DEVELOPER: Quest
GENRE: Strategy/RPG
PLAYERS: 1
MEMORY CARD SPACE: 320MB
RATNG: Teen

Being a huge fan of Ogre Battle for the Super Nintendo, I was muchly anticipating this game. I wasn't disappointed. I rented Ogre Battle 64, and I didn't want to stop playing it.

It's essentially the same gameplay as the SNES Ogre Battle, which means, you lead an army (of many different types of characters, which allows some major customization) and you battle the evil ones. The difference with this one is: There is more of a story, instead of just mainly battling, there are little events before and after some fights, which adds some more depth to the game.

Even though the developers of this game did change some of the characters around, being an Ogre Battle veteren, I could still manage to see similarities in them. And this time around, you can name everybody in your army, and name your actual army.

The battles are typical turn based... but with one difference. To be perfectly honest... you don't do a lot during battles. A quick break down of the fights: The computer controls your characters in the fight for the most part (you give commands like using your magic- sorry, I forget the name- and you tell them to what kind of enemy to attack; "weak" "strongest" "leader" etc...). You have a special attack you can use every now and then, and each character can only attack a certain amount of times per-fight, so unless you kill all the enemies in the opposing legion, then the victor is determined by how much damage was inflicted. I made it sound more confusing than it really is.

This game requires loads of strategy. Be it customizing what people are in what team, or how you're gonna arrange your people in the team, or where you're going to send your legions in the battle. Or if you're going to scream and run like a little sissy (doesn't apply to everyone).

My personal favorite thing in the game is making my army. There are so many different character classes to choose from, I can't even begin to explain all of them, because it would take me too long, and I don't have that kind of time. You have to really think about what units you include in each one of your teams, because if you choose the wrong combination, the enemies will eat you alive during the war.

The graphics aren't bad, they are actually quite good for an N64 game. They're nothing spectacular but they do do a fine job of getting it done.

The game pace should be a little bit faster, and the gameplay can get a bit tedious unless you're really into that sort of thing. The story may not be as deep as some RPGers (especially Final Fantasy players) would want, but who am I to complain, it has a good story anyways. So I say go out and atleast rent this game... chances are you'll want to keep playing more of it. It's a bright spot on a dead system.

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GRAPHICS: 7.5/10
Half-decent... hey, it's an N64 game, and graphics wise, they probably could of did a little bit better.

SOUND: 6/10
Nothing really special here.

GAMEPLAY: 8/10
Deep gameplay. It really does deserve the strategy/rpg title.

LOCALIZATION: 8.5/10
Yeah. It's good. They swear once in a while.

REPLAY VALUE: 4/10
Not really any. But it's hella fun the first time through.

FINAL SCORE (NOT BASED OF ABOVE GRADES): 80/100
Review written by Drakhen

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