Review: Story of a Gladiator – Fight for Glory as a True Gladiator

Story of a Gladiator is a brand new game developed and published by Brain Seal Ltd. Brain Seal Ltd. is an indie developer whose previous titles include Dark Quest and Masters of Belial. Their latest title, Story of a Gladiator, is an arena beat ‘em up where you step into the shoes of a common man who has lost everything to the wars of the Roman empire and now must fight in the arena and take on hordes of enemies in three distinct campaigns to become the ultimate gladiator. For our review of Story of a Gladiator, we played the Xbox One version of the game.

Story of a Gladiator is set in the era of the Roman empires when Gladiators used to fight in arenas for the sake of entertainment. You also begin your journey as a common man who must fight his way to the top. In the beginning, you are nothing and have extremely weak equipment. No one in Rome knows you and you have to make your name before the vendors start taking you seriously and offer you their wares. Your main course is the game’s campaign, which will unlock additional features of the game for you.

The campaign of the Story of Gladiator is spread across three unique empires. You have the Greek, African, and Roman campaigns, which will offer a different and unique challenge. Each campaign follows the same pattern where you must complete a level before you can unlock the next one. The campaign menu works like a mobile game that shows all of the levels at the same time and depending on how well you perform in the arena, in the end, you get stars. The best performances will give you 3 stars, the highest amount of gold and experience, which will help you level up in the game.

If you complete a level by taking minimum damage, get some combos, do not fall in traps, and kill everyone mercilessly, you will earn some bonus gold as well. Coin in key, and you want every last bit of coin you can find in the game. The final level in every campaign is the ultimate challenge and also the most beneficial when it comes to farming for coin and experience. Story of a Gladiator allows you to re-play older levels and easily farm for coin and experience, so you can literally have the best equipment right in the first campaign if you farm enough. The more you farm, the easier the game will get for you.

The main hub of the game is the market in the streets of Rome. While you are not fighting in the arena, you will find yourself in these streets. Here, you have plenty of things to do. For starters, you will unlock more and more vendors in the market as you progress in the main campaign of the game. Unlocking vendors will grant you the ability to purchase better weapons, armor, and shields. You cannot expect to complete the whole game with your starting kit. You will need to spend coins at the Blacksmith, who will then unlock even better gear for you to purchase.

By default, your character will only have a few skills and small health with low damage. As you continue to purchase better armor, shields, and weapons, your chances of survival will also increase in the arena because your hits will deal more damage with better weapons, you will have increased hit points with better armor, and you will be able to block tougher hits with better shields. Apart from the basic armor, weapon, and shield purchases, you will also find the amulet vendor in the market, who will give you a unique amulet for different passive bonuses.

As you fight in the arena, you will gain experience and you will eventually level up. Every time you level up, you will gain a skill point to invest in better skills or, upgrading your current skills. However, the maximum level your character can reach is 15 and this is not enough for purchasing or upgrading all of the skills in the game. However, to counter this level cap, Story of a Gladiator gives you the freedom to assign and remove points from a certain skill at any time you want. Using this method, you can have different builds suitable for different situations.

Each arena is different and will throw a different number of enemies at you. These could range from nimble enemies to armor-clad warriors who will hit like a tank. You will also come face-to-face with tigers in the arenas, so you will need a different build for every battle. With the flexible, skill-based system, you can switch between your skills at any time and have the perfect build for the upcoming battle. This counters the fact that you cannot level up after Level 15 to have more skill points however, you must be able to adapt to different situations in order to have the perfect build.

After progressing a certain bit in the story, you will also unlock the Beast Master, who will help you train your very own tiger to take with you in battles. Having an extra hand in battles in extremely helpful because as you progress to harder levels, you will be unable to fight all of the enemies at the same time all by yourself. You can also pray to gods to unlock special favors to use them to your advantage during battles. Spend a little gold for the gods and then use their blessings in the battles after you excite the crowd with some bloodshed.

In the arena, as you mow down enemy after enemy, the crowd will like you, and they will begin cheering for you. Get them excited enough, and they will even start helping you out in battles. They will throw food, which will heal you, gold pouches, and even rocks at the enemies to stun them and give you a window to finish them off. Keeping the crowd happy will also allow you to use different blessings of the god, which are extremely useful and can really turn the tide of the fights for you.

The gameplay of Story of a Gladiator does not fall short in any way. The controls are really easy, and the bloodshed is really satisfying. You can easily move around the arena unless there are numerous pitfalls around you in which case you will need to avoid them. The boss battles are really tough, and the overall combat is really satisfying. The gameplay does justice to the game because I am not a fan of the arena beat ‘em up titles, and I was really skeptical while starting the game for the first time.

However, I was quickly drawn into the simple and captivating gameplay, and I was pretty soon slashing and skilling enemies of every size and shape. Having your own pet tiger really helps you in certain situations because, in later stages, the arenas are jam-packed with enemies, and you have very little space to move around. By this time, however, you have plenty of abilities unlocked, and your build is pretty strong. If you farm in the earlier levels of the game and have decent armor and equipment, you can chop through wave after wave of enemies without much trouble at all.

Story of a Gladiator is a simple title with only one goal. Kill everyone to become number one, and it does that very well. The game gives you the freedom to approach battles with your own builds and gameplay style, complete with unique abilities, both active and passive. You can have a unique build for one arena and then completely switch it up for your next arena; however, the core gameplay remains pretty fun and will surely keep you busy for hours and hours to come. If you stick to the main campaign, you can easily complete all three campaigns in a day after a little bit of farming as well. It won’t take long but once you’ve acquired the better gear, you would want to go back again and again and try your luck against tougher enemies. If you want a real challenge, the game also offers a perma-death mode as well if you want to live the life of a real gladiator.

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Final Verdict:

Story of a Gladiator mostly feels like a mobile game however it offers decent fun and the gameplay is pretty smooth. The campaign menu could have been better because it looks exactly like most mobile games. However, it still offers plenty of content and the replay-factor of the game is really huge. After your first initial fights in the arena, you will be hooked as you fight for coin and then upgrade and then head back to earn more coins for better gear. The campaign might be small but you can play the levels again and again and you can make them unique by opting for different builds every time you go in the battles. For just $10.99, Story of a Gladiator offers hours and hours of fun and you should definitely give this game a shot.

Final Score: 8/10