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In the many, many lists of the best SNES games, there is one that is consistently overlooked. I'm writing this not only to nostalgically remember something from my youth, but to review a game that I genuinely believe is brilliant, even though it's now over 20 years old. Something you genuinely should go to the bother of downloading an emulator for.

And that game is Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen.


The splash screen at the beginning.

The game originally came out in 1993 for SNES and sold basically zero copies, and was promptly ignored by the gaming community. Nintendo, though, espeically in the mid-90's was well-known for games that came out WELL ahead of their time, and this is no exception. The best analogue I can think of to this game is DoW 2, which came out a decade and a half later and still doesn't do certain things as well.

THE GAME

In brief, what makes this game so good is that it straddles a perfect line between RTS and RPG.

On the one hand, the game plays almost like a tabletop wargame. You have an army comprised of various units, each comprised of various "models". There are dozens of said models to choose from, and each come with their own strengths and weaknesses and particular style, and so "list building" is a big part of the game.

Except the detail here is immense. For example, what combination of models you use in a unit will determine what speed it travels over many different types of terrain. It also determines which terrain they fight best on. And against which other types of models they fight best against, and at what time of day they fight best during(against other certain kinds of units). And that's before you consider that magic attacks have certain elemental types (and are thus weaker or stronger against certain units) and the giant pile of weapon upgrades. And that certain kinds of models buff (or debuff) other kinds.

Given the large map sizes and options available, Ogre Battle really is a proper strategy game.

But it's also a bit of an RPG. The different models come with levels and RPG-like stats which, admittedly are a little simple (there's Diablo III levels of determining how stats increase), but which class you pick for your models does matter. Furthermore, each class upgrades a la pokemon, and which class you've picked inevitably helps determine what kind of character they'll wind up being.


A list of about half the character classes. It had to be printed double-sided to fit it all. Note that how you use models determines at least their alignment, and their class also determines other scores, which all determines what can be upgraded into what.

And then it has other RPG elements as well. For example, most missions have a sub-plot and at least one side-quest. Whether it's something mundane like delivering an item to someone, or something more story-like, such as re-uniting estranged friends, siding with one (or the other) spurned lovers, or deciding who to forgive and accept into your army or who to practice vengeance on, there's a lot of options for an otherwise-strategy game.


A sample dialogue. In this particular case, things play out differently if you find and successfully recruit her sister.

And that's not the most of it, either. The game has 18 special characters that you can recruit based on things like your main character's alignment (which is based on how you choose to fight with him or her) and your army's reputation (dependant on strategic things like if the enemy recaptures cities, and what narrative choices you make). It also has an astonishing 14 different endings, depending on what you do during the game.

And that insane devotion to player choice isn't just in the list building and narrative choices and the way you choose to fight your battles and the ending. The game itself comprises of 29 missions with several splitting paths, the order in which you complete them sometimes mattering (recruiting certain characters can give you a slightly different ending to the missions), and some of them being not only optional, but the ability to access them at all depending on the wargear you acquire (which, once again, is dependent on things like alignment and reputation).

THE BOOK

One of the things that's impressive about this game too is the copy written for it.

The game came out during the turmoil of the Balkans wars, and it really reflects it. The game, as such, pulls surprisingly few punches for an SNES game. For example, you are forced more than once to make a game-altering decision between doing the right thing and doing the popular thing. It approaches, however lightly, the idea of ethnic cleansing, of justice vs. revenge, and of the horrors of war vs. idealism. There are even points in the game where you lose reputation for liberating cities because the people didn't want to be "liberated" in the first place.

And, as mentioned, the drama can be surprisingly heavy for something that might appear as RTS-like at first glance. Family members are murdered, widows publicly grieve as your army marches through, betrothals are broken, lovers avenged, allies torn apart and political choices weighed, and friends betrayed. In almost every map, you're left with the wistful hope of "If only things had been different..."


In this mission, the mer-folk are siding with the bad guys because they promise a future free of being slaughtered and eaten by humans. Ethical implications abound.

And that's before you remember that choices you made that lead to differences in alignment, reputation, wargear, and recruitment, and who decides to show down the final bosses can all effect what you learn about the game and its characters.

OTHER BITS

First, let's talk about the music. It won't beat contemporary full-on RPGs like chrono trigger or secret of mana. Indeed it's mostly one style: leading an army music. Despite that, though, it manages many varied pieces on the theme which are not only memorable, but also don't get really annoying over time. In true fashion to its attention to detail, it even has stage music that is used only twice, and some bits that are used only once in the entire game. You could probably play the entirety and still miss a track or two. Not too surprising, given that it's a '90's game, but still...

(Click here for a sample of the music)

And that attention to detail, as if it's not obvious already, is one of the strongest parts of the game. You spend most of your time using your army to liberate cities, but there are also hidden cities as well. And secret buried treasure. And different neutral encounters that you have that vary by map and terrain type that allow you to recruit different units into your army (if the unit's charisma is high enough, once again determined by how you've played them). And hidden wargear, of course, and hidden bits of backstory and hidden side-quests.

But even the little things are spot-on, like being able to tell what kind of magic or magic item is being used by the one-frame glow that an enemy model takes when hit, or the fact that the animation of the attacks is slightly different based on where a model is placed within a unit (to say nothing of the fact that they often gain different kinds of attacks and defense altogether). The game plays out with a day-night cycle, and the background of the battles changes not only by the type of terrain you're fighting on, but it's also based on time of day, which was unheard of at the time.


Two dark knights and a wyvern fighting a pair of skeletons, a demon, a wizard and a werewolf, who is in human form because it's daylight, but it's sunset (hence the orange hue). Both these units will have different effectiveness once it becomes night, especially the werewolf, who will have a different model, animation, and attacks profile.


A valkyrie and a griffon fight two octopodes and another valkyrie. On shoals terrain in the morning. The griffon makes the one unit "high sky" which allows them to traverse terrain quickly, while the other's composition makes it "water", which means it not only fights better here and takes less damage, but, when the octopodes upgrade, they will have a different kind of attack if they're in water vs. if they're on land.

CONCLUSION

This game allows you to spend hours customizing an army (of up to 100 models), adjusting what kind of classes the characters are, and how, where, and when they fight best, and, of course recruiting special characters. It allows you to play good or evil with real consequences, and the vast player choice in how you decide to use that army you've made matters during the game, and affects which ending you get. It has great music, and huge tactical maps to fight across.

If there are any problems with the game, it's that it doesn't earn a perfect score in the kitsch category (you can, played correctly, turn fighters into ninjas, or princesses, or werewolves) and the translation from Japanese to English isn't 100%. But these are small details in a game that otherwise excels at their attention to them. And it develops beyond mere fantasy tropes like wizards and dragons through its storyline and a few unique bits of interesting weirdness like the tarot card system.

So, if you like tabletop games, you'll love Ogre Battle, as it's basically those except on much larger maps in a much larger campaign. If you like RTSs, you'll like the tactics, upgrades, unit combinations, and fighting style without having to bother with base-building mechanics, and if you like RPGs, you will be greeted with the bit of real drama here and there.

It is a very, very good game. Given that they only made a few hundred copies, you'll never get a chance to own an original, but give it a try in an emulator. The up-front learning curve might be a bit steeper than your average game, but it is well, well worth it. A huge world with vast choice and memorable moments awaits.

Own it, play it, love it.

My hardest-hitting unit in my army is my "girls love bad boys" squad, consisting of 1 werewolf, 4 angels, and one princess. The extra attack the princess gives to everyone when you stick her in the back row means the group does enough damage to compensate for whatever time of day it is. The 0-alignment werewolf tears gak up at night, and the 100-alignment angels usually kill everything on the screen during the day.

I think the best part of the game for me is the name generator for the random units. Two highlights in my army are Musolini the devil, and Salad the valkyrie.

The only issue I had with Ogre Battle was the balancing Act of having your High Alignment units not being able to fight weaker units without taking an alignment hit. The added complication of development of units that were strong, but not too strong, made me go through so many health items.

Great review, and a great game. Wish I had played more of Ogre Battle - Breath of Fire II was perhaps the only RPG that I played through on the SNES.

I do suppose in this magical day and age I could emulate up OB and have a proper go of it

- Salvage