Lots of fun! Heavily reminiscent of Ogre Battle, it reminds me of playing Ogre Battle 64 as a kid. Definitely recommend picking this up if you like the hybrid tactics/strategy niche that Advance Wars, Wargroove, etc. occupy, particularly the ones with an RPG component e.g. Ogre Battle.

The graphics are fun, though I would say there's a slight stylistic clash between the large, anime-styled high-resolution portraits and the simplistic character sprites. I'm aware this is hardly atypical in this kind of game, but personally I prefer more consistency with aesthetic e.g. Chrono Trigger.

The story seems pretty generic and predictable so far, particularly for those who played Ogre Battle 64, as it's seemingly set up almost in exactly the same way.

The game systems are solid. Balancing squads around capacity, unit count and capabilities, and artifacts, as well as picking your way through the talent tree, makes for engaging decision-making possibilities. I'm still having fun imagining new squads that I can build (DRAGON RIDERS!). However, at the point I'm at (mission 12/?, played time 15 hours but several hours of that is just messing with my army) my units are starting to reach tier 3 in their classes, but I feel like I'm at most halfway through the game, if not less. Either it's shorter than I'm imagining or your units all cap out relatively early, which is a bit disappointing as it would be nice to have them continue to get stronger in anything other than stats into the late game.

However, it feels easy for squads to fall behind. Sybil for instance is badly struggling for me, most of my units are ~18-19 but her squad is still ~12 and every time she tries to face enemies she gets focused and obliterated and limps along not contributing for the rest of the mission, ending up even further behind. Even new recruits are as strong or stronger than her current units. It almost feels like the correct solution is to replace all her units with new recruits or even give up on her entirely , but neither of those feel great. I wish there was some way of power leveling lower-strength squads to bring them up to par.

It can be hard to know exactly how many squads to build, what mercenaries to hire, etc. since so far every time I do a mission my number of deployable squads has gone up and I'm not sure what the cap is yet. I'm used to playing these games with the squads lead by unique characters and new recruits being used to fill out squads as they expand, not forming new squads from whole cloth with recruits/mercenaries.

Conversations add depth to characters and their relationships, but feel somewhat shallow. As far as I can tell they happen automatically at certain junctures in the story, as opposed to something like Fire Emblem where characters' relationships develop as they work together in battle. Still, they're very much appreciated by how they flesh out the various people you meet. I wish there were more!

Menuing is a bit of a chore. Army management in particular can be fiddly; for instance to change a unit's class, you have to go into Organize Army, Squad Operations, select squad, Change Class, select unit, click through the popup that tells you what your class already is (?), select class, Promote, confirm. It feels like it would be better if you could just select the unit you want, automatically seeing its status, then see any further options available.

The in-game tutorial and resources could use more development. It can be a struggle to figure out how some mechanics e.g. movement type, unit capabilties, Ambush, etc. work, as their explanations are always brief and sometimes even buried in other topics that seem only tangentially related.

Autosave is only when you finish battles, make sure you save if you do any army management afterwards before quitting! (I lost 30+ minutes of messing about with my squads this way 😥) The game does warn you about this so it's my fault for making the mistake but it still sucked.

The game has some flaws but they're ultimately minor and do not outweigh the fun I've been having. This game is a solid entry in the relatively niche strategy/tactical RPG genre.

Lots of fun! Heavily reminiscent of Ogre Battle, it reminds me of playing Ogre Battle 64 as a kid. Definitely recommend picking this up if you like the hybrid tactics/strategy niche that Advance Wars, Wargroove, etc. occupy, particularly the ones with an RPG component e.g. Ogre Battle. The graphics are fun, though I would say there's a slight stylistic clash between the large, anime-styled high-resolution portraits and the simplistic character sprites. I'm aware this is hardly atypical in this kind of game, but personally I prefer more consistency with aesthetic e.g. Chrono Trigger. The story seems pretty generic and predictable so far, particularly for those who played Ogre Battle 64, as it's seemingly set up almost in exactly the same way. The game systems are solid. Balancing squads around capacity, unit count and capabilities, and artifacts, as well as picking your way through the talent tree, makes for engaging decision-making possibilities. I'm still having fun imagining new squads that I can build (DRAGON RIDERS!). However, at the point I'm at (mission 12/?, played time 15 hours but several hours of that is just messing with my army) my units are starting to reach tier 3 in their classes, but I feel like I'm at most halfway through the game, if not less. Either it's shorter than I'm imagining or your units all cap out relatively early, which is a bit disappointing as it would be nice to have them continue to get stronger in anything other than stats into the late game. However, it feels easy for squads to fall behind. Sybil for instance is badly struggling for me, most of my units are ~18-19 but her squad is still ~12 and every time she tries to face enemies she gets focused and obliterated and limps along not contributing for the rest of the mission, ending up even further behind. Even new recruits are as strong or stronger than her current units. It almost feels like the correct solution is to replace all her units with new recruits or even give up on her entirely , but neither of those feel great. I wish there was some way of power leveling lower-strength squads to bring them up to par. It can be hard to know exactly how many squads to build, what mercenaries to hire, etc. since so far every time I do a mission my number of deployable squads has gone up and I'm not sure what the cap is yet. I'm used to playing these games with the squads lead by unique characters and new recruits being used to fill out squads as they expand, not forming new squads from whole cloth with recruits/mercenaries. Conversations add depth to characters and their relationships, but feel somewhat shallow. As far as I can tell they happen automatically at certain junctures in the story, as opposed to something like Fire Emblem where characters' relationships develop as they work together in battle. Still, they're very much appreciated by how they flesh out the various people you meet. I wish there were more! Menuing is a bit of a chore. Army management in particular can be fiddly; for instance to change a unit's class, you have to go into Organize Army, Squad Operations, select squad, Change Class, select unit, click through the popup that tells you what your class already is (?), select class, Promote, confirm. It feels like it would be better if you could just select the unit you want, automatically seeing its status, then see any further options available. The in-game tutorial and resources could use more development. It can be a struggle to figure out how some mechanics e.g. movement type, unit capabilties, Ambush, etc. work, as their explanations are always brief and sometimes even buried in other topics that seem only tangentially related. Autosave is only when you finish battles, make sure you save if you do any army management afterwards before quitting! (I lost 30+ minutes of messing about with my squads this way 😥) The game does warn you about this so it's my fault for making the mistake but it still sucked. The game has some flaws but they're ultimately minor and do not outweigh the fun I've been having. This game is a solid entry in the relatively niche strategy/tactical RPG genre.