An almost-solid, almost-fun turn-based strategy RPG with some unique elements and some serious flaws.
Your main character is a young woman whose parents were killed when she was young, and now she and her phantom brother must save the world. She can recruit and then summon other phantoms throughout the game. Each phantom has specialties, from being shopkeepers, to healers, to brutes, to magic users, etc.
Combat is straight turn-based, where on each turn you can do almost any combination of actions -- move up to a certain distance on the map, attack, lift combatants, throw combatants, or use items. You can defeat enemies in one of two ways: killing them, or throwing them off the map. The last monster cannot be thrown off, and must be defeated via combat.
The main character can bring a fixed number of phantoms and items (e.g. swords, staffs, etc.) into each battle with her. She must then summon the phantoms to help her during the battle. Phantoms have a fixed number of turns they may exist duing a battle -- once they've lived that many turns, they disppear and cannot reappear that battle. Phantoms are summoned by binding them with an object -- for example, a rock, or a sword, or a bush. What they are bound with changes their stats -- binding with a rock will increase defense, a sword strength, a flower may provide more spell power, etc.
The story is linear, but uses a "hub" from where you can choose what levels to play by traveling to a place to fight, and you can grind by replaying battles.
The good:
* Good length -- 40 hours
* Nice visuals -- they're on par with Disgaea -- big, well animated and color sprites.
* Well done, unique music
* Phantom summoning is very strategic -- you must choose what to bind with to set the stats for that battle, and you must carefully choose when to summon so you will be sure to finish the battle before all of your phantoms disappear.
The not-so-good:
* This is just my opinion, but I thought it had overly cutesy, somewhat grating characters
* Plot is very thin and really just a skeleton to hold the battles together
* Combat difficulty is very uneven -- some battles are very easy, others are suddenly very hard and require a lot of grinding before trying them.
* When you don't plan for the summoning well, you can end up with a long, unwinnable battle. Your character will end up being the only one left, running from enemies and trying to execute tiny and weak attacks while not getting killed. Once killed, game over. There needs to be a quick way to restart the battle.
Overall, it's close to being a fun, solid SRPG. But in the end, it's just a little tedious and frustrating. I think other people with a higher tolerance for the cutesy characters may get into this game, but not me, unfortunately...