Spartan Total Warrior

A warrior. A hero. A legend.

Spartan: Total Warrior is a Spin-Off action game of the Total War series, developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega. No, you will not be controlling entire Spartan armies while battling Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. Whereas the Total War games traditionally focus upon historical and legendary scenarios with each installment, this game takes on a much more liberal approach to history, by having the Romans invade Sparta several hundred years before they did in Real Life, with Tiberius as Emperor and Crassus as a well-known military commander. Drawing elements from the Greek and Roman mythology, Spartan: Total Warrior shares a lot in common with God of War, while giving a fairly fresh take on the gameplay.

You take control of a lone, nameless Spartan warrior, fighting alongside his Greek allies against the Roman Empire, while being guided by Ares. The story is told using a five-act, three-scene structure made popular by Ancient Greek plays. The gameplay itself features fast-paced hack and slash combat, and you're able to switch between attacking one enemy, to damaging several groups of enemies over a large area around. The former is fast and causes the most amount of damage, whereas the latter attack is slower, but damages multiple enemies at a time with a moderate power. Combat is focused on large battles with over a hundred combatants, with the player taking on volumes of opponents at once, with you often completely surrounded and outnumbered. In the midst of battle, a small flash is placed on an attacking enemy's weapon to indicate the danger of an impending strike. Care must be taken to block incoming attacks in between offensive blows, balancing offense and defense to avoid taking damage. The player's shield can also be used to shove enemies back and maintain control of the flow of combat in crowded scenarios.

As the player progresses through the game, the Spartan will unlock new weapons, including a basic sword and shield, a basic bow, an upgraded sword and shield (medusa shield), dual swords (blades of Athena), an upgraded bow, a hammer (Death-Biter) and a spear (Spear of Achilles).

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Tropes present within the game:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The penultimate level. Said sewer eventually leads to a prison and slave camp just under the Colosseum. And an angry Minotaur.
• Action Girl: Electra.
• Anachronism Stew: Where do we start? The army of Sparta led by Leonidas fighting the armies of the Roman emperor Tiberius?
• An Axe to Grind: The bigger barbarians and gladiators use axes.
• Artistic License History:

Clive Gratton: Because of the success of the Total War brand, there are legions of fans who adore the historically accurate nature of those games - and we spent an amazing time in order to do that right. But that led to pressure being exerted on Spartan‍ '​s design. Some people were always going "That's not strictly historically accurate." It was like that, and then the moment you go "I love Ray Harryhausen." At which point everyone goes "I Give Up!" and then the design can go free. As if it's historically accurate, one man isn't going to kill tens of thousands of people by the time you've finished. That's not really a realistic premise for a game. The moment you make that decision that you can have myth and legend in a game, it frees you up to work out how you can do that in terms of gameplay.

• Authority Equals Asskicking
• Automatic Crossbows: The Ballista. Even if repeating ballista existed in that time, they probably did not function like machineguns as in this game.
• Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever: Talos, who is also the first boss.
• Back From the Dead: Sejanus during the attack on the Gates of Saturn.
• Bad Boss/We Have Reserves: Sejanus leaves some of his own men to die at the hands of his undead mooks in Troy.
• Barbarian Tribe: Beowulf leads one against a village in the northern Badlands.
• Beard of Evil: Crassus and Beowulf.
• Big Bad: Ares is ultimately the one behind everything.
• Big Good: Leonidas, King of Sparta.
  • Later on, after his home country is sacked, The Spartan takes up the role.
• Bloodier and Gorier: This is technically the first Total War game to get an M rating. And indeed, you can decapitate and even gib enemies using rage and power attacks. Not to mention that any Infernus and Spartan sapper will always explode bloodily whenever he dies.
• The Caligula: Tiberius.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Spear of Achilles.
• Climax Boss: The Hydra, Sejanus, and Ares.
• Co-Dragons: Implied to be the case with Crassus and Sejanus, to Tiberius.
• Cool Versus Awesome: Spartans vs. Romans.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Spartans are blue, normal Roman soldiers are red and the Praetorian Guard are Purple. Everyone else is either gray or white.
• Dem Bones: One of the many mook types.
• Disney Villain Death/Driven to Suicide: Tiberius.
• Doppelganger Attack: In the final boss battle, Ares, can split himself in three. The difference between the original and the two copies is that the copies get killed with one hit.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Aelius Sejanus, ringleader of the Praetorian Guard, is far more competent than his emperor, Tiberius.
• Dual-Wielding: The Praetorian Carnifex and Assassin dual-wield their weapons.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Spartan. Then again, he doesn't actually have any other name for people to call him.
• Elite Mook: The Praetorian Guard, but especially the Carnifexes. Also Roman Centurions, Beowulf's berserkers, and gladiators.
• Evil Counterpart: The Nemesis.
• Foreshadowing: Ares's lines whenever you kill enough enemies hint at him being the true Big Bad.
  • Sejanus declares that the Romans are fighting for Mars. Mars is the Roman name for Ares.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Praetorian Infernus use them.
• Final Boss: Ares.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero: The Spartan.
  • The Lancer: Castor
  • The Big Guy: Pollux.
  • The Smart Guy: Archimedes.
  • The Chick: Electra, the Amazon.
• Giant Mook: The appropriately-named barbarian gigantes. One of the unlockables for the Arena Challenge mode is an allied gigantes.
• Gladiator Games: Gladiators appear in the last two levels as enemies who attack both the Spartan, his allies, the Romans, and the captured barbarians. Plot-wise, Tiberius attends one of these off-screen.
• The Glory That Was Rome
• Harryhausen Movie: Not unlike God of War, only with the scale of, well, Total War and Dynasty Warriors.
• Heroic Mime: Subverted. The Spartan only speaks in cutscenes.
• Hydra Problem: The Hydra itself, awakened by Sejanus, serves as the boss of the final chapter in Act 2. It can only be attacked using a powered Spear of Achilles and flaming arrows. Played straight in that if you don't blow up any of its decapitated necks in time, it will regenerate.
• Just Following Orders: Emperor Tiberius pulls this card near the end of the final level.
• Kill Sat: Cassius' Medusa weapon functions in much the same way, forcing the player to avoid petrifying laser beams throughout the whole stage and ultimately the boss fight with Cassius.
• La Résistance: Archimedes' Athenian Resistance who fight with their... bare fists.
• Large and In Charge: The taller the Roman/barbarian/gladiator, the stronger he is, usually with better weapons and armor to back it up.
• A Load of Bull: The boss in the penultimate level is the Minotaur, which escaped from Roman captivity into the Absurdly Spacious Sewer which is crawling with both Roman soldiers and escaped gladiators.
• Living Statue: Talos.
• The Man Behind the Man: Ares.
• Melee à Trois: Sometimes you will not only fight the Romans, but also undead soldiers, barbarians, and gladiators, who will fight each other at any chance they get.
• Necromancer: Sejanus, curiously enough. Ares can also resurrect any of the dead enemies in the Colosseum.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sejanus taunts the player by revealing that Sparta fell when he and his allies left the city to find the Spear of Achilles.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Pollux.
• Praetorian Guard
• Putting on the Reich: The Romans wear helmets that suspiciously resemble the German stahlhelm, when compared to their real-life helmets. Not only that, their aquila gets modified so it resembles the Nazi Reichsadler (which itself was derived from the Roman aquila), too.
• The Queen's Latin: All of the Romans sound like Englishmen.
• Ring of Fire: The first fight of the Beowulf stage has him summoning one around the player and his berserkers.
• Rule of Cool: The whole game runs on this.
• Shock and Awe: The Eye of Apollo lightning turret, which you use on Ladon.
• Shout-Out: The dev teams have cited Braveheart, Gladiator, and Jason and the Argonauts as inspirations for the game. And it shows.
• Spell My Name with a "The": The Spartan.
• Stock Scream: Whenever someone dies.
• Storming the Fortress: The Spartan army attacks the Gates of Saturn, which leads to Rome.
• Stuff Blowing Up
• Taken for Granite: The Medusa shield's area attack turns everyone around The Spartan to stone. The boss fight with Cassius (and the stage leading up to it) has Medusa herself hooked up to a giant machine to weaponize her gaze, causing the player to have to avoid it or suffer a One-Hit Kill.
• Teleport Spam: Sejanus is very fond of these.
• The Unfought: Emperor Tiberius. Instead, the Final Boss is Ares.
• Treacherous Advisor: Ares.
• You Have Failed Me, Spartan: Said word-for-word whenever the player dies.
• Your Mom: In Act 3 Chapter 2, Pollux says upon seeing Sejanus riding the undead dragon, Ladon.

Pollux: "Hey, Sejanus! Your mother's even uglier than you!"