"Acquired "Great Game" emblem"

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis Sounds like a game you want to play? Yep. It definatly is. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is another addition to the Ogre battle series. The Ogre battle series, if you do not already know, is a must-buy for all RPGamers out there, and especially if you like strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Advance Wars (Just so you know, all of these games are must-buys). Now we have an Ogre Battle game on our Gameboy Advance. Will it be a very great game like Tactics Ogre for the playstation was or will it be doomed to be overrated for all time or be as awful as Shining Force ?

The graphics of the game are quite an improvement from Tactics Ogre . These ones are also 16 bit, but they did them alot better. The face portraits look like real photographs, and that makes Rictor look even more cooler than he already is. :) The classes look alot like they did in Tactics Ogre , only better. Some have no improvements and look rather dull *Cough* Soldiers *Cough* and some look really cool *Cough* Warlocks *Cough*. Man o Man are these truly eye candy.

The music is very great. Quite a lot of it is very great-Especially the final boss music. Man oh MAN!!! That is Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis's equivlant to The Dark Messenger from Final Fantasy 9 and One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy 7. While we are on the subject of great music, is it also worth pointing out that not all of the musics are great? The Overworld theme is very repetetive-And this isn't in the good way like in Bionic Commando . The music sounds a little too much like Elevator music and gets old rather quickly-And in this case, it's not a good thing. At least the realistic sounds like the unforgetable voice that says ''FIGHT IT OUT'' or ''ENCOUNTER''. You'll soon be saying it with the voice when it says ''FIGHT IT OUT''.

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis's control system is very great. You have 8 party members (Not as much havoc as 10 party members in Tactics Ogre but 8 is still good), including guests. Having 8 party members may sound very good, but this means that the enemy will usually have 6-9 party members of their own too, so almost every troop will be busy with killing the enemy and healing your allies. Because you have 8 party members, it is not really a big deal if someone dies like it was in Final Fantasy Tactics , but losing a party member here is still bad because they might be equipped with something rare or may be a great class like High Priest (Rictor) or Summoner (Elrik). The Emblem system is very ingenious-Which I will explain later.

The emblem system is quite ingenious. Your characters earn emblems as the game progresses. Most help boost stats, and some are required to change to a specific class-Like how you need ''The Pen and the Sword'' emblem to become a warlock and ''Knights Certificate'' to become a knight. Most emblems are good stuff to have, but some like ''Bogus Hero'' or ''Animal Hunter'' (For beast tamers) are a pain to have. The emblems, as well as overall stats, are very essential to the game. Do not forget to aim for some good emblems while playing it!

The game is very easy if you level up enough. Yeah, the last missions are pathetically easy if your characers are around level 40+ and are nearly impossible if they are around level 20. Another thing that might have been added to make it hard is the fact that the abilities always have something wrong with them-Few that there are. Some abilities like Pelting Fury and Summon Golem are good to use in battle, but you'll always know that there is something wrong with it. For example, if you summon a Golem in battle, it marches forward to attack the enemy but it might trip and fall down, causing it to explode, thus, wasting 20 or your MP. Some other abilities like Shunkiern Barrage are nice, but they get weaker to the point where you can't even use them. The abilities are quite badly done. But on the other hand, at least we don't have to equip the items anymore!

The game has alot of replay value. If you beat the game, you might have taken a specific path. If you beat it with Path A, play it again doing path B. If you beat it with Path B, do it again with Path A and try to make every special character survive. You will wanna replay it after you beat it.

Overall, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is a must-buy for all you GBA owners out there. If you have this game, play it again. If you don't have it, rush out, buy it, and play it. You will not regret paying the 35 dollars.

Buy or rent: Buy of course.

Best part: Easily slaughtering the final enemies at level 40.

Worst part: Oh no! Rictor died and I didn't revive him! RRRRRIIIIICCCCCTTTTOOOORRRR!!! :(

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/03