Review #457: Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance

 There're many chinks in this Gladiator's armor.

 Before Sony took us to Ancient Greece, with its gods and copious amounts of blood, we had Gladiator - Sword of Vengeance, a similar game in concept but with a much different execution, and set in Ancient Rome. This is a hack and slash action game that tried to do its own thing, to varying degrees of success.

 Arruntius has come to power, turning Rome into a city of... even more blood and more malice, and to celebrate he promises Rome the blood of a champion, the Invictus Thrax, a Gladiator that remained undefeated... until these games happened. But it's not all that bad, Thrax gets sent to the Elysium Camp upon which he learns that Arruntius is being helped by the gods Phobos and Deimos, but he too will be aided by gods, given a second chance and a mission: Kill Arruntius. The story takes a backseat to the gameplay, so don't expect interesting dialogue or characters, but it's an interesting set-up to have you, Thrax, slay both mythological creatures such as Cyclops and... Spartan Skeletons as well as other Gladiators.

 The game takes place throughout 6 stages, but each stage is relatively long and offers bonuses for exploration, so it'll take you between 6 and 8 hours to do everything and collect everything. The game is a bit weird, but it's mostly competent, R1 initiates locking onto enemies, and L1 can be held to target a secondary enemy. This is a rather important mechanic, y'see, Thrax can only perform three-hit combos by mixing Square and X attacks together, with no way to juggle enemies or create your own combos, but you are rewarded for switching between targets as you perform your three-hit combos. Rapidly switching, and successfully hitting different enemies will fill a gauge on the top of the screen that rewards you different bonuses, just as double strength, defense or even invulnerability, but do be careful, as the bonus only remains as long as the gauge is over its icon, and it will drop rapidly if you fail to hit enemies. Lastly, circle can be used to dodged, Thrax can't block, and triangle to use magic, three types that build upon each other, which grant you bonus strength(Easily the most useful), life-leeching or splash damage.

 For the most part, it's a competent system that's relatively fun. For the most part. There's a few kinks that keep it from being great however. For instance, you can't dodge or attack unless you are locking onto an enemy, which can throw you off when you are fumbling with the R1 button, since sometimes the game will autolock, and sometimes it won't, so you might accidentally turn it on or off, and while you deal with that you'll get hit with no chance to dodge. And if an enemy starts blocking... you can't do anything about it but wait until it gets bored and does something else. Certain enemies, the ones with black life bars, can be 'executed' in various, gory different ways, but I found no advantage or reward for doing so except having to go through a short loading scene, so they are pretty lame.

 You are given three different weapons: Sword, Axe and Gauntlets, and to be fair the do have different attacks, strength and speed, but, BUT you can't switch between them mid-combos, a huge missed opportunity. Combat could've been made more rewarding too, although to be fair exploration IS rewarded. Peppered throughout the first five stages you'll find challenge rooms that will bestow you with: Gauge enhancers for every weapon, new weapons(I didn't notice much damage improvement between them, but hey at least they look different!), combat gauge extenders, life bar extenders or one of 20 collectibles. These collectibles can be used to unlock the fourth combat gauge extenders for each weapon and collecting them all lets you choose one of the three ultimate weapons. These are instantly rewarding, which made searching throughout stages a fun enterprise.

 Not that they don't come with a few caveats, however. These fourth combat gauge challenges are unlocked somewhere inside levels you've already been into, and going back to a previous stage means having to endure every single cutscene, even the ones that introduced enemies and solving most puzzles. Not my idea of a fun time. Speaking of cutscenes, they can't be skipped and, to put a cherry on top, the game can get rather challenging, so have fun watching those cutscenes again. And did I mention that there's no manual saving? Hopefully there was a checkpoint close by, lest you have to replay and rewatch much! And I forgot to mention, you can unlock all three final combat gauges after clearing stage four, but don't go after the gauntlets' , since you'll backtrack all the way only to be told that you are missing the third combat gauge power up... found in stage five. Brilliant.

 Before wrapping up, I must mention just how boring and repetitive bosses are. There's one boss for every stage, kinda. The second stage has you fighting Phobos, which is easy as pie but takes a long while since you need to build your magic meter. The third stage features Phobos again, with one new technique, but is basically the same boss. The fourth stage has Deimos that fights similarly to Phobos, but at least beating her is slightly different. The five stage has Deimos again, only a bit different. The last boss is a bit different too, but once again, repetitive and boring, since it's very easy, but takes too long to defeat.

 Gladiator Sword of Vengeance is a mixed bag. The basics are competent, stages are vast, pretty and fun to explore, with a lot of rewards waiting to be earned. Combat is very simple, but I'd lie if I said that I didn't have fun most of the time. But it falls short in other areas, combat needed more polishing and more depth, replaying stages or segments shouldn't have been such a pain, and the bosses desperately needed more creativity. It's a decent weekend game, if anything, one that's easier to remember as a huge waste of potential.
 6.0 out of 10