Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber

Set as the 6th chapter in overall Ogre Saga, the story follows Magnus Gallant, a recent graduate of the Ischka Military Academy, and fledgling captain in Palatinus' Southern region, Alba. As civil war erupts in the country, Magnus eventually decides to join the revolution with its leader, Frederick Raskin, first liberating the southern region with the Zenobians' aid, then Nirdam and uniting with them, then returning the Eastern Region of Capitrium to the Orthodox church, and finally marching on the capital of Latium. However, along the way, Magnus' battalion, the Blue Knights, finds its enemies escalating, from the puppet kingdom of Palatinus, to the might of the Holy Lodis Empire, to the Dark Hordes of the Netherworld.

There are three possible Endings, and within those endings are slight scene variations depending on the characters who joined your army. The first is an ending where Magnus gets expelled from the revolutionary army, because they consider him a "monster" who settles everything by force, realizing his actions are naught he disappears and the people forget about the great general who once saved them, thus ensuring Palatinus' destruction. In another he is named "General Magnus Gallant, the guardian of Palatinus." And the last, where Frederick dies in the war against the tribes Of the East of Gallea and Zeteginia, who wanted to invade Palatinus right after Lodis weakened it, he is named: "Magnus Gallant, The Paladian King." His rule forever to be remembered and his son Aeneas Gallant takes the Throne, following his father's footsteps.

Following the release of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together in 1995, series creator Yasumi Matsuno began planning for a third Ogre game which would balance the "soft" concepts of Tactics Ogre with the "niche" style of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen. He also wanted to steer Quest into developing a more mainstream role-playing game. In the event, Matsuno left series developer Quest Corporation for Square, going on to develop Final Fantasy Tactics as a spiritual successor to Tactics Ogre.[3] Ogre Battle 64 was the first Ogre title developed by Quest after Matsuno and other staff left for Square.[4][5] Production began sometime prior to 1997 for Nintendo 64 (N64), at which point it was known only as Ogre Battle Saga. During this stage, the developers were debating whether to release it as a standard cartridge, as a title for the disc-based 64DD, or both.[6] While apparently planned for the 64DD, it later settled into being a standard cartridge-based game.[7] It was credited as having the second-largest N64 cartridge at 320 megabits. It was also the first in the series to use 3D graphics.[8] The characters were designed by Toshiaki Kato.[9]

The music was co-composed by Hayato Matsuo, Masaharu Iwata and Hitoshi Sakimoto, all returning from previous entries in the series.[10][11][12] Matsuo had previously held a minor composing role for the original Ogre Battle, but for Ogre Battle 64 he was given a far larger role.[10] For Sakimoto and Iwata, Ogre Battle 64 was their only work for the N64 platform.[11][12] Sakimoto commented later than he found transferring his music into the N64 sound environment hard due to his lack of knowledge with the hardware.[13]

The game was announced in April 1997 as Ogre Battle 3, with a planned completion date of March 1998.[14] Originally planned to release under that title, in June 1999 the game was officially retitled to Ogre Battle 64. Quest also announced that Nintendo would act as the game's publisher, allowing for a greater marketing scope.[15] In North America, the game was localised and published by Atlus USA. When translating it, the team decided to keep some of the more mature elements such as swearing, wanting to both stay true to the Japanese original and aim the title at an older audience than typical for the platform. Localization began on the game in December 1999. Compared to the Japanese original, the Western version added the ability to save to a Controller Pak.[16] The Western version shipped in limited quantities, a fact attributed to lack of manufactured chips in the game's cartridge which made it playable.[17]

Reception

Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 86%[18] Metacritic 82/100[19] Review scores Publication Score EGM 25/30[20] Famitsu 33/40[21] Game Informer 9/10[22] GameFan 274/300[23] GamePro 13/20[24] GameSpot 9.1/10[25] IGN 8.8/10[26] Nintendo Life 10/10[27] Nintendo Power 8.3/10[28] X-Play [29] Dengeki Nintendo 64 (JP) 35/40[30] Gamers (BR) 4.5/5[31] Nintendo World (BR) 9/10[32] SuperGamePower (BR) 7.5/10[33]

The game was generally well received by critics. It received a 9.1 from GameSpot, an 8.8 from IGN and several reviews in that range from other sources, and was rated the 111th best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list.[34] Reviewing the Virtual Console re-release, IGN gave the game a 9.0, stating that it "was (and still is) lordly indeed."[35]

In Japan, Famitsu magazine scored the game a 33 out of 40.[21]

• Official website