Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen

"One of the best video games of all time."

Well I am going to review arguably one of the best RPG/strategy games of all time in my opinion. Well let's get started!

CONTROL(10/10)

This control is pretty easy to get used to. The battle field doesn't take to long to get used to either. Also the atlas is where you can view the conditions of all of your units, and the atlas has extremely easy to get used to as well. Finally during battles you do not even press buttons unless you want to use a tarot card or retreat or select who you wish to attack. That about does it for control.

DIFFICULTY(10/10)

This game is really hard. I can not stress that enough. Even with tarot cards (a special card you use in battle to affect your defense or damage the enemy during battle) the game is still very hard. The main reason why this game is hard is you can not gain levels unless you play a level for your first time through. However you can find items after you completely eliminate an enemy you have a possible chance that can change your character into a special class or will let you gain a level automatically. Even to change some classes regularly you need to obtain a certain level of stats. Finally you need a certain amount of alignment which is very difficult to change sometimes. That about does it for the toughness of this game.

FUN FACTOR(9/10)

This game can be fun a lot and annoying a lot and hard a LOT. It can be fun a lot because you have so many classes to choose from you can customize your characters any way you want and that is pretty fun to do. Also if you enter your name as FIRESEAL you get a hidden level which is really fun to do. Also if you type in your as MUSIC/ON you can hear every song in the game. Finally about how fun this game is if you type in your name as SOUND/ON you can hear every sound affect in this game which is pretty cool. Now let's get to the annoyance factor of this game. This game is annoying if you make it to the end of a level and lose to the boss and can't win can happen a lot and you will be annoyed to death. Also when you forgot an important item that you can not go back and get. Now I will not explain how hard this game is being that I just did in the difficulty section of this review.

STORY

I am copying the exact words from when you just start the game and let it sit for about three minutes. I am doing this because I do not want to give away the story line. So here we go!

Ogre Battle Saga
Episode V
''The March Of The Black Queen''

The Sage Rashidi,
Perhaps Driven By Madness,
Assassinated His Former
Friend King Gran Zenobia
And Joined With
Empress Endora,
Leader Of The Northern
Highlands,
To Wage War
On Four Kingdoms.

The Overpowering Military
At The Highland Legions
Took But A Year To Subdue
The Whole Continent And
The Zeteginian Empire
Was Born.

The Rule Of The Empire Was
A Pure Regime Of Terror
Merciless Persecution Was
Directed Against The Loyal
Survivors Of The Old
Kingdoms And Those Who
Would Escape Tyranny
The Hearts Of The People
Were Troubled By Secrets
And Betrayals And Much Blood
Was Split Across The Land.

Imperial Year 24

Here On The Frontiers Of
Sahrom The Last Survivors
Of The Knight Of Zenobia
Were Planning
The Final Challenge....

REPLAY VALUE(10/10)

This game has a lot of replay value. With over 10 endings you will not be disappointed. Obviously the better items you get and more secret characters you get you will get a better ending. Also with 100's of secrets you are bound to miss on your first time through. Finally even if you get every ending in the game (which is very hard to do) it is a fun game to play even after you beat it.

BUY OR RENT?

Well being that you probably only can buy this game that is pretty much the choice. However if you live near a rental store that has this game to rent rent it first and see if you like it. However if you can not rent it and you see it to buy please do yourself and buy it. So that is my opinion on this game to see if you buy or rent this terrific game.

So to sum up the game in a few words... INCREDIBLY AWESOME!! This is easily the best strategy/RPG on the SNES. So once again if you see it buy it. Hope this review helped you!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/02, Updated 03/27/02