A refreshing new combat system for SRPGs that is punishing at first glance but turns into a solid game .
The games unique "Route Maneuver System" is a relatively simple system where your character attacks enemies via running your character through them. The more moves your character has, the more chances he can attack, but you can can not run over a route which your taking so while you can attack multiple enemies, you can attack multiple enemies in a single turn, but only once per character. Also the facing matters so many times you have to judge whether you attack an enemy front on and maybe be able to possibly hit an extra enemy, or do most consistent damage by going in from the side. There are "tank" units in the game who will only allow a character to pass through them once and not be able to attack beyond them (using a skill called Zone of Control or ZoC). These will be the focal point of your team because the game also has an aggro system where the more heroic points (think Threat) that a character generates, the better that character is but also is more likely to be the first target in an attack. The enemies will prioritize killing off the characters with higher heroic points. This system makes you very aware of where all your units are and makes for some really fun battles, that although difficult, makes you wanna keep going after it again and again.
Speaking of that difficulty, this game is hard. Almost every single battle you will be doing over again multiple times. Luckily, so long as your main character doesn't die, you keep the exp, so each time you try a new approach, you get a little stronger. This also makes for grinding by having a character you want to level get a few opening attacks before its taken out or out of mana, and just restarting the battle. Normally id say that's cheap, but at certain points when you don't think your party's cast is optimal for a particular battle, its mandatory (especially for mages who can only attack a few times at low levels due to a low mana pools with high mana cost spells). Even when you think you've got the game down pat, you'll end up choreographing every single detail of a battle just to barely win it. When a character is killed though, they just get 1/2 stats for the next battle (since they are injured) and cant go on Errands if they aren't used in the next battle. I found myself being drawn back into every battle because it was challenging, which is something I enjoy, but it wasn't cheaply difficult. Most of the restarts were due to me not knowing the range of an enemy attack, or not knowing some enemy reinforcement was coming. Unfortunately, the game does not provide you with an enemies range and no information on the range of skills. A lot of progress in a battle comes from trial and error and remembering how certain skills function.
For character classes, the game is pretty standard in that you have mage types (AoE damage), Calvary types (High movement), Slasher types (high attack, good movement), Archers (can move and strike from a distant a single target) , Healers (who get 1 attack skill), and the tanks (high def, Heroic point generating skills, high HP, ZoC). All though the archetypes are simple and standard, your able to customize the skills well enough that as you level, you gain skill points that you can distribute as you wish to acquire skills or level up ones youve already earned. Most of the better skills appear only after you level quite a bit up or change classes so its not a bad idea to save some up so if a skill comes along that you know will greatly benifit you, your ready to gobble it up. For the characters you dont use in the battle can still be useful since they can go on errands to buy and sell items, train up their base statistics so they might be useful later, or go on quests to find rare items (usually ones that help with promoting units).
As far as story is concerned, the basic premise (guy with memories is thrust into situation to save a kingdom that was invaded by a rival kingdom as soon it's king had died) isn't so fresh, but it gets some points as the main character is actually the Prince's body double and is asked by the dieing Prince to continue in his stead, so the main character has to keep secret that he is actually not the Prince. The game has two major paths that you can take about 2/3rds the way through the game, and once you complete the game, you can choose to do a New Game + mode and go the other route (which changes the main characters final class). A nice thing about new game + is it retains all the skills that a character earned in the previous clear (along with some gear), but not their level, so you have fun eventually fleshing out your characters with every skills available. The dialog itself isn't bad as many of the characters have their own distinct motivations and personality that you discover through out the game. Actually the weakest character dialog seems to be the main character who is devoid of personality for much of the game and really seems like generic hero #87.
Now the games Visuals and Sound wont blow you away. The graphics come in on the low end compared to other DS SRPGS. They are pretty close to the Advanced Wars series in that department. The music is also lacking. What tunes they do have are nice and pleasant, its just there is not a lot of variety. They do have some voices in battles, and the voices actors didn't make me want to strangle the character as you sometimes find, which is a plus, but all the actual dialog is done via text alone so thats the only time you really hear from them.
Over all this game was interesting enough that it kept me coming back despite the punishing difficulty. Since it was not a cheap difficultly and allows you to keep exp from previous attempts, I never felt like a part of it was absolutely impossible, but just required very careful analysis and a solid plan. The route maneuvering system I felt was a very well executed and made many of the battles enjoyable despite having to do them over and over and over. If you understand that this game will be severely kick your ass no matter how much of an SRPG vet you are, then you can enjoy it as a game with an interesting new take on SRPGs and a fun challenge. If you aren't into SRPGs or don't like challenging games where you might be redoing every battle a few times, then stay far far away from this one.