Great game with a wonderful story!
I'll be straight to start out. This is a WWII era turn based strategy RPG with, what I feel, is a realistic take on WWII battlefield strategy. What I mean by this is that the camera, although finicky at points, was designed well. You can't always see everyone on the screen due to the size of the map.
You can detach from your selected character and go overhead to see all the combatants and the layout of the map. This may throw many people off, but, if you give it a two or three battles, you'll become accustomed to it and realize that it adds another level of strategy to the game, a realistic one.
The game play is solid as well. You start off with several main characters and the ability to 'recruit' more. Each person can only hold so much weight, which figures into how often that person gets a turn. Some characters can hold more weight than others, but that doesn't mean you should weigh them down as you'll never get a turn with them.
Every item in the game, weapons, ammo, med kits, etc. has a weight to it. Figuring out what items to take into a battle is half the strategy. If you take to much you won't get very many turns. If you take too little you run the risk of having to take time looting corpses. Don't get me wrong, looting is good. The best weapons are on dead soldiers, but if you don't take enough to start with you run the risk of becoming cannon fodder by getting to close to the enemy at the outset.
The enemies range from tanks and armored cars to regular and elite soldiers. And let's not forget Vampires, Zombies, and Skeletons.
Weapons range from handguns and swords for close combat to rifles and large caliber machine guns for long range combat, to bazookas and grenades for medium range high damage combat. There are even land mines if you want to use them.
The basic strategy of the game is to move your characters close enough to get the first shot. When you go into the attack menu you will get a percent chance of hit as well as an estimated damage to be done for each enemy you select.
Another aspect to the strategy in this game is the use of MS Attacks, or magic attacks. Only certain characters in the game have them and they use up an entire turn. It really makes you think about when you use them or how you move your characters around to make use of them.
There is more to it but I don't want to ruin everything for you. Onto the not so great parts of the game, that once you adjust, are ok but sometimes still frustrating.
Unlike most turn based strategy games there is no confirm button except for attacks. This can be frustrating because if you are moving through the menu to quickly you can sometimes select finish which ends your turn. That really is the only one that causes an issue other then transform for certain characters which can be bad if you are trying to save MS (magic power).
If you have a good strategy these little frustrations won't hurt you too much apart from making the battle take longer. If you are having trouble working your way out of a bad situation, which happens from time to time as reinforcements arrive, it can be costly.
Overall this is great strategy game with a great story, longevity, replayability, music that fits the game, dated graphics, and bad voice acting. If you enjoy turn based strategy I would highly recommend this game. If you're not sure, get the demo from XBOX Live and try it out.