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Joey, Do You Like Video Games About Gladiators?

The arena. The roar of the crowd, the glory of bloody victory, the annoying fans that follow you around afterwards. Video game writers love the classical Roman Coliseum because it's an easy way to combine a narratively lucrative set-up (such as the many reasons you might want to win an arena tournament, besides cash) with what is essentially a simple-to-program gauntlet of opponents to fight.

Some games are based almost entirely around a central arena, or multiple arenas. Others will often use them in creative or entertaining ways, either attempting their own spin on it or simply making fun of the concept. Occasionally a game will place its toughest bosses in there for those players still aching for challenge after the story is complete. Here's but a few examples:

List items

  • I figured this was a game that only I and ArbitraryWater could recall, so it was kind of surreal to hear it get name-checked by Jeff on the Bombcast this week. Dark Sun is a rather maligned D&D campaign setting that tends to be overshadowed (pun intended? I mean, it's a dark sun and i don't even kn-) by Forgotten Realms. It sits forgotten in a corner like Ravenloft, Spelljammer and Birthright - which all have middling games of their own. It shouldn't though, because this DOS classic is quite a lot of fun, and begins in a deadly arena that will continually escalate the strength of the enemies you face until you either die, find a way to escape or become unfeasibly powerful.

  • Since I'm giving out shout-outs like they were Halloween candy, ahoodedfigure is a big fan of this one. Gladius is a strategy RPG where you manage your own gladiatorial team and take them around the venues of the ancient world for money and fame. It has a few elements of the sports management sim in there, though the only things you'll be kicking around are the heads of your enemies.

  • Kingdom Hearts really goes above and beyond with its arena, styled around that of the one seen in the Disney movie Hercules. Though the Olympus Coliseum has its own self-contained story arc much like the other mini-universes, it also presents a unique challenge for skilled gamers in the form of a certain FF7 cameo. Any excuse to beat the crap out of that overrated bishie, am I right? Oh, we all collectively moved on from deriding Sephiroth a decade ago? Fine. I'll just seethe quietly.

  • FF6's arena is notable for its odd system: You donate an item and fight an opponent pre-configured to that specific item. If you win, you'll get a better item in return. Maybe. If the game doesn't want to play ball with the donation you've provided, it'll summon Chupon who will sneeze you out of the arena. It's a uniquely inscrutable way to earn yourself some incredibly powerful items for that final battle.

  • Clearly Borderland's developers were slapping themselves on the forehead when they realised this most cherished of video game clichés had been left out of their game after it went gold. This was quickly rectified with the Mad Moxxi Coliseum DLC, which absolutely no-one seemed to like. Dodged a bullet there, Gearbox!

  • Suikoden vee begins, more or less, with the Sacred Games - a time-honored tradition where nobles hire mercenaries to fight each other in an arena with the prize being the hand of the future Queen of Falena, Lymsleia. Most of what happens in the game is a result of the events of this arena contest, the most significant of which being the Prince's justification for opposing his younger sister and her Queendom.

  • My favorite subversion of this arena nonsense is in the otherwise average Super Paper Mario. One of the kingdoms Mario must save is led by a King Sammer, who loves fighting contests. He forces you to partake in a 100-man tournament before you can impart some extremely pertinent news about the state of his world, which unfortunately collapses into itself before Mario can get anywhere close to completing his Herculean task.

  • Tales does a fun thing with each of its games' arena: If you beat all the opponents, which range from regular random encounter monsters to reprocessed bosses, you'll eventually encounter refugees from earlier Tales games. Since you probably left them in an overpowered state at the end of their adventures (figuratively speaking, as there's no save importing going on), this is reflected with how powerful they are as optional bosses. If nothing else, Tales is very much in accordance with its nerdier fan element and their proclivity for Top Trumps styled in-universe fantasy match-ups. I forget if this description is supposed to make us JRPG fans look good or not.

  • The very first Elder Scrolls game was named Arena and featured its namesake quite heavily. However, everyone's probably more familiar with the arena of Oblivion and the various dramas going on behind the scenes with the Gray Prince. There's also the small matter of that fan of yours, which YouTube has found numerous creative ways of killing horribly. The internet will be the internet, I suppose.

  • I guess it goes without saying that Pokémon is the biggest adherer to this trope, as every single game ends with a grand tournament against various elite trainers and, finally, your rival. Well, at least all the ones that matter. The N64 spinoffs were all based around a Colosseum too.
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