"Ok you see my score now read why..."

I'm a Strategy RPG fan. A big one. I'm a veteran of Vandal Hearts I & II, Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle, and many others. So please trust me I really do know what makes an enjoyable Strategy RPG game. Of course these are all my personal thoughts and feelings but I only hope they can help others make up their own informed decisions.

Good

Nice graphics. Very much in the NIS style of characters, so if you loved the hyper anime style of previous NIS games you'll dig this. If you hated their look, well, you'll hate this one.

Pretty great concept. Handle all aspects of your very own fantasy RPG kingdom from town markets and garrisons to Imperial espionage as well as engaging in 60 character battles.

Bad

Utterly confusing interface. With NO tutorial and absolutely no previous experience with this series I was baffled at where to start or even how. I suppose since this is the first game in a long running Japanese series it was decided, foolishly, to not include any sort of explanation in game for anything. Character creation, unit abilities, skills, spells are all unexplained and left for you the player to guess and wonder about as you play.
But all is not lost entirely, because the manual can be a bit of a help. Though it's poorly put together and most relevant information is randomly printed in small bullet-points throughout. Mostly though you're going to be fumbling through complex menus and hoping what you're selecting is the correct choice. And all this is just before battle. In battle it's a whole new can of confusion where you have to constantly reference the manual for your first few skirmishes for any clue as what to do.

Lack of customization is another large fault I have. I figured I'd be getting into a game where I would have to develop my own style of combat by putting powerful heroes in command of variable mix of troops. But no, sadly you get 3 options for a battle group. General, Partner (basically the 2nd in command) and Troop type. You basically get 2 unique units and 28 other generic fools ALL of the same class.

Finally the load times and text to dialogue stuttering is fairly unforgivable. Honestly this game makes you spend most of your battles waiting for spell/skill effects to wear off and for the AI to reload so you can get back to the already fairly plodding battle.

I really did want to love this game and felt I gave it every chance I could. Heck I bought a PSP just to give it a whirl, so trust me when I say my outlook was very positive before playing. If you're curious about the game yourself I highly suggest waiting until you can borrow it from a friend or pick it up at a lower than $40 price so if you find that it doesn't meet your taste you won't get burnt quite as bad as I have.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/06