Ogrebattle64: Person of Lordly Caliber – “Hard Mode” Guide; an in-depth
walkthrough for veteran or seasoned players looking for a challenge to their
Ogrebattle needs.
Claim of Ownership: THEmtg3drinks
No, you do not have permission to take this guide and post it where-ever you
wish, that is plagiarism of my content. The only place as of present with
permission to use this is right here on GameFAQs/GameSpot. Communicate with me
prior and we’ll talk, and I may be convinced to let you borrow my work if your
site/resource is on the up-and-up.
Version History
1.0: Guide initialized and completed up to Crenel Canyon I, when Leia joins
and the post-mission activities after.
Hi. This marks my second FAQ written for this website, with my first being an
in-depth guide for Grand Theft Auto Online. Today though, we’re going to take a
step into the wayback machine to the glory days of Nintendo 64, and
specifically, Ogrebattle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber! For a game that is more
than twenty years old at the time of this writing, and still with a diehard
following of players absolutely enamoured with this game, it’s world, the
characters, plot, and battle customization, the following maintained to-date is
truly legendary. But, you already knew this, and you’re likely here because you
want a way to “spice up” your play and make things more challenging. You know
what the end game looks like, and you’re left mildly deflated and anti-climatic.
So you’ve come to the right place.
First thing is first, this walkthrough assumes you’ve already played the game
(why are you here if you haven’t?) and as such, you will invariably encounter
SPOILERS. I won’t beat around the bush, and honestly for a game of two decades
in age, are there really any hidden plot points? Nevertheless, you’ve been
warned, if you don’t want to be spoiled, then you should stop reading right now.
Secondly, this guide will not be a blow-by-blow of every mission and best setup
possible because, well you’re here, so I’m assuming you already know the basics.
I’m not going to hand hold you through every little thing, rather I will point
out key items and useful strategies for certain encounters you may not have
thought of, while staying within the confines of this, what is effectively a
“challenge run” playthrough. As a challenge, that means there’s certain rules to
adhere to, and they are;
Ironman rules: if someone dies, it's forever. Release them.
No consumable items may be used either on the map or the Organize Screen.
No spending any goth ever. You may purchase sets of basic fighter and amazon
gear for soldier promotion work, however. Yes, this includes the class change
screen as well; you cannot change a class if you don’t have an available piece
of gear for each of that class’ equipment slots.
No heroes ever, unless they join automatically. If they offer to join, you must
turn them down. Don't be tempted to let them come aboard to get their sweet
signature gear. This means your only heroes will be Magnus, Diomedes, and Leia,
or just Magnus and Leia if you go the path where Diomedes commits desertion on
you.
You must use the full ten units starting by the first mission of chapter two
(Crenel Canyon II). I’ve been lenient enough to give you all of chapter one to
build enough of a battalion such that you have enough characters for a full ten
units by a reasonable, if not overly generous, story point.
By chapter three, scene one, you must use a legion with at least three units
(two units attached plus a legion corre), on all maps where legions can be
utilized.
If Yumil engages one unit during Mylesia I, it's a reset. Yumil isn't part of
the battalion and as such, is treated as an extra hero thus meaning he breaks
the no heroes rule. Similarly at Wentinus I, you must choose to follow orders as
the other choice would give you a hero otherwise not allowed.
I’ll be playing on an emulatour using our community mod “Hammer to Fall”, found
at our specialized Ogrebattle64 Discord server here:
https://discord.com/invite/zknkwch. Inside, you’ll find details to how a large
semblance of balance was added to the game, an upscale of known under-performing
classes in the “vanilla game” tweaks to the stats provided by gear, and useful
perks for improving the early game heroes without losing their unique sprites.
There’s also some…….well-placed rude awakenings even seasoned players will be
met with, as early as Dardunnelles I. All-in-all it is already a step up from
the cartridge version of the game, but I’m going to be coupling this with my
rules set out above to make the ultimate “Hard Mode”.
Now with the rules out of the way, let’s look at the basics. We start out at
our graduation ceremony where your starting troops are assigned. You can use
Sukarikun’s Starting Army Guide located here:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/198230-ogre-battle-64-person-of-lordly-caliber
/faqs/56998 to decide what your units are. What I’m going with are Passion,
Silence, Might, Love, Strife, Change, with a calling upon the Swift Wind for
help. This entitles me to start with the Pedra of Wind, and a Knight, Witch,
Valkyrie, and a Beast Tamer with Hellhound. Of note, this also gives me a
blessed sword, which will prove valuable in giving Magnus some early game
healing as well as provide me a strong sword to use well into the midgame.
Getting that early Witch is likewise important as we’re going to use that to
build our promoted soldiers early on in this run. It helps that she has good
mental growths as well, so she’ll make a fine Valkyrie or Siren in the future.
Mission 1: Tenne Plains
There’s really not a lot to say about this place as it’s the training battle.
Make sure you grab the Great Bow on the far east side of the map, and the enemy
units should all drop enough gear to make a single Ninja. You might reset if you
don’t get that gear, since typically Magnus’ units can become a Ninja by level
four - so right after this mission, if you pushed his unit exclusively. If you
took my advice and got the Witch unit, you could position her to farm some
soldier promotions, but if not there’s a shot on the next map to get your
farming in. The trick is once you’ve taken the stronghold with the Wizard,
Knight, and Hellhound, then the other two units will attack you a couple times
then retreat. They’re not strong enough to get past stronghold healing, so as
long as you let them run off and heal, they’ll keep approaching and giving you
free soldier experience (credit to our server’s own Silent Zealot for this tip).
Otherwise, complete this mission normally and collect your Francisca for a job
well done. Berserkers are okay, I tend to neglect them myself since I prefer a
strong defense, but I’ll take what I can get - that’s the name of this run
anyway, right? Like a gritty, “survival” type run where you’re scraping up what
you can and using everything at your disposal to its fullest extent. And,
Berserkers are totally better than Fighters (I mean everything is, so might as
well use it if you got it).
If you wanted to farm Soldiers here, I’d suggest this unit formation below;
-- Wit --
Sld Sld Sld
-- Ftr --
This also works with a Cleric, if you decided to go that route instead of the
Witch. I didn’t use this map though, as instead I prefer to do the majority of
my Soldier work on the next map.
Post-Mission: I suggest coming back here to hunt for a wild Wyrm in the Barrens
terrain. It’ll come in handy in the early going, and it’ll be an important
fixture latre on as a part of our sky squad. Yes, it’s true we could just catch
a wild Wyvern much latre, but we’ll have better growths if we catch it early and
level it ourselves.
Mission 2: Volmus Mine
Advanced Tactic: Sell all your inventory except the equippables, and buy out as
much Fighter and Amazon gear from the class equipment screen as you can; we’ve
got a great opportunity to bolster our battalion’s numbers here by beating up on
a terrible unit with strong healing and nothing else going for it. You might
feel a bit weird selling everything...but it’s all consumables, which by the
rules you can’t use anyway. You can’t use the goth too, except to buy basic
Fighter/Amazon gear for Soldier work so you might as well do something with
those items. The only things you should have in your inventory are equipment,
and the Ansate Cross. Oh, and do yourself a favour and roll your birthday a year
up and get the Goblet of Destiny for your nineteenth - that sells for a whopping
six-hundred and thirty-seven goth - it’ll buy two sets of Fighter or four sets
of Amazon gear alone! You could actually roll your birthdays now, but we’re
gonna wait on that until we clear Gunther Piedmont; there’s an easy road to walk
here that makes this mind-numbing experience a little easier on us.
It must be Christmas morning, because we’ve got quite a few goodies we can fight
for here. Of note on the map, we’ve got a Buckler northwest of Senal across the
river (we’ll need that to make Freyas latre on), Hard Leather southeast of Senal
across the other bridge (which we’ll need to make Berserkers). Last item of
interest is a Light Mace between Ishro and Eldrett which is essential to get our
first Cleric. That’s it for hidden items we care about. As for battle spoils,
yowie wowie did we hit the jackpot...if the jackpot was filled with basic gear
and minor items. Every enemy unit drops something of value - the Knight/Young
Dragon unit and Cleric/Soldier x2 unit both drop Light Maces, and the
Fighter/Cleric x2 as well as the Wizard x2/Soldier units drop Rosaries (the
essential accessory we need for Clerics). The Knight/Griffon unit drops a
cleric’s vestment, and the unit guarding Ishro drops Leather Armour (useful for
Archers and Beast Tamers). Of course Qad has the leather whip, which gives us
the last piece we’ll need to create a second Beast Tamer alongside our starter
guy. Tamers are actually pretty important here as they provide us another melee
class with two attacks in the middle row - which is especially important in the
vanilla game where Doll Masters are the only other male class to offer this
feature. It’s not as paramount in our mod “Hammer to Fall” as we’ve designed a
lot more middle row play, and Beast Tamers don’t have the best growth...but
they’re still better than Fighters, and they gain respectable VIT and STR gains,
so it’s a reasonable stopgap to creating a Phalanx if you’re into that - which I
am.
Since a lot of these items are enemy drops, this may prove tricky to get
everything if you’re on console. If you’re on emulatour though, consider
utilizing save states to ensure you get everything since Clerics are so
omnipotent. Lastly, if you didn’t grind for soldiers in Tenne Plains, not to
fear; there’s a unit with intentionally bad form that exists solely to try and
take the novice player’s unguarded stronghold. It has a Fighter and two Clerics
so damaging it will be hard - which is what makes it such an enticing soldier
promotion unit. Try using a unit positioned like;
-- Wit --
Sld Sld Sld
-- Ftr --
This enables you to not do a lot of damage (in fact, you might replace the
Fighter with an Amazon to lower your damage more such that you don’t kill
anyone), while still winning the battle and getting your Soldier experience
points (you don’t get Soldier XP on a loss). Soldier XP works a little
differently from normal experience. Soldiers gain two XP at the end of every
fight for the number of Soldiers that survived the fight (so one cluster of
little men will get six Soldier XP), and you’ll promote one to a Fighter or
Amazon once you’ve accumulated one-hundred Soldier XP. So, by using the unit
structure I’ve set forth as depicted, that’s worth eighteen Soldier XP per fight
with this unit. That means roughly every five battles will produce a new Fighter
or Amazon. In our mod, “Hammer to Fall”, Soldiers have been enhanced to have two
attacks instead of one, so it may even be possible to run that Witch with four
Soldiers to earn twenty-four XP per battle, which shaves a whole battle off your
promotion time. If you didn’t get the Witch, you might try using a Cleric for
this part instead; I prefer the Witch because I can disable their Fighter to
preserve my Soldiers, but the Cleric will keep them protected just as well.
Advanced Tip: Try to rotate different unit leaders at this stage; a Centurion
needs seven Soldier promotions to have a sufficient leadership score to change
class in chapter three, and you can do a lot of promotion right here. Don’t
forget you have the Ansate Cross if you’ve used up all of one type of basic
gear; males promote Fighters, and females promote Amazons - but the Ansate Cross
switches the genders so your male leaders promote Amazons and female leaders
promote Fighters instead. With all the selling we did earlier, and the
maximizing available gear we did, we should be able to get at least fourteen
promotions here. Maybe more, but fourteen should be sufficient as I like to
incorporate some creatures from the wild in my battalion. We’ll be talking more
about that on the next map, though.
Once you’re done here (probably by maxing out on all your available basic
Fighter/Amazon gear), go ahead and take your Leather Whip by sending Qad into
the dirt.
Mission 3: Crenel Canyon
We got a new recruit! Leia Silvis is the new girl in town, and she’s even nice
enough to come with her own unit - two Amazons, and two Valkyries. Thanks Leia.
There’s no question of if she can join, she just does so automatically. That’s
our last hero for this run, so thankfully she comes with her own unit, saving us
time by not needing to build her a squad from scratch. Looking forward, she’s
also a great candidate to pick up the Earth Javelin we’ll get, when we come back
to Volmus Mine.
We’ve got a few items we should be on the lookout for this map; there’s a
Breastplate to the west of Baldera, and a Plumed Headband on the road between
Baldera and Kiefer. We can also find a Rapier on the road between Boolem and
Tuatha, as well as a Bone Helm between mountains on the river west of Movae
(these are both necessary to create a Dragon Tamer, along with a set of Chain
Mail which our Fighters give us). I’m not especially high on Dragon Tamers as
their weapons are extremely limited, and most of them are physical without a
strong punch to them, but they do make dragons hit roughly five percent
stronger. I like them more in normal runs, since I can at least buy a Needle of
Light to give them an element weapon early, but they’re still not especially
spectacular. Still, it’s better to have a Dragon Tamer than an Amazon…
Of the dropped items, we can find a Rapier from the Dragon Tamer unit guarding
Movae, a Bone Helm from the Berserker unit charging from Boolem, a Spear from
the Wizard unit charging from Carnot, a Breastplate from the Knight guarding
Carnot, and a Plumed Headband from the Valkyrie south of enemy HQ. I’m not
overly concerned about missing these drops, though it does give me some extra
copies of classes so it’s worthwhile to save state for them, sure. If you don’t
want to, then you could just move on and pry the Baldr Spear from Efeminette’s
cold, dead hands.
Post-Mission: We’re gonna go back inside this map to look for a number of
things; the first is the Barrens right next to the river; we’re looking for two
Hellhounds. They’ll come at level three, and I usually give one of them to Leia.
The other one will sit in your extras until the Highland of Soathon, where we’ll
trade it for the Pedra of Bane. Also of note here is the first time we can find
wild Hawkmen. I like to get a few of these guys because I like a sky unit and
the tactics provided by them. You should probably decide on how you want your
sky unit to look, if you want to play to the mid-to-late game with a pair of
Cockatrices caught at the Audvera Mines (so you only need one Hawkman), or if
you want something more diverse like my preferred unit, shown here;
-- Gho --
-- -- Rav/Vul
Wyv -- Rav/Vul
I tend to favour this unit more because having two large characters on my unit
hurts my overall damage potential too much, and making room for a ghost helps me
to take down opposing unit’s action economies. It also helps that these lower
level undead have “free healing” baked into them, which is why I always leave
them unguarded in the middle column to draw attacks onto them that virtually
roll off of them. Meanwhile the Wyrm/Wyvern has crazy evasion rates and hits
quite hard, and your Raven/Vultan (I prefer Ravens, but it’s really two sides of
the same coin honestly) give you a good home for the potent one-handed
axe/hammers you come across. This unit also shines much more in our mod, as part
of the large creature rebalancing project, as well as Ravens/Vultans getting
three attacks to help keep up with the top master classes. You can find Hawkmen
just by walking the road between your HQ north to the first stronghold on the
right side of the map, and back. It’s a really simple process.
