User Rating: 8.8 | Gladius XBOX
Gladius is a tactical role-playing game that (for me at least) is infinitely more interesting than any of the Final Fantasy Tactics. The graphics aren't the greatest, but they're very clean and the animations are very smooth and fluid. The worst part about the sound is that it gets old very quickly. You'll hear the same lines from your characters over and over again. The redundancy of sound is both a curse and a blessing, because the main reason you'll get sick of your teammates comments is because the game is fantastically long and deep. Your goal of the game is to travel from town to town and region to region fighting in the local gladitorial games. Not all fights need to be completed, and there's a list letting you know which ones are required if you wish to quickly advance to the regional tournaments. Win all 4 regional tournaments and you'll be able to enter the High Tournament for the best schools in all the land. This all means that you have a long while before completing the game. Fortunately, the gameplay is intuitive and interesting, forcing you to play just a little longer so you can level up "just one more time." There are a wide variety of battles, many of which have special entry requiements: only women, heavy warriors only, casters prohibited, etc. Many times this will put your team at a severe disadvantage and force you to think in ways you normally wouldn't. It also forces you to keep a wide variety of gladiators at your school and learn all of their special abilities. The fighting engine is very good, and uses a system similar to paper, rock, scissors for dealing with the 3 different weight classes of gladiators: medium beats light, heavy beats medium, and light beats heavy. This means that if you have a medium gladiator on level ground with a heavy gladiator, the heavy one will win almost all of the time. Generally you have the advantage in this area because you can see what type of gladiators you'll be battling against, but many times due to the fight requirements, you will be the one at the disadvantage. Although the magic system is innovative and very interesting, it ultimately falls just a little short. Matches between two teams of magic weilders are usually too long and based a little too much on luck rather than skill. Fortunately, magic plays a secondary role in the game, and many of your non-casters have mage-like abilities that should impress. By now, the game can be had for $20 or under. If you're looking for a long-lasting and involved tactical RPG, I highly recommend this one. 
