First Impressions: Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen

[Sk8teland85]

Last weekend I bought a Wii Points card so I could go ahead and download a new title or two. When I got the card I knew which one I was going to get first, Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen for the SNES. Now I never played this game before but I did enjoy Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber back on the N64, I bought that one on a recommendation from a friend. I had been looking for the SNES game for a while now so I was glad to see it get put up on Virtual Console. Anyway here is what I think from what I have played so far.

The gameplay of The March of the Black Queen is unique and different from most any RPG I have played. Like Person of Lordly Caliber it is a hybrid of RTS with RPG. You start a map at a home base and sent your troops around liberating other towns and strongholds while fighting off the troops of the enemy and eventually fight the leader of the enemy to clear an area.

Liberating a Stronghold to gain it's trust and resources

Now there is a interesting twist to this and that is the combat. You see you don't send around individuals rather you send around parties of characters and when they meet an enemy party of characters they fight it out like in a traditional RPG. However all the actions the members of the unit preform as far as attack and who to attack are done automatically. The only things you can do is change there fighting strategy (like Attack the leader of the enemy group, attack the strongest member of the enemy unit and such) or use one of your magic support cards to help them, or order the unit to flee from battle.

One of your units in combat

This might seem limiting and it is to an extent, but it is unique and does have to make you think more strategic when planning how you approach an area. You have to think of what particular units to use where and such. Now your troops come in a good variety with many different classes each with advantages and disadvantages. You also can recruit and train animals, dragons, and even things like skeletons and ghost.

Overall this all does work well with a good solid control scheme which is something that some RTS games seem to have trouble with. The visuals look good for something on the SNES around 1993 which was about when this game came out originally. The music is also well done and they even put in some small voice clips which was a nice touch.

Now I have enjoyed this game so far. It has it's unique and interesting parts that do help it stand out and it is fun to play for hours on end once you get into it. However it is not without it's faults. For one there is not as much story as in the later N64 game. You are kinda left filling in the blanks as you go which is something that is kinda a downer since RPGs usually have good stories. Another issue I have is with the difficulty, this game is not hard per say but it can be annoying since the enemy can just keep coming and it can make missions last a while. So overall I would say it is a good solid game. Not perfect and not for everyone, but still good and worth at least looking into if you like RPGs or RTS games.

[Macawmoses]

It just doesn't seem like a title I would enjoy. I do like RPG's/RTS, but some of ye ole titles just....pester me. Perhaps too hard? Perhaps the graphics? I don't know....but I'd much rather play a new iteration, then go back and play.