elite classes – paladins, black knights, swordmasters, archmages, sirens, etc. As a sidenote, your beginning army is based on a series of questions posed to your character early on in the game. Check out a few related FAQs on this if you are curious.

As said, there is A LOT to this game. I've just gone over the bare basics of the gameplay. The most important part of the game is an unseen entity known as CHAOS FRAME. It is what ultimately determines the ending to the game (there are three endings to the game). If you're interested, you will read FAQs to determine exactly what it is. So I will explain it here.

Chaos Frame is a numerical value that is raised and lowered based on your decisions throughout the game. These decisions occur not on a whim but at important plot points – for example, you capture the leader of the enemy. You are ordered to execute him. To increase your chaos frame (and ultimately allow for various characters to join your army throughout the game), you reply “I can't do it.” To decrease your chaos frame, you remain silent. Think of CF as dark side/light side paths in SW games. You can either be a noble Jedi, or follow the way of the darkness.

The other big determining factor of CF is something present in every level of the entire game. And that is liberation/capture of towns on the battlefield. If you want to decrease your chaos frame to ultimately get the bad ending, you capture towns. To get the good ending, you liberate towns. It's all about how the people of the land see you, as a hero or a conqueror. To determine exactly what you are doing in that regard, each town has a value known as ‘morale.' The value of the ‘morale' determines the alignment of the particular army unit that you send to take it.

For example, you have a chaotic unit. There is a town that has a morale somewhere between 10-40. A town with a value somewhere in there is a town that you send a chaotic unit to liberate. Lawful units liberate cities of 70 or above. Neutral units liberate cities between 40 and 70. There's really a 20 point spread, and while your units do not have a numerical value regarding alignment, you can average them out yourself by looking at their alignments. So to liberate, you have to match a town's morale with a unit's morale. In contrast, to conquer you send units that are in opposite alignment to a town (IE chaotic units to a town of 83, and lawful units to a town of 29).

The CF leads to my next point.

5. Replay value: This is both a pro and a con. If you buy the game to see what it's about, beat it and get the bad ending, you'll be probably pissed off. Only after you get the bad ending, read up about the Chaos Frame on a FAQ, then replay it and get the good ending are you satisfied. You see, nowhere in the game is Chaos Frame mentioned, except for at the end. The developers never taught the players about town morale and unit alignment, so players were left in the dark unless they consulted well written FAQs. This is probably the game's biggest con.

The pro side is that when you play the game again and know what you are doing (ultimately resulting in the recruitment of all the cool characters, and being awarded the good ending or even the neutral ending), you feel satisfied that you were able to accomplish so much in the game.

Still, the lack of mention of CF in the game is why I ultimately knock the game down from a 10 to a 9. I played the game twice, once in 8th grade, and once in 11th grade (IE years ago). I got the bad ending two times in a row. I was so pissed off at how unfair it seemed that I got rid of the game. I recently picked it up a few weeks ago and have a CF of 80, 90, and rising. So if you are thinking about buying the game, be sure to do some research about the game before you jump right in.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a classic RPG on the 64, I highly recommend Ogre Battle 64. It's rather pricey now and hard to find, but you might get lucky.

6. Legacy: I play this game now and I think "this is a game that is ahead of it's console." Or maybe OB was on the wrong console, since it was surrounded by so many bombs, or games whose companies died off. Or maybe this was a game that came in at the right time. When it was released in 1999/2000, the N64 was already 3-4 years old (which is 20 in dog years for consoles). All the big games for the N64 were released then, all the big hits from 96-99. The playstation had quite many hits to it's name (Final Fantasy 7 and 8, Metal Gear Solid, etc etc), and the dreamcast was becoming the next big thing (like that piece of junk lasted long).

So maybe Ogre Battle was one of the N64's dying breathes, that only garnered so large a following because of Atlus' limited release. So it seems in a way that Ogre Battle, despite being the best RPG on the 64, was released too little, too late...it was a tragic failure, because despite it's cult following, it didn't garner as many fans as Atlus could have allowed it. Within just a few short years, the next generation of consoles was soon to snatch the throne, and gamers moved on from the 90s. Now 10 years later, with even another generation of consoles, Ogre Battle can rightly be remembered by it's fans as one of the best games they ever had on the N64.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/27/09

Game Release: Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (US, 10/07/00)