Played about 3 hours-ish of this so far, I love the depth. At first I was a bit concerned the auto-battling would be annoying (I never really did get into Ogre Battle), but there’s so much tactical depth here if you want it. Equipment and skill conditions can be changed around mid-battle. Tying unit leader changes to a resource is also interesting. Pausing and auto-pausing is generous so I don’t think I’ll ever feel overwhelmed. Once I get used to moving around the map with the cursor I think I’ll be good on controls.

I don’t like the battle timer. I’m honestly not sure what purpose it serves, but I’m going to be quite annoyed if there are battles that get strict on it. So far I haven’t gotten close, just down to half of the clock in one of them.

Like others said, the story is quite generic. I’m kind of shocked that this is the same writer/studio that did 13 Sentinels. I’m hoping it’ll break out of the mold soon, and it is still early. Plus some of the stuff I’m seeing in menus makes me think that’s quite possible.

In the end, it’s mostly about the gameplay here (just that kind of game), and I don’t quite know yet if it will be more on the Fire Emblem end of the spectrum where I feel like there are few surprises and you win the battle in the initial setup, or if it’s more like the Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre style where there’s a lot of randomness and an ebb and flow, read and react to the battling. I’m not jumping-out-of-my-chair excited about this like I was because I’d prefer it was in the latter category, but it still looks good.