YMMV / Gladius

• Demonic Spiders: Appropriately enough, the scorpions and the slightly-weaker scarabs. Able to inflict lethal amounts of damage at almost any range, capable of taking more damage than most heavy units, and surprisingly accurate, they fit this trope perfectly. Their only weakness is that they are vulnerable to status effects and cannot dodge as well as Light classes. Although you can recruit them, you will need to best them in the Insect Ze League: a 4 versus about TWENTY insect endurance battle. Arguably the hardest battle in the game.
• Game-Breaker:
  • When equipped with an Executioner's Sword, the Samnite's fart attack can instantly kill multiple enemies.
  • Langston the Minotaur, who can be recruited very early on if you choose Valens's campaign, can absolutely devastate any team in the game if you master the Swing Meter.
  • Valens can normally only obtain his father's equipment very late game. A clone of him appears in one cup and it can occasionally drop it.
  • Best example is the Hell's Fury skill, the reward for defeating a chain of sidequests. Huge range and huge damage.
  • The recruitable Undead Summoner Taithleach can if you equip him properly go from being a sub-par glass cannon to a nigh-invulnerable, one-hit killing AoE-machine with two extra lives. This might be the reason he's restricted from using in a staggering amount of the leagues in the game.
  • The Centurion's Motivate skill stacks, meaning that if you camp and let the enemy approach you, you can use this skill to increase your attack power to ludicrous levels. Combine that with mastering the Swing Meter, and you can kill most things in one hit.
  • The Channeler's freeze spells (and high-grade Air and Earth affinity attacks) can completely freeze an enemy in their tracks. This can become essential for micromanaging targets, especially during a certain sidequest where you can only use Channelers.
• Good Bad Bugs: Hooboy, this game's definitely got a few. Fortunately, the devs managed to steer pretty much clear of Game Breaking Bugs.
  • Eiji, a hybrid Moveset Clone of the Amazon and Archer classes, has a glitch in the code for her Charm skill (one round of mind control that's normally only effective against men, and is cast by blowing a kiss) that causes it to ALSO affect women. This also takes it from a solid skill to a borderline Game-Breaker.
  • The PS2 and GameCube versions were subject to some audio and video bugs that the Xbox version was not, potentially including inconsistent playback speed, which could wreak havoc in dialogue. Characters may alternate between aping William Shatner with abrupt fits of rapid-fire chatter, and suddenly becoming The Alcoholic as they glacially slur their way through their lines.
  • Scorpions, already Demonic Spiders for their Glass Cannon nature, inexplicably deal double damage when equipped with a ruby in their accessory slot. An item which increases their Fire Affinity... which they can't even use.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The relationship between Ursula and Valens never really goes anywhere except to make the ending sadder. Not like anyone expected a good romance in a LucasArts game.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The character restrictions in a number of league matches can be this, as a lot of class types come from Imperia. Conditions that require gladiators from other nations can really put stress on schools who end up with insufficient gladiators from somewhere like Nordagh, where this condition is used the most. It's mostly why people tend to recruit a Gungnir over a Peltast, for example.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • There are few Arcane classes to take advantage of throughout most of the game. There's only one living and undead Summoner recruitable in the entire game (the former only being available in the Southern Expanse, the last territory in the league), and the Galdr are unrecruitable. This leaves only the Channeler which is the basic spellcaster and the Mongrel Shaman, who is pretty weak and useless.
  • The Light affinity is only used by Ursula near the end of her story as a Valkyrie, who only has one difficult to execute attack of that element.

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