Has anyone made the game that TES: Arena was meant to be?

[Peter]

By that I mean, a game where you have a team of gladiators and go to different cities and fight in tournaments and shit? Seems like a neat idea.

Didn't know if this should go in RPG or General Gaming.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Gladius might be your best bet. PS2/Gamecube tactical RPG that was apparently surprisingly deep and good for a console game, and runs fine on PS2 emulators. I tried to find links for the Gamecube version to play on my Wii a while back, but couldn't find any working download.

 

[20 Eyes]

Gladius was great. Nice amounts of customization, solid turn-based combat, plenty of different gladiator types to add to your school. You'd travel the world, and fight in more prestigious tournaments as your school won. It played a bit like Final Fantasy Tactics, but with a more western-rpg feel.

Great game, and very surprising for a console-exclusive. A game like Gladius would never happen in today's scene. I wonder why...

If you're already wary of Japanese strategy RPGs, then be sure to stay even further away from Gladius. It's got as many menus, and its battles are slower and less rewarding. LucasArts clearly tried to make everything look and feel good, but Gladius is ultimately done in by the leaden gameplay.

40/100

 

[Jaesun]

Do you like films, about Gladiators?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

PS2's Colosseum: Road To Freedom is an awesome gladiator game. Locational damage, lots of skills and stats, hard & hectic fights, a rpg-like feeling of progress (by the endgame you're mowing down the shitty naked, unskilled gladiators that were a close match for you before), 5 or 6 endings depending on your choices and what you managed to do until the last day.

Thing is, you only control one guy. Then again, I guess you'd also control one guy per fight in early Arena. Also, while you can't travel around the world at your leisure, you can choose which fights you'll take part in (you have 50 days to pay off your debt, paying it off or not is one of the things that influences the ending).

 

[King Crispy]

So TES: Arena was supposed to be a game where you play the role of Russell Crowe and not a freeform, open-world RPG?



BTW, you can fight in gladiator matches in Oblivion. Go play that. Preferably on your X-Box.

Edit: Leaving this stuff unedited as I'm not a pussy. Please see my retraction below.

 

[Sceptic]

So TES: Arena was supposed to be a game where you play the role of Russell Crowe and not a freeform, open-world RPG?

Yes. Initial name of the game was just "The Arena". Halfway through they decided to do an Ultima Underworld meets Might and Magic type thing, added "TES" to it (with some extremely silly reason why Tamriel is called an "arena") and that was that. They did have lots of action game experience and none with RPG's after all.

 

[King Crispy]

Wiki agrees. I humbly apologize to Peter for my laughable gaff.

It's quite ironic that I didn't know that.

 

[Ruprekt]

This is how I picture the codex vs andhaira.

 

[20 Eyes]

PS2's Colosseum: Road To Freedom is an awesome gladiator game.

Yes! I forgot about this one, I think you're the first person I've seen bring it up since I played it several years ago. This is another overlooked gem.

I think the thing I remember the most about this game, besides how cool it was to build your dude from a nobody into a heavily-armed killing machine, is the save system. You couldn't save after every fight, only at the end/beginning of the day. The more fights you scheduled, and the difficulty of those fights, determined how much money you'd earn for the day. Lose a fight, lose that prize money. Obviously, you need a fuck-ton of money to pay off your debt, so you've gotta factor that in as well as how much money you'll need to spend on gear. And all that is on a time limit. Oh, the financial decisions!

It's like an action RPG and a Jew-simulator rolled into one well-crafted package.

 

[Peter]

Road To Freedom looks real nice. Might try that.

Shame there aren't any games like this on PC. Not a fan of emulation.

 

[Codexlurker]

Gladius might be your best bet. PS2/Gamecube tactical RPG that was apparently surprisingly deep and good for a console game, and runs fine on PS2 emulators. I tried to find links for the Gamecube version to play on my Wii a while back, but couldn't find any working download.

It does? I tried my Gladius disk on an emulator and it had FPS problems.

 

[oscar]

I remember realy liking Gladius. You get to choose between playing Germanic barbarians or Roman gladiators and the storyline of the two is very different.

Though tactical purists may object that some of attacks, if I remembered correctly, used one of those golf game "try and hit x on the sweet spot" mechanisms.

 

[20 Eyes]

Though tactical purists may object that some of attacks, if I remembered correctly, used one of those golf game "try and hit x on the sweet spot" mechanisms.

This was optional and you could turn it off if you didn't like it.

 

[Zeus]

There was a pretty neat looking Gladiator simulation/RPG a while back. I know it's popped up on the Codex.

I second, third, forth Gladius for Xbox/Gamecube/PS2. Why can't Lucasarts make more games like that? Oh yeah, because they fired their developers and just farm out licenses these days. A shame.

There's also Coliseum. It's a "gladiator simulation" game, just $15, though the buy link is down while they merge with some other company.

In Coliseum players will get the chance to become manager to mighty gladiators. You'll guide three young warriors and with rigorous training, careful use of potions, and judicious use of magic transform them into champions!

Gameplay is resolved using an extremely detailed text based simulation engine. Every aspect of being an Arena manager is covered, from the basics of training your warriors (and perhaps even enhancing their performance with body altering potions) to dealing with disease and injury. Warriors will age over time, and even run the risk of getting in trouble outside the Arena with our unique "personality" factor.

With combat taking place with a real-time, second by second accounts drawn from literally hundreds of thousands of vivid descriptions, no two games will ever play the same. Factor in all the other elements (hundreds of diseases and injuries, the realistic aging system, budget constraints, outside events, free agents, contracts) and you have a game with infinite possibilities!

I've seen it pop up for years, but never tried the demo: http://www.stormcloudcreations.com/coliseum.html

 

[Hobo Elf]

I have to give another vote for Gladius. Absolutely fun game. I had NO idea what I was thinking when I picked it up, but it was really fun. Challenging and fun. Good game. Try it.

 

[bhlaab]

Re: Has anyone made the game that TES: Arena was meant to be

By that I mean, a game where you have a team of gladiators and go to different cities and fight in tournaments and shit? Seems like a neat idea.

Didn't know if this should go in RPG or General Gaming.

I think it was called Street Fighter 2

 

[anus_pounder]

Road to Freedom sounds like a great game, too bad I can't find it on sale anywhere and every torrent has 0 seeds #Leeches.

Gladius looks pretty cool, I'll try that out when I get my emulator working.