not bad.... not bad at all... this game is under appreciated.. but strictly for srpg people only...
but then again vanguard bandits was my first strategy rpg so i am a little partial towards it ..
Learning curve:
15-20 mins for strategy gamers.
around 2 hrs for the rest :P .
Pros:
1.solid characters, though the main character is a run of the mill good guy ,the other characters are well made.what i mean is they actually feel like real people and you grow to care for them as the story goes on.
2.decent story , even though its a regular "save the world" kind of story it does a good job pulling it off.also the multiple endings also were pretty good.
3.pretty good music,I liked the music a lot.
4.the ATAC's (big fighting robots :P ) were well made.some of the ATAC's have specialized attacks which have a lot of strategic use.
5.the system for attacking and moving was pretty good.
Cons:
1.The battle system was decent but had a couple of major flaws.
you couldn't level up outside of the story battles(those are the only battles that are there :P ).
2.Almost all the items should be bought .you can't find them any where in the maps.
3.No. of abilities and powers are a bit less.
4.there are no healing items and there are only 2 healing spells in the entire game.those too require a bit of specialization to obtain.
(while this makes a little logical sense as robots need to be repaired not healed)
bottom line :
if you like strategy rpgs with a decent story and rock solid characters then this one is a must play :). if not please look elsewhere