Vanillaware rarely disappoints and this entry on their catalog is no different - this is a great strategy / tactics game with beautifully hand-drawn graphics, solid OST and interesting game design choices & feedback loop.

For anyone who haven't played it or want to try a tactics game, this game is a must, a solid entry that scratches the itch left by classics such as FFT and Fire emblem.

This game will keep you hooked for most part of it, however there are a couple of things to note:

Pros:
- Exceptionally beautiful graphics.
- Solid soundtrack, with a few bangers that really stand out.
- Good gameplay loop, you'll be hooked to come back and keep expanding.
- If you enjoy min/maxing equipments and strategies of your units, this game is for you. You'll probably spend more time in menus rather than in-battle (which is a good thing if you like those things, that's why I'm listing it as pro).
- Fully voice acted.
- Interesting character stories and development through rapports and epilogues.
- A LOT of love and affection put in this game through development, you can see on every detail, graphic and decision they made. Which make this stand out as a product in a sea of modern garbage.
- Relatively easy (also a con).
- Solid tutorials.
- Expands on the tactics/strategy formula with a couple of new ideas that are interesting and work well.
- Interesting equipment and accessories which quickly let you experiment with different builds.
- Options to free/absolve or execute a captured enemy leader and recruiting him/her on your side.
- Lots of side quests to expand and improve your choices and characters.
- Creating and combining units, min/maxing them is fun.

Cons:
- Each continent you are required to clear becomes quickly very formulaic, they repeat the same patterns and challenges with different skins. This leaves the game feeling a bit shallow and uninspired. After a couple of hours you already know what to expect from each continent and there are very very few twists along the way.
- The battle system is good but as soon as you get the grasp on how unit combinations work, you rarely "watch" the battles again because there's no real incentive to do so unless you want it for fun or to learn what's going wrong on your strategy/composition.
- The stages are 80% similar with few twists or having the IA surprising you with a different strategy rather than rushing head-on against you. The major stages (related to main quests) are a bit of exception on this.
- Sometimes you'll have to grind materials a bit if you want to liberate every town or complete all bridge-quests. This is not a real issue but the grind becomes old easily.
- The story is not exceptional, it's very basic and straightforward. The game tries to build a intricate politic system and different conflicts but fails to really develop them more than the obvious.
- VERY formulaic in some other aspects rather than the continents as I mentioned before. Examples: many many scenes where a soldier/scout warns the military enemy leader that you are coming and the enemy leader going "heh, I was waiting for this...let them come". Which becomes old and uninspired quickly.
- The normal/hard difficulty aren't that challenging. I haven't played on NG+ though.
- Some units combination suggestions are made through NPC dialogue at the overworld map, however it would be nice to have an in-menu game chart or something simplifying their synergy.
- Enemies and bosses in general don't pose a challenge (with the exception of the final boss and the final battle in the coliseum, which if you know a bit of some mechanics you can cheese through it).
- Pacing drags a bit, Vanillaware's games suffer from this notoriously - you'll always will be tasked to go through a series of probations and things you need to collect which gatekeep you from accessing the big bad. In this sense, this game sometimes feels tiresome and you'll be thinking "Oh God I enjoy this game but I want it to end already".

Great game nonethless, one of the heavy hitters of 2024 if you like jRPGs.