So I picked up gladius along with mark of kri the other day at eb, and I need some pointers.
1. How do I get random encounters to show up? For once in a rpg I need to get some to level up my lower characters, but none are showing up.
2. What is the best way to go for recuriting characters to your school? Right now I have the 2 main guys(doing the guy's campaign) a peltist, 2 light guys and 1 heavy guy. I have I think 2 or 3 spots left open.
3. Can someone explain the whole affienty system abit clearer. Such as the bar underneith the guys health bar.
4. Are beasts any good? Or is it better to give characters wolf and bear form?
5. Lastily, do characters upgrade to better jobs like in other games, or do they remain the same class?
1. Try walking cross country, especially at night. Be warned though, death is ultimate on the world map.
2. Get a bear an another spear guy, maybe another heavy guy. I never messed with the magic users, except for the summoning classes, I think they are way underpowered.
3. I cannot remember.
4. Wolves are not that strong, but quite fast, which is all you need in some missions. The shape changers aren't that effective because they need to spend a round to change.
5. Nope, no class change.
I have nothing to offer except congratulations on picking up Mark of Kri, a sadly overlooked action game with a lot of personality.
Its been so long I cant help much with your specific questions. I would check out gamefaqs. The boards are dead (and there is one for each console version...) but there are some good FAQs up.
I remember I had a bear I liked a lot. Some of their deeper skills rock. I didnt like any of the other animals or bugs.
My favorite heavys were Centurions and Minotaurs.
My favorite mediums were Murmillos and Undead Legos.
My favorite lights were hmm bandits and secutors?
Early on Peltasts/Gungnirs own. Later, Archers replace them.
I didnt ever like magic either.
Mongrel and Mongrel Shaman suck balls.
Ursula is a great character, Urlan not so much. The shape shifting is not very useful IMO. The other story's hero, Valens?, he is not bad.
Always try and recruit low level fighters because the computer will fuck them up less with its skill choices. High level characters are usually a bad deal because the computer has wasted a lot of their skill points on shit you will never use.
If you are playing with meters on (the little in combat mini game things), the game is generally easier. If you are playing meters off, you *really* have to watch the heavy>medium, light>heavy, medium>light mechanic.
olaf
Oh, I remember now.
COMBOS!
Combos ROCK. Don't even bother with any of the other skill choices until you've got... COMBOS!
And while Olaf is completely wrong about Urlan (Urlan kicked ass), he is right that magic sucked in Gladius. Long animations, too. Stay away.
Gladius was an interesting game that would have been a great game if the devs had polished and tweaked it a bit more. The equipment system was funky and annoying and the magic system was full of nuisances. Plus the game just played too slowly in combat. It needed cleaner faster animations and a cleaner control system.
Seconded! I loved the art style of that game and I"d love another game of that sort.Originally Posted by Jim Preston
Yeah I rented it a few years ago, so I finally decided to buy it just to have a copy around. The game is great.
Back to gladius, last night I recurited a murmilo(not sure if that's right), and a sammite which fills up my roster for now. I completed 2 tournaments in imperia. My highest guy is lvl 4( 2 main , and murmilo) lowest is 2. From early impressions, it seems that levels mean alot in this game, such as a lvl 6 can't be beaten by a lvl 4 regardless of equipment. I've gotten the lvl 2 combo on one of my guys. Right now tournaments are either easy, or too hard to win. Such as a 2 on 3 match with my heavy guys vs light guys. So far I have to agree about magic and the whole affinity system, I'm pretty much ignoring it as much as I can.
I forgot the exact tournament to trigger and win for this, but you might want to look into getting a Minotaur. They're pretty damned sweet as far as heavy gladiators go.
I thought the Shape Changers were pretty good since it was a free heal.
And I vaguely remember necromancers or whatever they're called being good too.
Levels are big because of the additional job points. Note that you cannot level past 5 in the first area, 10 in the second, etc. You shouldn't have ANY problems getting to level 5 before you complete the required tournaments. The game caps out at level 30 IIRC.
There's a secret encounter in the first area that allows you to recruit a level 20 character. That breaks the game more-or-less, since difficulty is calculated by the average level of all your characters. Using the level 20 against level 1-15 is funny, since the 20 is a light with incredible evasive skills. They literally can't hit him.
You really need a good FAQ that explains the classes. Peltast is good. Bandits are good. Murmillo is GREAT.2. What is the best way to go for recuriting characters to your school? Right now I have the 2 main guys(doing the guy's campaign) a peltist, 2 light guys and 1 heavy guy. I have I think 2 or 3 spots left open.
Affinities work like a battery. When you attack with an affinity weapon, you charge your offensive affinity. If you have the appropriate skill for that type of affinity (fire, earth, etc.) you can unleash that affinity against an enemy.3. Can someone explain the whole affienty system abit clearer. Such as the bar underneith the guys health bar.
Defensive affinity works the same way. Wear armor with a particular affinity to charge it. You are then protected against affinity attacks of that type. For example, someone with a fully Earth defensive affinity bar will completely resist a 1st level Earth affinity attack. They have no resistance to any other affinity attacks.
This leads to a few interesting side-effects. All beasts are automatically defensive Earth affinity. That makes having Earth offensive affninities pretty worthless.
Combos are a great way to level up your affinities. Get affinity 1 and 2 on a character, equip the appropriate weapon, hit someone with a 2nd level Combo and fun ensues (you can hit them for lots of dmg with the combo, then follow up with the affinity attack next round and do lots more dmg).
The other important skill you should always get is the Riposte and other counter-attacks. If you meet the conditions, that character gets a free hit. This is absurdly powerful in a turn-based game. You can literally kill heavy characters with a light just by standing there. The heavys have such low accuracy and the lights get a counter-attack skill with the "when enemy misses" condition.
Raging Bear is favorite of mine, since the bear counter-attacks when he's hit (rather than a miss). Combined with the right item (I forget the name, but it allows beasts a counter attack), you actually get 2 hits every time they hit, plus your normal attack. Devistating if you're good with the meters (the "red area" critical hits always land, so you can make up for the lack of accuracy on the heavies really easily).4. Are beasts any good? Or is it better to give characters wolf and bear form?
No, but the high-level skills are, in many cases, very, very powerful. It takes a fair bit of understanding and skill to use the characters to their fullest.5. Lastily, do characters upgrade to better jobs like in other games, or do they remain the same class?
This is one of the few games I desperately want a sequel to, or at least X360 backwards compatibility for. It's a great game.
I can see why , the game is pretty good. The combat feels abit more tactical then other Srpg games , with height, and the different class types. You know the game is good, when I had trouble deciding which characters to cut because I needed room for a female for the all female league.
I got thru the first area, and I'm now in nordarth, I haven't recurited any one new yet, maybe I'll get a bear. The murmillo guy is great with the throw shield power, but I didn't run into any lvl 20 hidden guys in imperia. Are barbarians good at all to recurit or are there better classes in nordarth?
The only problem with the world map I have is that I wish that there were more side quests and things to find in it. Lastily, is there a way to return to an area after you completed it?
Public Service Announcement
Hello there. My name is Jake Plane. And I want to talk to you about a very important matter - backwards compatibility.
If you are enjoying Gladius now or have enjoyed it in the past, please take a moment and email:
[email protected]
Urge them to make this title backwards compatible with the 360.
Remember, your vote will help save lives. Or kill them. Virtually.
Now back to your thread already in progress.
I wish there were a PC version. I don't have an Xbox and the load times on the PS2 were pretty bad (how are they on Xbox?). I kinda got bored with it around Chapter 3 or 4 (possibly due in part to the load times) but until then it was a lot of fun.
The load times are frequent but short. It's pretty much 5 second or less when entering towns, 8 seconds after a battle win. (The disc I have is used and abit scratched, which could account for the additional time).
edit: Hate to sidetrack my own thread for a second, but I have a quick question about Mark of Kri, when attempting the baramutsu's challenges that say " Strike enemy to the left of Rau with X"
Are they refering to Rau's left on screen, or my left, or someone's left? I can get the right side down everytime, but for some reason hitting someone to the left is alot harder. Is there an easy way to do those type of challenges?
Also the counter take weapon from enemies animations are great.
Last edited by Jab; 07-31-2006 at 09:16 PM.
Where to begin?
- You should definitely get the minotaur while in Imperia. Go to Cro Beska, the mongrel town, and fight in the league that gives you the mongrel butcher badge. Then talk to the shopkeeper and she'll tell you about the Historian's League which will happen in 7 days. Win that fight and either a minotaur or a satyr will offer to join. I think it's based on which type you kill last in the fight but save your game before the battle and reload if it doesn't go your way. The minotaur is the pretty much the best heavy class in the game.
- For extra cash run round on the beaches in the morning and hit X. This allows you to search the beaches and pick up phat lewt which can be sold for decent money.
- In the light class bandits dominate. Give them evasion, riposte and the revenge armband. Then watch them beat the pus out of everyone without getting hit. Backstabber and spear attack also rock.
- The murmillo might not seem great at first but wait. Once you get the shield skills and an unbreakable shield they turn into uber-tanks. Give em water affinity skills as well, the best equipment for them is almost always water affinity.
- Don't make any of the main characters air affinity. Later on in the game you run into dervishes, who take no damage from any character equipped with air affinity weapons. And there are fights against them where you'll have to use your main characters.
- Unless you really love the swing meter I'd recommend hiding it. Once you get the hang of it the game becomes to easy. You'll get crits all the time and they can't be blocked by evasions and parries. The game's more tactical and more fun when your heavy can't automatically hit a light.
- When in doubt give characters combo 1 and/or 2 plus the affinity attacks of one element. Use the combos till you run out of skill points and by that time you'll have built up enough affinity to fire off an affinity attack or two.
- It's usually better to hire female gladiators. There are several leagues that require only women, but none that require only men.
- Or ignore all of the above and find out stuff for yourself by just playing the game :P
C.
I have to respectfully disagree here. Secutors are *insane*. I have a male and female secutor, and they absolutely clean house. But like you said, it's all about dodging, taunting, and backstabbing.
Yeah, Murmillo's are pretty badass. I generally don't use them, since most of the story characters are mediums, and I like to use them as my mediums. But Murmillo's are definitely the most annoying medium class for me to play against. One assumed drawback: You'd pay a fortune for shields, wouldn't you?
Totally agreed. Leaving the manual-timing bars on ruined the game for me, no question. I only started enjoying it again after I turned the bars off and played the game the way it was intended -- with sensible/somewhat-challenging difficulty.
Re: beasts, they're okay, but in general I've found well-built humanoid characters of the same weight class to perform better. (secutors>cats, for example) That said, I had a cat w/ a beserk collar (+damage, no player control) that kicked some serious ass.
Casting classes do also seem to be underbalanced, but some do have some nifty tricks up their sleeves that can add value in ways other than brute force for the clever player.
Anyway, it's amazing how much I love this game despite some rather glaring flaws... (It becomes too linear in last 2 chapters; poor class balance; unbalanced manual timing bar; poor skill balance; etc.)
A cleaned-up sequel would be the shizniggity bing-bang. Yeah, I said it.
Quick question... anyone ever play multiplayer gladius? If so what did you think of it?
It's very easy to get co-op going. When you're placing your characters for a given battle, you simply have your friend hit Start on their controller.
They then control half the units, with Player 1 controlling the extra in the case of an odd number of units.
Otherwise, it's identical to playing single-player.
If you're talking about the vs-mode, I never tried it.
Now I hear about how to get the minotaur. I did that mission, but I had all my slots filled so I didn't get anyone as a reward. Right now the only missions I have trouble with are the control the hot spot or king of the hill matches. Also I'm doing the yeti missions, and the final one has ursula against a yeti 1on1. Is there a way for a medium class to beat a heavy class?
I used to think secutors were better as well (better looking too) but over time I've come to prefer bandits. Riposte is a better counter than taunt, multiple bandits gain some sort of bonus from fighting alongside each other (initiative and/or movement I think) and best of all they get the revenge armband. Anytime someone takes a swing at them, which they frequently dodge, they get two attacks in return. My bandits end up handing out more hurt than my heavies.
- Hot spot and king of the hill tend to go to the teams with the highest initiative. They get there first and start racking up the points while heavies are lumbering round winding down the clock. Valens and Ursula are good for this as they are strong mediums with decent initiative.
- The yeti 1 on 1 is a pain in the ass. Not only cause it's heavy on medium but the yeti is frequently higher level than you as well. To counter the level advantage you can enter the league, press X to see who you're facing, and then quit if they're higher level. Repeat till a yeti of the same level appears as the opponent - there's always one. For the fight itself I've always run straight for the high ground then used empower self followed by combos and affinity attacks. Empower self gives mad blocking skillz, which you'll need to avoid being smushed by the yeti's attacks, while the height advantage should allow you to dish out enough hurt to take the yeti out before he breaks your shield and then you. A bit of good luck doesn't go astray either.
C.
Suggestion: Turn off the meters. Otherwise the game is on easy mode.
If you don't do that, then just get a bunch of centurions at the start, have them buff one another, and then just launch combo after combo at enemies. Light characters go down easy if you use the meters.
Magic can be fairly powerful in the game, so long as you get a channeler to lvl 4 attacks with their affinity. An area wide smackdown of foes for 100-300dmg (affinity dependent) is not to be dismissed. However, the sheer power of the centurion with meters on makes this irrelevant.
I have never played a more uninspiring game than this one. The cutscenes spewed forth a vapid plot more intent on pitching diversity than in engaging the player. The character classes were wildly imbalanced, and many of the animations were hideously long for no discernable reason. The pitifully few and far between minor quests were absolutely unnecessary and provided minimal ROI for the time you spent on them.
Also, the game crashed on multiple occasions, simply because I did not play it the way it expected to be played (such as coming to a cutscene init area from the wrong direction) or because it was a crappy game and crashed immediately after I won the high tourny thing with my squad of Dipshit the Boy Hero and the Centurions.
I recommend turning off Gladius and buying Whack a Mole.
I think Bandits are hands down better if you have Revenge Armbands on them. If not, Secutors are better. They are both good light classes though, pretty much the top two.
Class balance did suck in this game. I still had tons o fun with it and I really wish there would have been a sequel. Alas.
olaf
So far my dream team for the king of hill matches is the secultor and murmillo, or the sammite and secultor. I picked up a berserker and started leveling her, is buying the rage upgrades worth it? (rage 2, rage3,)
Spoiler:
I completed the side quest when you have to save the witch from the mongrel, and got a quest item for it, do I have to do something else in nordarth, or is that used in another land?
I'm glad to see someone is still enjoying this game. I had a blast with it and played it nonstop when it came out. I wish to hell we had a sequel. As for advice, I often just overrelied on the two main characters.
Last night I just finshed up the 2nd land, and I got a yeti and necromancer guy on my team which is nice. You guys weren't kidding about how things get more linear, the 3rd land is basically a road you need to follow.
Of the main characters, I like Valans and Ursula, because of their power boost skill.
did the original designers of "gradius" mean to name it "gladius," but being japanese, they mispronounced it? or maybe they spelled it "gradius" because they knew japanese would pronounce it correctly if they misspelled it?
That's the valkyrie's signet. In the fourth area you get asked to deliver a mysterious tablet that you're not supposed to read. Read it and Valen's gets an item called the promise stone. In this area you also get a quest to kill some bad ass summoner guy. Do the quest, get both items and have 6 characters at high level (18?) then head to the most southern point in the fourth area. A special fight opens up that, if you win, unlocks the most powerful skill in the game for those characters that survive the fight. Once you get it the rest of the game is ridiculously easy, so it's a lot of effort for something that isn't much fun. But you do get some special equipment - novelty helmets; one that look like you've got an arrow through your head and the other is the glasses and moustache disguise.
C.
I really liked this game - it was one of a very few things I rented at Block Buster. But I was never ever able to find a copy to buy. And someone snapped the single local rental unit amongst roughly a dozen roughly nearby BB's up before I even knew they'd finally decided to sell the unit after me asking them every single times I rented it :(
Well, I went and bought the game the other day from Gamestop in the mall (had rented it before). I had forgotten how horrible the AI was. It does the most ridiculous things on any of the special matches (points, domination, king of the hill, monument smashing, etc.). Still a really fun game, but could stand to have a more polished and balanced sequel.
I also wish you could get a bigger school. There are just too many characters I want to bring around (and never actually use). I at least want to try out a team of an ogre and some mongrels. Or all peltasts/gungirs. Or even have room for a channeler.
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