Recent reviews by Tytalus

Games has some serious performance issues, including crashes, and the dialogue is terrible. But the combat is very cool.

Great game... much more economics based than previous PDS games

Overall:
Its a good game. Though more accurately, I'd say it is a very good game, that is struck through with some oddities. I think whether you enjoy it will be mostly down to your tolerance of oddities.

Combat:

The obvious comparison is to Xcom. I would say it is better than Xcom. Now that's a big call, so let me explain:
- Start with Xcom combat
- Add the best turn order mechanic I've seen: Each character has time between attacks. So a fast character might get one turn every 30 ticks, while a slow character might get one turn per 40 ticks. Then add a range of abilities to let you move faster or slow your enemies. This leads to situation where you might make a character to a partial move (allowing them to jump the turn order, before getting them to do a special attach on an enemy to push that enemy down the turn order, allow your other characters to attack.
- Add a bunch of special abilities, giving greater depth than Xcom: So rather than just "shoot" or "overwatch", the characters have a bunch of abilities that much more influence by final fantasy than Xcom.... they are much more spell-like.

Character progression:

This is more closely aligned to Final fantasy tactics than Xcom. It follows the JRPG line of huge customization and loads of combos and stats. As best I can tell there are about 500 skills that can be unlocked and applied to your characters. I've only just skimmed the surface of character development, but its very impressive so far.

This is then overlaid with the usual inventory aspect of JRPGs, and a bit of base building.

Theme:

Its anime. Its Korean anime. This may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you like. If (like me) you don't watch/play a lot of anime, then you are going to find some oddities. It feels like I've walked into a world of established conventions and stereotypes, and I don't understand any of them. A little like watching a Bollywood movie, seeing everyone suddenly burst into song, and thinking wtf just happened there. Or for that matter, watching an american sitcom and hearing canned laughter when you're not used to it.

It means everything feels strange. Strange story, strange characters, strange motivations. You might find that refreshing and new. You might find it annoying. I think it depends more on you than the game.

Anime also means anime art and characters. So a fairly gormless teenage boy lead, surrounded by inexplicably attractive women. It does avoid the blatant fan-service of some anime. Its also a bit sci-fi-fantasy in the spirit of many JRPGs. Expect characters with big swords, casting spells.

Translation:

The translation is a bit rough, but it is passable. There were a lot of complaints about this earlier in EA. I'm fine with it. But native English speakers will notice consistent oddities, you can't deal with imperfect english then you'll likely get annoyed.

Oddities:

There are some definite oddities in the game. The storyline is weird. I'm not really sure whether than is the fact it is Korean anime and I don't get the conventions, or its just weird. Weird is refreshing to me so far in the game. But if you find weird annoying, be warned.

It feels a bit indy... in an awkard UI kind of way. Missions are very long, and there doesn't seem to be a way to save during them. A few things seem a bit clunky.

They have chosen poor images for the store page. For a long time I avoided this game as I though it was some form of semi-action JRPG. It isn't. It is solidly TBT in gameplay.

Summary:
I'm really enjoying it. It feels fresh, with huge mechanical depth. I see it as the slightly cross-eyed love child of Xcom and Final Fantasy.

Its a really good Assassin's Creed. Its a really good open world adventure. Its an absolutely outstanding historic sandbox. Go on, have a run around Ptolemaic Egypt.

Combined with Field of Glory 2, this is really rather good.

Best Total War ever.

Its a solid Paradox Grand Strategy wargame. Its not as good as CK2. Its much better than the steam user reviews suggests. 7/10.

An excellent game. The atmosphere and theming is exactly 40K, but with the unusual twist that there are characters with actual character. Centering the game around Adeptus Mechanicus rather than the overdone orks/eldar/space marines trio was a very good choice. Receiving the usual collection of mission instructions from a collection of tech-priests that can only be described as unhinged is wonderful, and their dialogue is a treat.

On top of this, add a set of core mechanics that mesh together beautifully. The strategic layer combines a mini-rogue-like exploration component and a party and character development system that has depth closer to an RPG that a TBS. The tactical layer takes its cues from good modern turn-based games like X-com, but is different enough that it is its own game. Cover and positions are downplayed, whereas use of powers and reinforcements is emphasized.

Given its relatively modest price, it gets two thumbs and multiple mechadendrites up.

It's a pretty good total war game.

Excellent game. Totally addictive.