This was an RTS.

Maybe an RPG-lite, but why did I play it? 

The real questions are, did I enjoy Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (yes), and is Ogre Battle actually good (no). 

As I said, Ogre Battle is not a traditional RPG. There are stats and mechanics like turn based battles, exp, and equipment. But you don’t actually control characters. It plays as an RTS game, so think Command & Conquer or Age of Empires. The only resource you need to pay attention to is money, so you don’t need to construct additional pylons. Select a unit and send them out into the world to claim towns and temples away from an evil empire. Along the way, your units, squads of high fantasy groups that you put together, fight against enemies of a similar assortment who want to claim your base. It’s just that simple. What’s novel is how the battles function. It’s AI vs AI. You can give orders, but you don’t have direct control, even over the unit your player character governs. Your only input is directing your groups around the map and popping tarot cards (which are just magic spells) to give an edge to your teams in battle. It’s very simple, but it also makes gameplay a tad stale. You can make the teams before you head into battle, but the AI does all the busy work, so get that fast forward button ready. 

Creating the teams is an in depth experience. Where you place your group leader matters. Setting them in the front row leaves them vulnerable, but allows them to use their full strength. Unless they’re a mage, so put them in the back. But do you put them with physical attackers or magic users? 1-4 line or 4-1? Or something in between? What about monsters or undead? Make use of their movement skills? Can you find the secret ones? What gear are they equipped with? Jobs can also evolve and grow, which can be a double edged sword, too. Those job growths are based on alignment and charisma, both of which are a pain to adjust. Just don’t let a leader die, or that squad is gone for the rest of the battle. 

But not only is the basic war gameplay kinda boring, but there are several mechanics that actively work against you. If you’re too strong, your alignment goes down. Alignment is the stat that governs whether you’re a good and just warrior or an evil tyrant. Good natured leaders work better during the day and worse at night. They also get “rewarded” more when liberating a city. There’s also a separate sort of gauge for your army as a whole, and that’s where my biggest problem with Ogre Battle lies. It is so easy to lose karma but feels nigh impossible to regain. Losing control of one city undoes four battles worth of gains. Certain story beats change depending on your karma, so losing it over something you have little control over or one simple mistake feels overly punishing. You’re not allowed to be wrong in a game about choices. Low karma results in a boring game, but high karma creates options, new party members, and an actual deep narrative that the game tries to rob you of. Alignment is also vital for job growth, so you might lock a mediocre warrior or mage into something because their squad got ganged up on in a city they were guarding. 

And good luck training up squads you didn’t/couldn’t want to waste money on. Enemies have set levels and don’t respawn, so you’ll need to get your squads right off the bat and hope none fall behind because they won’t catch up. They’ll just die, and let the city they were guarding fall. RIP your karma. 

Music is warlike. It certainly fits the setting, and there isn’t much variety. It’s only thirty minutes long on YouTube, and both chill tunes sound the same. The only others get played during character creation. Good quality, though. 

Visuals are along the same lines. Brightly colored plains are the primary biome of this planet. And they are very bright. Like, excessively sometimes. Layouts are varied, of course, but this sameness is also a double edged sword. Nothing is exciting to look at, but you do pick up on things like the location of hidden cities. It creates cohesion in the game. And the sprites follow suit. You know what your enemy team is, and even their leader, by the world map sprite. Bosses, I think, have unique sprites, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. Those fights are stressful. 

The world is…odd. You get a home base for every map, but where did we get that base from? As much as I hated Fire Emblem, being able to puzzle together an entire world map because your base is the same base you just captured in the last battle was hella rad. Ogre Battle’s world, though, is incoherent and strewn about. NPCs are, shockingly, along the same lines. Most aren’t named, and the ones that are are optional. Exploration is here, but it feels random. Buried chests are scattered around the world, but there’s rarely an indication of their location. 

But I have to reiterate how punishing it is to lose a town. It totally messes with the flow and goal of the game. 

To wrap it up, Ogre Battle is a flawed game, perhaps one of the most so. But I’m also having a lot of fun and kinda want to keep trudging on. I’m curious about the story beats and the enemies that join our team. I’m just gonna cheat. There are twelve different endings, with each having minor differences based on who’s on your team, too, which is huge! And yet, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is only a 26/50. It’s the lack of variety and conflicting mechanics that drag it down. I’ll give it some pity points and say it’s the second best 52% game I’ve played.