The Demo is actually better than the game.
User Rating: 6.8 | Gladius XBOX
Gladius offers something you can find almost nowhere else on the X-box, -a party level RPG with tactical, turn-based combat. You will spend the majority of your time in the game’s various arenas, fighting the good fight. In each town / area, you can choose from a list which fight you want to try, which means you never have to wait for action. The game’s top level has you walking around on an overland map from town to town and region to region, though this mode is a bit dull, since aside from selecting which town you want to fight in, there isn’t much to do. All this is sandwiched between cut-scenes which basically tell a love story, -it works well for what it is, but it probably isn’t what most gamers are expecting. Gladius’s combat system is enjoyable, offering a moderate degree of tactical depth, and keeping you on your toes by tying the success of your attacks to manual dexterity and timing based controller actions. Most of these work well, but unfortunately, some attacks require a stupid “punch two buttons as fast as you can” action. (The demo used a different system, which is why it is actually better than the game). You could simply avoid these attacks, -but the game’s development interface doesn’t tell you which attacks require which actions, -either during battle or character development. The other shortcomings of this game are character development and balance. The balance issue is pretty simple, -some attacks are useful, other not. You will probably wind up relying on a few basic 3-attack combos as your go-to moves for the duration of the game. The two main characters have a built in power up move which is also very powerful. Some things are just weird, for instance: a long throw from a spear can do more damage than 3 successive smacks with a two handed sword. And then there is the school development / outfitting nightmare. The designers force you to scroll through information on dozens of pages for each character –usually just to determine that you have, in fact, no real choices. When the planets align and a store does offer a helmet, shield or weapon that will be of benefit to one of your characters, you are likely as not to miss it because you will have already given up searching for them. Sometimes I think about some of the cool characters in this game, and some of my memorable fights, and I’m tempted to pick it up again, -but a few moments contemplating the game’s flaws are all that it takes to make me leave it alone, and wait for a truly great tactical, turn-based RPG to appear on the X-Box. 
