Not even Izuna and Shino's presence can hide the fact that this is a very, VERY awful fighting game. Skip it.
The game is set in a faraway land where characters imbued with magical power-amplifying devices called "Windies" are fighting each other in order for the strongest one to find a way to stop them from being used as political tools. Most of that background is taken from the in-game manual, and not expanded upon much in characters' pre- and post-fight dialogue, as the conversations are generic enough that they could easily be slipped into other fighting games. What little exposition there is in the game is riddled with awkward sentence construction ("someone dressed as you are came through here"), repeated phrases (expect to see the same "Here I come" taunt used very often by several different characters), and the occasional dropped period or comma.
Fighting game fans will likely get a sense of deja-vu upon their first look at the character roster. Swordsman Kibikou looks like a cross between Guilty Gear's Ky Kiske and Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, while Jack, Stin and Big look a lot like Slayer, Bridget and Potemkin, respectively. Even Lapis, the muscular and red-skinned final boss, comes off as a cheap copy of Magaki from The King of Fighters XI.
All of the characters, original-looking or not, each come with their own assortment of punches, kicks, and special attacks. Pretty standard stuff for a fighting game, and it doesn't get much more complicated than that. The only real addition to the combat system is that all characters have the ability to dash toward or away from their opponents, or hover in mid-air with the touch of a button. The simplest of the commands are the only thing that work consistently, as the game has trouble keeping up when you press two or more buttons, making special moves a pain to execute. It isn't as if you'll need to use any of them, as you can easily win just about every battle (including the final boss) by mashing the strong attack button. The computer opponent rarely seems to be interested in blocking anything you throw at them, leaving you open to scratch away at their health until they die, even without exploiting the glitches that surface during battle. They still fall for the same tricks no matter what difficulty level you're playing on, and Windy tries to compensate for this by increasing the amount of damage they can take, and also making their attacks hit harder. All this manages to do is artificially extend the length of a fight (instead of winning it in 20 seconds on Normal, you might do it in 30 on Mania).
Game balance and control issues aren't the only problems this game has. The characters and background are drawn decently, but there's a severe lack of animation among any of them, making even the most frantic of fights feel awkward and sluggish. The sound is no better, as aside from the repetitive background music, there are only a select few sounds for punch and kick hits, and each character has only two or three voice samples that you're likely to get tired of hearing over and over again.
Aside from being able to unlock Izuna, Shino or Lapis for play, there are no other bonuses to be found in the game. No alternate costumes, no extra challenges, and no play modes other than Story Mode, Training Mode or Versus Mode (you can play against another person while using only a single DS game card, but why bother?). At the very least, you can unlock everything there is to see with only two or three playthroughs. You can also attempt to play through as every character to see their ending, but all you're rewarded with at the end is a mugshot of your victorious character followed by a poorly-translated account of their activities after winning the final battle.
It took almost two years for this game to make it to the United States from Japan, and the lack of polish in all areas of development in this title is astounding. The conversations are generic; the localization is dull and riddled with errors; the characters are derivative; the controls are unresponsive; the computer opponents are suicidal at best; and worst of all, the actual fights are simply unexciting. Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from this game as possible. Izuna, Shino, and your Nintendo DS will thank you for it.