Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis

"Fun to play for awhile, but leaves much to be desired"

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is actually a prequel to another game, titled "Tactics Ogre", originally released for the SNES (Japanese only) and later, the PlayStation. The game revolves around the story of a soldier named Alphonse Tartare, who is sent to an island with his squad at the request of the country of Anser. After a storm knocks Alphonse into the sea, he is eventually recovered by a woman, Eleanor, and his real adventure begins there.

Gameplay (Story Mode / Quest Mode) - 7/10

The gameplay is very similar to Tactics Ogre before it, or the more popular Final Fantasy Tactics; however, while the aforementioned games were exceedingly fun to play, this one isn't all that special.

Players can place up to eight units on the field at a time, facing up to eight enemies at a time. Units have a given movement range, and can move anywhere within it. The battlefield is split up into small squares for units to stand on, and each square has a special 'affinity'; for example, standing in water gives a slight boost to water elemental characters while lowering fire elemental characters' abilities.

Human characters can change between a moderately-sized selection of classes; if you are familiar with the Ogre series, most of the classes are recurring from the previous installments. These include knights, wizards, valkyries, and witches, among others. Demi- and non-human classes are also available for hire, such as hawkmen, dragons, or giants.

The problem with the game is that it seems content with maintaining the status quo, in that it doesn't really expand on anything we haven't seen before in other games. Certain classes in the game are fairly useless; witches (excluding Deneb) and warlocks are of very little use, since status effect magic isn't very useful, and the Mushus and Naga dragons are inferior to their Vrtra brethren. There is also a lack in expansion among the non-human classes: hawkmen, giants, and fairies cannot change classes at all, and instead gain skills as they level up. The skills are useful, but once again, the game doesn't really expand into the classes issue (i.e. the lack thereof) at all.

Magic in the game was also relatively lackluster. There are six elements: fire, water, wind, earth, light, and dark, and each has their own set of magic; however, the magic is extremely limited in selection, with each element having a weaker, single-target spell and a stronger, multi-target spell. Being able to acquire the best offensive (non-summon) magic in the game near the beginning made magic somewhat boring to use.

Another frustrating issue, though relatively minor, were the effects of the panel you were standing on. The different types of floors you stand on grant increases and decreases to certain elemental effects; as I mentioned earlier, standing in water increases water and decreases fire. While this seems like common sense, attempting to use panels correctly in battle seems like a crapshoot, because while it seems intuitive that using a water spell while standing in water against an enemy standing on grass should deal more damage than the same situation, except you're standing on grass as well, that isn't always the case. I still haven't figured out how to use the panels to my advantage, and spent a lot of time moving my units around to see which panel allowed me to do the most damage, which was very frustrating.

Equipment also seemed relatively annoying to get. Obtaining money in the game is very difficult to do until your party is around level 12 (when you can play Quest Mode easily), and buying equipment is a huge chore. Each class also has a specific set of equipment their 'good with', but I haven't found a major difference when equipping characters with other weapons (for example, while Beast Tamers are good with whips, giving them swords didn't make them inferior).

Overall, though, the game is enjoyable; after all, it does use a relatively successful formula for gameplay. My problem is that it seems to get relatively lazy in expanding various things, like adding a few more classes or weapons or magic. It pales in comparison to games like Final Fantasy Tactics, but if you're a fan of the Ogre series, that shouldn't be a reason to not get the game. If you've never played the Ogre series before and want a good turn-based RPG to play, there are better options out there.

Gameplay (Multiplayer) - 4/10

The multiplayer in this game is relatively pointless; there's very little strategy involved at all, and battles generally show which player played the game more, as the player with the strongest units almost always wins. It's exactly like playing through a regular battle in story mode, except boring and with a predictable outcome.

The developers also decided to frustrate players by making certain medals in the game only obtainable by playing multiplayer. For those with no friends who own the game, this was very annoying, since beating the game reveals the percentage of medals obtained, and perfectionists have to suffer knowing they'll never get 100%.

Story - 7/10

The story begins with a soldier of the Lodis Empire, Alphonse, and his commander, Rictor, leaving for an island that is filled with conflict. Shortly after arriving, a storm knocks Alphonse into the sea. He is eventually recovered by a woman, Eleanor, and is taken care of. He then embarks on a quest to find Rictor (who he was separated from during the storm), and the story progresses from there.

The story itself has very nice dialogue, and is very well-written (as in the vocabulary used is nice); however, there were certain parts of the plot that seemed very force or sporadic in nature, as though the developers wanted Alphonse to perform a specific action, but had no real reason to do it. Basically, certain parts of the story seem to come 'out of nowhere', and more often than not I was left wondering why I was following the particular storyline.

On the plus side, the game has multiple endings, mostly based around a decision you make midway through the game. The decision grants you a different set of two characters who join you throughout the storyline, but the story itself, as well as the endings, change depending on which path you took. This was a nice addition to a game, adding to its replayability as well as fleshing out the story a little.

It should be noted that, given that this game is a prequel, it should be noted that the ending is somewhat pre-determined; they do, however, go into detail as to where certain characters ended up after the whole ordeal is over.

Graphics / Sound - 8/10

The graphics are nice, but not spectacular; the in-battle sprites are rendered in a similar way to the other Ogre games, where the characters have big eyes, but no noses or mouths. This doesn't matter that much, since the sprites faces are generally too small to see anyway. The character portraits are somewhat grainy, and generally make the characters seem uglier than they probably are.

The sound effects and music of the game is typical of a Game Boy Advance game, in that it can sometimes come off as a bit grainy or static-filled, but is generally enjoyable. None of the music in the game really wowed me, but it none of it came off as annoying, either.

Replayability - 8/10

As I mentioned earlier, the game has multiple endings, so players can strive toward getting them all, which would take at the very least two playthroughs to do. Certain equipment is also only available depending on a decision you make mid-game, while other pieces are missable entirely, so that also adds to the replayability.

I was tempted to give the replayability rating a nine, but dropped it down to an eight because of the story itself. I found myself bored with the story on my second playthrough, since it was relatively lackluster to begin with, and prevented me from finishing the game (a second time) until about a year after I bought it.

Overall Rating - 7/10

As a standalone game, there are better turn-based RPGs to get for the Game Boy Advance, with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance being the main one. The game doesn't really go into any sort of depth with anything material in the game, be it equipment, magic, or classes. The storyline itself is understandable, though as I mentioned above, it can get somewhat confusing at times. The multiple endings in the game add to its replayability, but the lack of depth in gameplay takes a bit away from it.

Overall, rent the game if you can find it and buy it if you like it; it's not a game to buy on reputation alone. If you're a fan of the Ogre series, I would at least recommend playing through it once to get a feel for Alphonse's story. If you've never played a game from the Ogre series and are just looking for a good turn-based RPG to play, there are much better options (such as Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Advance Wars 2).

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/09

Game Release: Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (US, 05/11/02)