History VideoGame / OgreBattleTheMarchOfTheBlackQueen

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: ''Literally''. Having a Princess as leader of a unit will give ''all'' characters in that unit an extra attack. All units are actually improved with a Princess!

* MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: With MutallyExclusivePowerups, if you recruit Fogel, he doesn't give you his sword "Zepyulos" which is one of the four weapons needed to get the FireSeal.

* BraggingRightsReward: The Fireseal certainly ''sounds'' impressive in the item description; it was owned by the guy who had the InfinityPlusOneSword; its power rivals that of the 12 Zodiac Stones. The name seems reminiscent of that [[Franchise/FireEmblem other fantasy strategy series]]. It does nothing, however. (Later games in the series have it equippable.]]

* WarpWhistle: Two types, both consumable:

** The Dinner Bell moves all deployed units directly back to home base. Defending your HQ is important, as taking it is an InstantWinCondition for the bad guys; but you can also use one after crushing the entire enemy army to send your unneeded soldiers home, minimizing daily expenses. Then just sit and collect tribute funds from all your friendly cities for a few days. This is a great way to accrue cash in the early stages.

* DiscOneNuke: Buried treasure yields a single random item, ranging from useless (STR+3) to incredibly powerful (STR+20, fire-element). If you're lucky enough to find good equipment, you can swap it around as needed; see BagOfSharing above.

* MultipleEndings

* GenderRestrictedAbility: In most ''Ogre Battle'' games, each gender has its own set of classes, with no overlap. In the ''Tactic Ogre'' games, there is some overlap.

* HalfHumanHybrid: More like... Half-demigod hybrid. Fogel is a dragon-like humanoid, who slays dragons.

* TarotMotifs

* ElementalPowers: Plays a rather good chunk of role in the latter games. In the original, the Three Dragoons (Slust, Fenril, and Fogel) are based on this, as are the breeds of dragons - Good = Cold, Neutral = Fire, Evil = Physical.

* AntiGrinding: Done innovatively. There isn't a limit to how high you can grind a single unit, but there are consequences to doing so. First off, if a unit kills another unit that's weaker than it is, it can lose ALI and CHA. A unit with low CHA is often prevented from advancing to a higher class (as such classes represent positions of leadership), and a unit with low ALI damages your army's reputation when it liberates a town. In addition, each level fields a limited number of enemy units (though RandomEncounters with wild monsters are unlimited), so if you use one unit extensively, you can end up with a [[OneManParty One Unit Army]] that you ''have'' to use because the rest of your army CantCatchUp, which means that you may as well write it off as a permanently zero-alignment unit.

The first game of the ''OgreBattle'' series, ''Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen'', is subtitled as "Episode V". Eighty years ago, five great heroes brought peace to the continent. Fifty-five years later, one of the two surviving heroes, the mage Rashidi, teams up with Empress Endora of the Highlands to assassinate king Gran of Zenobia and his family. With this, Endora unites the continent of Zeteginea into TheEmpire. Twenty-five years later, you play a young noble who rallies the remaining Zenobian knights to start a revolution against Endora, her son Gares, and Rashidi and his evil magic. But rumors rise that Rashidi seeks to release the Ogres from the underworld, and provoke a new Ogre Battle among humans, Ogres, demons and angels!

* UrbanLegendOfZelda:
** Several sources said that battles directly affected reputation, in the same way that they affected alignment and charisma. This wasn't true. Also, amazons don't hate male leaders, at least not in any way that affects gameplay.
*** Boss battles directly affect reputation, as the winning unit liberates the headquarters the boss was defending; in addition, some bosses will hurt your reputation if you kill them, and if you haven't done the proper storyline events to save them, you'll take the reputation hit regardless. This may be the source of some of the confusion.
** Certain game mechanics are improperly represented by most guides, which are then copied by others, allowing rumours to form. For instance, Amazons do not do better in units that are all female (although characters do get stat bonuses for having compatible leaders), and attacking weaker/stronger units does ''not'' affect global "karma", just individual unit ratings.
** Sadly, almost all of those rumors arose from the official strategy guide and ''Nintendo Power'' (often NP copying the guide), which led to them being copied by the earliest internet walkthroughs, which led to them being "common knowledge," despite being completely false. You can, in fact, have a level 25 unit running around pwning lvl 10 units with no hit to your reputation whatsoever, though they will have 0 ali and 0 cha. Probably the first game is especially vulnerable to this due to its rather vague mechanics and the fact that the reputation meter, despite being a 100-point scale, is represented by a fairly small visual with no number, so playing the game the standard way may make it hard to tell just how much impact anything had on it.

* ElementalPowers: Plays a rather good chunk of role in the latter games. In the original, the Three Dragoons (Slust, Fenril, and Fogel) are based on this, as are the breeds of dragons - Good = Cold, Fire = Neutral, Evil = Physical.

* KarmaMeter: Two kinds: a meter that gives your army's overall reputation, and the "alignment" stat for individual characters.
** The "Charisma" stat also qualifies. It moves in a similar way to the "Alignment" stat.

Followed by 1999's ''Videogame/OgreBattle64'' as episode VI, and 1995's ''TacticsOgre'' as episode VII. ''TacticsOgreTheKnightOfLodis'' is a GaidenGame and not given an episode number.

** Sirius is the Dog Star; Deneb is Cygnus Alpha; Albeleo is remarkably close to Albireo, which is Cygnus Beta; Castor is Gemini Alpha and his twin Porkus should probably by written as Pollux, Gemini Beta; and Prochon is likely the translation of Procyon, which is the brightest star in Canis Minoris.

* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: Sage Rashidi, Galf and Albeleo all tell you that killing them won't do anything permanently, as long as the threat of war is present.
* BiggerBad: In a sense, the Holy Lodis Empire. It's seeming intent to invade the continent of Zeteginea eventually results in the formation of the Sacred Zeteginea Empire, and after the end, Destin and some allies go off to [[Videogame/OgreBattle64 fight it's expansions elsewhere]]

* BlackMagic: Wizardry. Yes, the traditional fantasy magic is evil: you need to have a low alignment to take the class in the first place (though don't go ''too'' far or you can't advance), it allows you to summon and make deals with demons, and can even lead you down the path to necromancy and eventual lichdom. DarkIsNotEvil and BadPowersGoodPeople ''can'' apply, however; the most notable example of this is Saradin, who has a low alignment in-game, but not only doesn't act it, explicitly calls out Albeleo as APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil.
* BlindIdiotTranslation: Shows up sometimes. Especially concerning the issue of [[SpellMyNameWithAnS the Japanese L and Rs]]. The kingdom of Holai is often called Horai. Fenril is sometimes called Fenrir. Lodis in future games is refered to in the original as "Rodisti." This can be quite confusing.

* DarkHorseVictory: The Hierophant ending of the original game. [[spoiler: Rauny becomes queen as heir to Zeteginea, your hero marries her, and Tristan goes off to fight Lodis. This is the only ending in which Rauny rules in her own right.]]
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: DoubleSubverted. [[spoiler: Empress Endora's StartOfDarkness was when she tried to form a continental alliance to protect against Lodis, got her kingdom invaded for her trouble, and allied with dark forces to protect her kingdom and conquer the continent. When you reach Zeteginea, she tries to get you to join with her against the threat of Lodis, which ''would'' be an aversion...except that she's doing this solely as a con to maintain her own power.]]
* DealWithTheDevil: You can opt to recruit the devil Galf by giving him the holy sword Brunhild, while having a low alignment and reputation. [[spoiler: Doing this can get you a special bad ending where Galf possesses you and rules the world in your name. This ending only happens if your reputation bar is less than a quarter full, so you can still avert it by rebuilding your reputation.]]
* DeathSeeker: Yushis' sister Mizal, and the shaman Norn. [[spoiler: If your reputation is high enough, you can talk Norn out of it by telling her that her boyfriend isn't dead, as she believed. Mizal... not so much.]] Tristan is infered to be doing this before you recruit him.

* ElementalPowers: Plays a rather good chunk of role in the latter games. In the original Three Dragoons (Slust, Fenril and Fogel) are based on this, as are the breeds of dragons - Good = Cold, Fire = Neutral, Evil = Physical.
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: There were six different types of offense in ''March of the Black Queen'': fire, cold, thunder, holy, dark (or evil) and physical. They clashed about how you'd expect; however, not all characters were inherently set to a particular element. Rather, each class tended to be strong in some areas and weak in others.

** Generally speaking, the element opposition is Fire - Cold, Light - Dark, Thunder - Physical. Generally one is only strong in one element of each pair.

* FourIsDeath: The Four Devas (Debonair, Figaro, Previa and Luvalon) play this straight.

** Not to mention trying to get some of the endings. Oddly, the ''worst'' ending is probably the most difficult to get, and the biggest Guide Dang It of them all. It's also really ''really'' bad for the hero.

* TheKingdom: The Kingdoms of Zenobia, Holai and Deneuve, as opposed to TheEmpire.
* KnightInShiningArmor: Lans Hamilton

* [[spoiler: NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Where Endora's fall from grace started. When it looks like the Holy Lodis Empire seems posed to invade, she appeals to the outher four Kings for an alliance to fight them off. Their response? To take this plea as a sign of weakness and invader her kingdom of Hyland. With a little help from Rashidi, Hyland not only fends them off and defeats them, but the rage from their acts brings her to path of evil]].

* OutOfCharacterMoment: [[spoiler: Prince Tristan's]] actions in the Hanged Man ending are completely at odds with his portrayal in every other scene in the game.
* PaletteSwap: To differentiate [=NPCs=] from other units of their class. Some advanced classes are also palate swaps of earlier ones.

* RebelliousPrincess: Rauny, who actually does not follow her father's MyCountryRightOrWrong stitch and oppose the Empire, and [[RunawayBride ran off from her proposed wedding from an evil baron.]]

* ShoutOut: Yasumi Matsuno loves the band Queen. Both "Ogre Battle" and "March of the Black Queen" are named after Queen songs, and the stage "The Rhyan Sea" is a reference of the Queen song "Seven Seas of Rhye". The subtitle of ''Tactics Ogre'', "Let Us Cling Together", is from another Queen song.

* ThemeNaming: Several stage bosses are named after stars. Also, The Four Devas in ''Ogre Battle'' are all named after cars — the Mitsubishi Debonair, the Nissan Figaro, the Toyota Previa and the Chrysler [=LeBaron=].

* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler: Tristan in the Hanged Man ending is ''really'' not a nice guy. You've conquered the continent for him, but [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished that very fact means that you've become a danger to his throne]], and he quietly murders you to ensure that you don't challenge his rule later. This is only for this ending, however; he's far more reasonable in the others.]]

** Several sources said that battles directly affected reputation, in the same way that they affected alignment and charisma. This wasn't true. Also, amazons don't hate male leaders, at least not in anyway that affects gameplay.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Low-[[KarmaMeter karma]] endings are bad endings. You can't hold the realm by force, [[spoiler: at least not without being taken over by Rashidi or Galf]].

* WhiteMage: Cleric, Shaman, Monks, and Paladins (in the back row) all can heal your party or kill undead. Angels (and all upgraded versions), Sylphs (fully-upgraded Pixies), Princesses and ''Liches'' get holy attacks, as does any physical attacker wielding a holy weapon.

* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: Both Sage Rashidi, Galf and Albeleo tell you that killing them won't do anything permanently, as long as the threat of war is present.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Shows up sometimes. Especially concerning the issue of the Japanese L and Rs. The kingdom of Holai is often called Horai. Fenril is sometimes called Fenrir. Lodis in future games is refered to in the original as "Rodisti." This can be quite confusing.

* LadyOfWar: Rauny Vinzalf, future queen and the first female Paladin on Zenobia. Also Fenril, one of the Three High Knights who fought in the original ''Ogre Battle''. The Opinion Leader can be this.

** Several sources said that battles directly affected reputation, in the same way that they affected alignment and charisma. This wasn't true. Also, amazons don't hate male leaders, at least not in anyway that affects gameplay.

* OurLichesAreDifferent

* StoneWall: Most monster units aren't as damaging as smaller units, but can tank more damage. Undead units completely shrug off all damage that isn't holy (which kills them in one hit).

* WhiteMage: Cleric, Shaman, Monks and Princesses.

* [[HoYay Les Yay]]: In Universe, [[PurelyAestheticGender Gender only affects the main character's sprites and endings with the ''very'' rare man/woman or pronoun]], with the result of Deneb telling the main character that she is pretty good looking, and (if spared) townsfolk on the map saying you spared her only because she was a pretty girl. Another boss suggests that you are jealous that he gets all the women.

* StellarName: Several characters in the original, including Deneb. Almost to the point of ThemeNaming.

* ThemeNaming: The Four Devas in ''Ogre Battle'' are all named after cars — the Mitsubishi Debonair, the Nissan Figaro, the Toyota Previa and the Chrysler [=LeBaron=].

* EvilSorcerer: Rashidi

* KarmaMeter: Two kinds: a meter that gives your army's overall reputation, and the "alignment" stat for individual units.

* LadyOfWar: Rauny Vinzalf, future queen and the first female Paladin on Zenobia. Also Fenril, one of the Three High Knights who fought in the original ''Ogre Battle''.

** Certain game mechanics are improperly represented by most guides, which are then copied by others, allowing rumours to form. For instance, Amazons do not do better in units that are all female, and attacking weaker/stronger units does ''not'' affect global "karma", just individual unit ratings.

* WingedHumanoid: Canopus, and every other hawkmen in general.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Shows up sometimes. Especially concerning the issue of the Japanese L and Rs. The kingdom of Holai is often called Horai. Fenril is sometimes called Fenrir. This can be quite confusing.