The storyline of witches, birthrights and barbarians fits the Lucasarts cliché beautifully. Epic and cinematic in scope but with a pleasing videogaming slant, the game feels every bit as overblown and pompous as ‘80s cinematic ‘delights’ like Willow - but it’s altogether easier to forgive a game than a film for not pushing the boundaries of storytelling. All the same, some gamers will blanch at the mundane Western platitudes and fairly unremarkable story presented here. However you rate the story, though, the manner of narrative presentation is very effective, consisting largely of panned still pictures with subtle animation effects. In any case, unusually for an RPG the storyline doesn’t feel like the main draw here, it seeming more than ever like a contrived backdrop for a series of battles.

Gladius is centred around a travelling school of gladiators and their exploits in various tournaments in a fictional, and suitably medieval, country. The school begins with just two siblings but will expand based on your preference of fighters; new recruits can be drafted in on a temporary, per-fight basis, or hired and fired at will. Setup screens are intuitive and easy to grasp, and although the tournament-and-league structure of the game initially sits awkwardly with its RPG roots, it soon falls together easily enough.

While seasoned tactical RPG’ers might not be keen on how little dialogue or story exists between encounters, this is an ideal introduction to this kind of game for players who previously haven’t understood, or been stirred to play, this kind of game. The structure takes away much of the potentially off-putting story-driven nature of role playing games, and will ensure it feels much more comfortable to those used to quick action games; unlike most RPGs, this is an easy game to dip into (if you can ignore the frequent, and lengthy, loading pauses), and doesn’t require the gamer to immerse themselves in the game world for an hour before they can start enjoying the action.

The battle interface appears initially complex, but in reality is simple to follow and use, and a full walkthrough of the system is available to new players. Levelling up works exactly as you would expect, and the wealth of multipliers and modifiers which enhance or degrade your performance is unsurprisingly overwhelming. Requiring rather more thought than just picking the best sword, headband and arm-brace, characters’ statistics are further transformed by alignment to elements and even crowd support. Beginners will readily understand the tactical amendments necessary to play a heavy character against a light one, and will feel justifiably proud of themselves when they begin to put such tactics into effect - but those with no experience of this kind of game will start to struggle when ensuring that weapons, accessories and even special moves are aligned to the correct element. On top of this, Gladius is no pushover, even on the easier mode, and although during the tournaments you have nothing to lose (you can only permanently lose characters in the travelling sections) the game will push you hard to ensure you’re playing effectively. Those new to this kind of RPG will become frustrated at losing battles so comprehensively fairly early in the game, but patience and practice will pay dividends.

In-battle visuals are quick and smooth, and the instructive text appended to the battle screens is professional and slick, but the graphics overall are functional and far from beautiful. The characters are unlovely (although customisable to a certain degree) and clumsily animated, shambling around the arenas and jerking from one graceless manoeuvre to another. Realistically though, the game’s inelegance is exacerbated considerably by unfair but inevitable comparisons to the ultra-fluid, and entirely different, likes of Soul Calibur or Powerstone. In the context of a tactical RPG, what’s on offer here is a more than adequate portrayal, and to criticise its animation is to miss the point of the game.

The sound is better; generally uninspired but rousing and clamorous orchestral scores are augmented by reasonably impressive effects and even passable voice acting (although occasionally the choice of dialogue is at best questionable, and at worst downright awful).

A sports-game style attack meter adds a pleasant feeling of interaction to proceedings in a genre which, by its turn-based nature, can easily feel all too prescribed and formulaic. Different battle modes are another welcome addition, forcing more tactical thinking than just getting in there and doing some damage – special fights with targets such as holding territorial advantages, or battles in which you can use only males, or females, or those of a particular race or religion, break up the standard battles nicely. There’s also an entertaining multiplayer mode which works co-operative or competitively, which will improve the lifespan of the game immeasurably for up to four players who are willing to learn all the game’s secrets.

A niche title, then – but perhaps an important one for Microsoft. Gamers who have seen the light and found it to be green, but yearn for something a little more long-term than much of the Xbox’s output could do far worse than to check out this unusual little addition to its library. The statistic-heavy approach combined with an everyday storyline and some plain presentation, though, will ensure that relatively few gamers will ever see this as anything other than an amusing timewaster.