Yeah, the game is pretty good. I really liked the demo. I don't have it at my house yet, since I know I would never get any work done. I however have played it at a friends house, and it's pretty good. He's already beat it though and said it was the best Sega rpg since SoA. So needless to say I'm looking forward to jumping back into it over the holidays.

Nice write up, btw.

I'm like 15 hours into this bad boy. Hands down THE best game this year since MGS4. I wish all developers could be so creative

wow that's really pushing it to your personal tastes..but thats just what they are eh!? ;)

anywayz, game looks creative enough.

It's superb.

And I am not an experience JRPG/SRPG player.

It's just a lot of fun, and really Like you said broman, I wish there was more quality put out like this.

Oki, why the feck did they use all those names from Dutch towns for these places. I mean if they wanted a european/germanic language they could have asked the people from Panzer Dragoon. They created a complete langauge for this game series already as early as the first game. It sounds really European, and thinking (or just translating these names) into this Language would already make them sound very European yet keep things like this out. Infact.. DERFT? I know they have problems with the L but I don't think the people in Delft like that ;).

While I think the game is good it’s also partly unsatisfying for me.
The mission layouts are very stiff.
The same about the rating system which is based only on how many turns you need to accomplish the main objective of a mission. I find it kind of hard to beat the later missions on my own in the first attempt in a turn quantity that brings you an acceptable rating which makes it even frustrating as I don’t get that much bonus credits or xp and the bonuses are the major part of your rewards…
I don’t like replaying missions over and over again just to get better ratings by sorting it out with trial and error. I usually don’t care about ratings. If I beat a mission then it’s okay for me but in this game without a good rating you are fucked. You don’t have money to develop new tank parts or weapons and you don’t have exp to train your soldiers which makes beating later missions even harder unless you grind it off in skirmish missions which is replaying missions again.
A guide let you beat any mission in less than 5 turns pilling tons of credits and xp but that could hardly called playing the game.
The cover system is simply flawed. Any unit crouching behind sandbags gets a cover bonus regardless from which direction it is attacked. That makes flanking hiding enemies completely futile as covered units need a shit load of hits to be defeated. The only way is to blow up the cover undoing their defense bonus.
While enemies are always quick to shot at you while you are in the action mode your own units are fucking lame in doing the same. Even worse an enemy unit started shooting at you is allowed to finish this attack even if you entered aiming mode. Your own units attack however is cancelled the very moment the enemies starts an attack.
The weapon upgrades are strait forward and therefore shallow as a puddle offering not much verity, the same about the level system.
The “Tales of” like skit face dialogs are tiresome as you need to confirm every single sentence. The conversations are sometimes hard to bear and I even like animes.
The game sometimes tries to give the empire a human touch but generally it fails miserably and simply displays them as the inhuman villain you need to defeat in order to rescue your country from dictatorship.
The subtitles often differ from the Japanese voices when it comes to short sentences.
On the other hand the cutscenes are nicely done, the Japanese voices are okay, the tank upgrades allows your own combinations, the art style is unique and beautiful, the story is predictable but solid and keeps you going.

Well I’m not thru it yet (Mission 14 of 18 atm) but I have mixed feelings about this game. Consider that I’m not too good with SRPGs.

It's a pity that the first 10 mins are also in the demo. Hope you get the other clips up soon!

this game is really awesome, it reminds me the old Sega masterpieces,I hope a sequel will be announced soon!

not really...no different from people proclaiming something like Gears 2 as the best thing ever...

I'm still a little unsure on this game. I mean I enjoyed Final Fantasy tactics well enough, just wish these types of games would have some sort of overworld mode to add a little variety.

Games like this makes me think about going multi console. It looks really nice!

This is my fav PS3 game this year (and I've played a lot of games and I'm also a MGS4 nut but new creative gameplay with awesome presentation takes all).

Please buy this game and support this kind of awesomeness!

Not only does it look nice, but the gameplay is very addictive you can litteraly play as you like, you don't need to take down every single ennemy, as you're not bound to any classe in particular, they're all very important and will all come in handy.

Every mission is unique and has it's share of difficulty and twists and turns, you start the battle with one objective, and in the middle of the battle the objective changes, or an unexpected element appears and forces you to rethink all your strategy and adapt to the new situation.

And to top it all the story is very good... and I mean very good !