Not bad for the first DS RTS
Gameplay: As I said, there's turn based, real time, and minigame combat combined. Basically, you choose your character (the diplomat or the war monger), and you're given a risk style board. You're given about 4 or 5 armies with which to take over the entire continent. During your turn, you move an army onto either a gray area, where you automatically take the province, a yellow area or green area, where you can either try to negociate surrender or just attack (or possibly castle siege, more on that later), or your brother's province (either red or blue), in which you may only attack. negociating is merely picking strong arm or negociate, and the chance of success seems to depend on the option, the morale, and the stamina of the enemy province. Also, if you choose the diplomat brother, he seems to be able to negociate better.
If you attack, you're thrown into a small scenario (or the battle is done randomly, depending on what you choose), which might be elimination or getting to a banner to capture it. you're given 5 archers, 5 spearmen, and 5 swordsmen to do your mission. THe controls are done like they should be, with dpad scrolling, touch screen selecting troops, and using the a, b, and x keys for hotkeys for troops. Supposedly, there are voice commands, as the options say, but i havent figured that out yet, and the instructions dont help.
After the battle, the enemy general may try to escape. You're then givin a little shooting minigame where you ride after the enemy general, dodging arrows, and trying to shoot him with your own arrows. If successful, you'll get more honor points.
Honor points are used to either make your troops better, or hire an assassin. If you hire an assassin, you pick a province to atatck, then wait. Within a minute or so the ninja strikes. You're then given a small fighting minigame to defeat the general. Its a bit hard, as the ai seems too computer responsed, and thus i dont suggest using this option.
Another way that you may take a province is castle siege, where you're given 2 ballistas and you have to protect your catapult from archer swhile it attacks the castle. The aiming is a bit akward, but the minigame would be too eays if the controls were perfect anyway. If you pick off all the archers or your catapult destroys the gate, you win the province.
Another minigame is ship battles, which occur at random times when ships on the sea meet. you basically use ballistas to attack archer son an enemy ship. It's much easier than the castle minigame though.
When it's the enemy's turn, all their battles are random, unless they attack you. THey do tend to run out of armies though, which is a pretty bad bug, as it dulls up the game if only you're attacking (and thus will definitely win). When he attacks you, you're given the opposite scenario as if you were attacking, meaning you're either defending your troops or stopping the enemy from getting to a banner.
You win by getting all of the provinces. There's also multiplayer, but none of my friends have this game, so I don't know how good it is.
Graphics: Well, the models are pretty nice, and the textures are mediocre (they suck for certain areas though, like the attacking the general minigame), and sometimes grainy. They could be better. THe animations are kinda funny and quirky, but work nicely. However, the levels dont have much scenery to them, and this can be a bit of a downer. Otherwise though, they arent too bad.
Sound: The sound is alright. Little bits of music here and there, with ok quality, nothign special. Attackign sounds can get annoying, as a rioting sound plays whenever you order an attack. Basically, the sounds are as mediocre as the graphics.
Value: It might start geting boring after a few playthroughs, as the enemy ai is stupid and doesnt mix up the game at all. Also, you seem to always win, which isnt much fun. However, if you have a friend with this game, it's worth keeping, as i imagien a human opponent would be more challenging and interesting to play.
Tilt: I like the game, and can forgive the repetitiveness. It has a bit fo a charm, so im keeping the tilt at 8, not too low, not too high>
All in all, anyone who likes strategy and has a ds would do well to at least try the game out. If not buy it. It's not the greatest gam eof al ltime, but it's fun while it lasts.