Picked this one up tuesday, and it is well worth the 25 euro. It is a turnbased strategy/rpg hybrid, with possibly the coolest premise ever. You are trying to become the best gladiatorschool in europe, and there is plenty of human recource to recruit and tons of weapons. The world plays a bit like final fantasy, you go from A to B and sometimes you get a random encounter. But when you enter a town the fun starts, your goal is to win the towns tournament. But first you have to get the crowd to like you (if you aren't popular you won't be able to participate in the major lagues), and every town likes different stuff. Attacking someone in the back does best damage, but the crowd thinks it is cheap, lowering your reputation. When the crowd goes wild you get a bonus to your stats. What I really like in this game is that giving critical hits actually takes skill, when you attack a 'strength' meter fills up, when you release it on the right time you score a critical. Very cool. With the ability to make combo's, you can score 3 criticals in a row(hard as hell). So far it does not feel unbalanced. The only thing I feel is lacking is the ability to finish my enemies, but we have to take into consideration that this is a gamecube title. Anyone else playing this interesting game?
