Ogre Battle 64

[Gabriel]

Someone tell me something about this game.

 

How does it compare to the classic Ogre Battle? What was added? What was taken away?

[Paralistalon]

Ogre Battle 64 ROCKS!!

 

My only experience with the SNES Ogre Battle was a rental so I don't know enough about the original Ogre Battle to give you a comparison.

 

It's a very deep game. You form units of 5 characters arranged in a 3X3 grid. Large monsters count as 2 characters. There's a good variety of different classes. Characters can also "upgrade" to a master class after they reach a high enough level. For instance, an archer can become a diana or a phalanx can become a cataphract.

 

There are around 40 missions. On each map, you can deploy up to 9 units. You tell each unit where to go and can change their orders at any time. When one of your units meets an enemy unit, they engage in combat. In combat, each character gets a certain amount of attacks. If a wizard is placed in the back row, it gets 2 attacks, whereas if it's placed in the front row, it only gets one (and it more susceptible to physical attacks). Fighting is done automatically, but you can give a unit an attack strategy such as "attack leader" or "attack weakest." After all the attacks are over, the side that took the most damage is repelled a short distance. The winning unit can then try to chase them down to finish off more characters for experience, but the other unit might try to retreat to a base to slowly regain HP and gain a defensive advantage, or just run behind another fresh unit. Or they might even come back at you. Each unit has a leader. If the unit leader is lost, the unit can't be controlled anymore; it's essentially helpless.

 

Each character has an alignment ranging from Chaotic to Neutral to Lawful. After battle, your characters' alignment might change. Characters become Lawful by defeating chaotic aligned enemies or by defeating higher leveled characters. Alignment affects which classes are available to a character. Knights and Clerics need to maintain a high alignment to become Paladins and Priests. Also, if your unit reaches an enemy stronghold, they will either "capture" or "liberate" it. In order to liberate a stronghold, their alignment has to roughly match the alignment of the stronghold.

 

How to expand your army:

 

-You can allocate a squad of soldiers to a unit and they are treated as a character. After enough battles, one of the soldiers might be promoted to a warrior or amazon- the basic starting class for males and females respectively.

 

-You may encounter monsters in while roaming around in the wild that you can try to recruit.

 

-You can use an item called "Love and Peace" to get characters in the opposing army to join your side. (there are several classes that you can only get this way)

 

-And finally, you will meet special characters along the way that may join your army.

 

The game is long and the story is very complex and well developed. There are several storyline branches too, as well as different characters you can recruit depending on your branch. I played through the game once and got the "worst" ending (it's actually the better ending IMO because you get an extra mission tacked on to the end), and now I'm playing through it a second time. It's just as fun the second time through. This is one of the FEW RPGs that I can play several times and still not get bored with it. There are a bunch of sidequests too that you can partake in by revisting completed maps and talking to people in the towns. Good luck finding all the secret character classes!