Not the most complex tactics game I've played, but still I found it to be very enjoyable.
STORYLINE: The story is as most of you know, the real meat behind any RPG and in this game...there's a lot of meat on it's bones. Also you better love reading, because it's old fashion text 99% of the time. Anyway your main character is Ike, a blue haired son of a famous mercinary, Greil, who wishes to one day be a strong as his old man. Sounds familiar right? Anyway, your taking on a few missions with a part of your dad's mercinary company to kind of break you in when the group's taction, Soren, comes running back early from a trip he was at down in main Crimea. Apparently, a neighboring kingdom, Daein, had unexpectantly invaded and now the country was practically done for. Being a country bumpken, this sounds a little hard to swallow so the company rounds up it's members to see what had become of their country's capital and royal family. Anyway, you don't get to far when you come across a Daein scout troop wandering the road searching for something. Anyway, unprovoked they spot, attack you, and lose. Afterward you search the area and, wow, you find a princess! Anyway princess, Elincia, is was on her way to being evacuated to the kingdom of Gallia, land of stubbern were-people, when her guards were wiped out. Ike's dad reliezes that his rag tag mercinary company might be the only protection left in the kingdom for Crimea's only heir, so they decide to remain as her escourt. Can Crimea be restored by a lone princess and a single ragtag group of fighters? Well...obviously it can, it's a Japanese made RPG after all, but's how you go about it that makes it interesting. Unlike in most tactic RPG, you do not actually recruit no-name troops and mold them to your liking. In this game decitions you make both in battle and between battles can decide what characters are discovered and willing to join you. Every character you come by has a unique past, personalities and set line of development. You don't name anybody or decide classes. Every character is treated like a major character, with relationships and everything, so at times you'll get caught up just following their lives arounds and reacting less with what Ike's veiwpoint is about. Also, anyone who dies stays dead. This effects both other characters and the ending, so make your decitions carefully.
GRAPHICS: The artwork is excellent, although not really new. It will probaby remind you of countless other Japanese styled RPGs in the past. There are a VERY few cutscenes that are nicly animated, but otherwise most of the story is told using text and drwind artwork. On the feild of pattle the characters are smooth and well animated, but again, nothing to mind blowing once you get the feel of the game.
GAMEPLAY: Like I said, the gameplay itself isn't to hard to figure out. They include a tutorial, but I found it totally useless, because there was nothing about this gameplay that a little pick up and play couldn't cure. You move guys around on a gridmap, you select from various commands (Attack, Item, Wait, Shove, Talk, Rescue...ect. All fairly self explanitory.), and you complete to goal of each battle (Beat Boss, Clear Map, Escape, Survive 10 Rounds...ect.). Nothing really new. Each unite levels on their own after they get so much experience points. You can not change class or names. You can do a little tweeking, like using stat. boosting items and equiping a character's items and picking the quality of their weapons, but other than that they pretty much level without your help as long as they fight. That doesn't make it any less fun, however, because I got to admitt, the perminate death thing can really keep you on your toes at times. I mean, it is still possible to build up those one or two characters to choose to be god like and have them wipe the feild for you, but it takes a while to do, takes exp from the rest of your allies and the AI is still not bad at exploiting such weaknesses. This game really forces to plan and think a little more because you are so restricted in how you divide your limited scources for building your army.
By the way, If you want to try the superpowered character thing, used Boyd or Oscar in the very begining for a longer spree of victories. Titania, is good, but she's more of a temporary solution that can spoil you as she doesn't get another class Oscar can be just as good given time and sure Boyd may seem lame at first, but once he hits second class, his can wipe the floor faster than most of my other characters. Other people may argue, but hey, it worked well for me.
SOUND: Cheery and catchy. Nothing that sticks in head though.
In conclusion, the game is long and takes a good bit of time out of your schedual if you really get into it. I recommend this for any age, as long as they relieze this game is not usually fast paced. Little kids...like 8 and below probably can not sit there long enough to enjoy it. It's fun and somewhat addictive if given to one of those people who like the chess side of tactics games rather than the level building. At the very least RPG fans may want to rent this one at least once.