Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis

"The Knight of Lodis truly is amazing!"

Introduction-Alphonse is sent to the island of Ovis with his comrades to investigate strange things that are going on there. As soon as they arrive, enemy troops attack and Alphonse and his comrades are forced to fight it out. As the story continues many interesting and strange events occur changing Alphonse’s destiny. Many battles and ambushes occur and many times Alphonse’s only choice is to fight. Who will prevail in the end?

Gameplay-The battle system is excellent in Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis. Players take turns moving their units and each unit has a certain range it can move. Units also have different attack and spell ranges. An archer or wizard can attack from far away while soldiers who carry weapons such as swords have to be right by the enemy to attack. If you attack a unit from the front or sides it will attack you back, but if you attack it from behind it won’t attack you back. All units have stats such as maximum hp and attack that determines how much damage they will take, how much damage the opponent will take when you attack him/her and how long it will take a unit to get eliminated. After attacking or counterattacking a unit you’re unit will gain experience. Once one of your units gets enough experience; it will get to the next level. When level is increased so are stats. You can also find/buy items, which will heal you, increase stats or do something else. You get new units by persuading enemy units or hiring units at the shops. You can buy new weapons and spells to equip to your units at the shops too. The only problem is waiting for the enemy to move their units, which sometimes takes quite a while and it also gets annoying watching long spell animations every time you use a spell. Besides that everything is perfect.

Graphics-The characters and the maps are designed really well and the different battle animations go well with the game. Your characters move well and realistically when you tell them to go somewhere. If you use a spell or a weapon, you actually see the spell or weapon being used. The battle animation you see depends on the weapon or spell you use. The water level in some levels may also rise or fall and you can burn grass or melt snow with some spells. If your character blocks an attack, you see it. I said you see the weapon or spell being used but do they look good? The answer is yes; all the weapons spells and items look great. When your character or someone else is talking, you see their faces, which helps out and makes the game look better. The characters on the battlefield could look a tiny bit better but overall the graphics are great.

Sound-The battle sounds are great and match the weapon/spell you use or the opponent uses. When a character dies you can hear a little scream and when you’re on the world map and run into a battle, you’ll hear someone say “Fight it out!” or “Encounter!” The music is also great in most levels but in some levels it lacks. Overall the sound is great.

Control-You can move your characters around the map easily. You put your cursor over a character and the area he/she can move will be displayed in a different color. Once you move your character a menu of commands will open. They are attack, spell/special, item and standby. If you choose attack, a list of the weapons your character holds will show up and once you select one, you must pick who you want to attack (must be in range of your weapon). If you don’t understand what the weapon does or how strong it is, you just press select for information about it. Same thing as attack for spells except spells use SP or MP and you can see how much is required for each by pressing select. If you choose item, it will show you a list of the items you have and if you press select; you can find out what the selected item does. Once you select an item, you must choose whom to use it on. You can use it on the character using the item or on another character in range. Last is standby, if you select this; the character you’ve moved will end his turn facing whatever direction whichever direction you want. Once you have moved all your characters or selected End of Turn, you’ll simply just have to watch your opponent move his characters. You can check character statistics, equip weapons/spells and change class in the organize screen. If you want to see a friendly or an enemy character’s statistics, simply press B when your cursor is over the character. If you want to view information on a certain type of terrain, just press select when your cursor is over it. There are some other things you control in the game but I’m sure I bored you enough already. Basically there are many things you control to make the game better. It won’t take you long to learn the basics but to discover and master all aspects of the game will take quite a while.

Difficulty-This game is not that hard, you’ll get through most of the battles with little problem. If one of your characters dies you can use a resurrection item, which is much more plentiful then you might think to bring him/her back to life. This just makes the game easier and furthermore the AI can sometimes be quite stupid. I recall a mission where your goal was to defeat the leader and the leader came right at you while most of his army stayed back. Now to explain some things that you will find difficult in this game. First of all, there is friendly fire. If your character shoots off an arrow at an enemy and another one of your characters is in the way, the enemy won’t get hit by the arrow but you know who will. There is also a particular class of soldiers you’ll have great problems with because of a certain rare ability. Some missions can also be hard and encounters occurring as your going to a destination can be a problem. Defeating Quest Mode in your set amount of turns to get a good item can also be hard. Even if you are having problems, you can just go to training mode to raise the level of your characters; this just makes the game way easier.

Replay Value-Since the storyline is multi-path; you’ll be able to play the whole story again and again because you can make it different by answering differently to in-game questions. Quest mode really helps the replay value because you choose a mission and choose the number of turns you want to finish it in and if you achieve this you’ll get an item. Less turns means better item. The best feature is the linking up and battling with a friend because this will probably provide you with a greater challenge then the AI ever could. You can also exchange items and characters with a friend. It’s to bad that in Quest mode and when battling with a friend you can only use 5 units at a time instead of the usual 8.

Overall-Tactics Ogre- The Knight of Lodis is an awesome game and superior to most games for the GameBoy Advance. The multi-path story line, great graphics and amazing Gameplay are just some of the things that make this game that good.

Gameplay-9.5
Graphics-9.5
Sound-9.5
Control-8.5
Difficulty-7
Replay Value-9.5
Overall-9.5 (rounded up to 10 for GameFaqs)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/02, Updated 04/18/03