Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen/Alignment & Reputation

Ogre Battle can be considered a Strategy-RPG game because of two important elements that affect gameplay and depend on what role the player decides to take. These two elements are Alignment and Reputation.

Alignment

In Ogre Battle alignment indicates how good or evil a character is. The scale runs from 0 to 100, the higher the number, the more good the character is.

When characters with high alignment liberate towns, it will raise your reputation (high charisma is also required). Characters with high alignment will be weak against dark attacks but strong against white attacks. They will fight better in the day and worse at night. Alignment can be raised by defeating enemies stronger than yourself, defeating ghosts and other dark creatures, and drawing tarot cards which raise your alignment directly. Once your alignment is high it is recommended that you not exceed the level of the enemies you are fighting, keep even with them. Characters which naturally start out with high alignment include clerics, knights, angels, and samurais.

Low alignment characters are more evil. They fight better at night and are weak against light attacks. Liberating towns with these type of characters will lower your reputation, especially if their charisma is also low. Alignment will drop when you defeat high alignment characters such as clerics and angels or when you defeat characters who are much weaker than you. Do not liberate towns with them unless you want an undesirable ending. There is nothing wrong with having these types of characters. One benefit of using low alignment characters is that you can raise your levels as high as you want and don't have to worry about lowering your alignment because it is already at rock bottom. Characters with naturally low alignment include ghosts, skeletons, and demons. Human characters such as wizards and ninjas have moderately low alignment but they can go either way. Evil Ones are human characters with very low alignment.

The initial level of alignment decides the starting skills of the Opinion Leader, as well as the starting members of your army, that joins you at the end of the first stage.

A good mix of high and low alignment soldiers is the best way to beat the game. Just keep low alignment characters with low and high with high. Just use your low alignment characters to slaughter enemy units while your high alignment characters travel the map liberating towns.

Reputation

Reputation is displayed in a gauge in the top-right corner of the screen. Unlike alignment, reputation is a single value given to your whole army, i.e. single characters have not an individual reputation.

There are 13 different endings, 12 of which depend mostly on your final reputation level; the 13th ending is specific for the special stage, Dragon's Haven.

Also, there are 18 special characters you can recruit. Of these, eight will join the Rebels only if their reputation is high, while two will join only if the reputation is low.

When a unit with high alignment liberates a city or temple, your army's reputation will increase. On the contrary, when a low-alignment unit liberates a city or temple, reputation will decrease. When the Imperial troops take back a city or temple, your reputation will decrease.