Read if you want a detailed discussion of the battle system.
[Note to Valkyria Chronicle fans: Both VC and ROF use guns and a mixed turn-based/real time movement system. But that is where the similarity ends. The movement system and the gameplay structure of the two games are very different.]
In ROF you spend your time talking to citizens who need you to kill monsters and fetch items, visiting merchants, upgrading your equipment, engaging in random battles, and fighting dungeon bosses. All the things you expect to be doing when you play a traditional RPG.
So what sets ROF apart from the other traditional RPGs? There are guns (no swords and sorcery), a mixed turn-based/real time movement system, a steam punk setting, and an intriguing, albeit cryptic, story with zero exposition.
THE SHORT VERSION: ROF is a great RPG. It has a minimalist story; a unique overworld (the hex system allows you to add special affects to battles); excellent character customization (I was really impressed with the fact that when you change the characters' clothing it is changed everywhere in game – in cut scenes, while walking around town, while in battle); robust weapon upgrade system; and an awesome battle system (I love how ROF forces you to think a couple of moves ahead while you are taking your turn.)
The only downsides I see in this game are the fact that the instructions really suck (which means you have to spend a lot of time teaching yourself the game thru trial and error) and the graphics are lackluster. But the good points totally outweigh those small downsides so there is no reason not to go out and buy this game today.
THE LONG VERSION:
STORY: The story is cryptic and has zero exposition. The story is told thru very minimalistic cutscenes and short conversations with NPCs. I'm not a big fan of long cut scenes where the characters go on endlessly expositing about everything. So I liked ROF's minimalist storytelling methods. However, if you are the type of person who likes everything to be spelled out for you, you probably won't like ROF's story.
ROF gives you a bunch of puzzle pieces: you'll learn that each of your party members was was involved in a key event in the world. But it is left to you put the pieces together yourself to decide what it all means. The game doesn't give you definite answers, not even in the end.
The background story is very dark. The world these characters live in is dying. There is war going on all around. But you see the world from the perspective of your party characters. We see them joking around with each other and focusing on living their daily lives -- they do odd-jobs for anyone willing to pay them $$$ (in RPG speak this means they do fetch quests and monster killing.) The characters interact in a fun, personable way throughout the game.
Note that there are some complaints out there about the joking being too juvenile. Yes, in Japanese tradition, one of the main characters is a borderline pervert. But there is really only one cringe inducing cut scene [it comes fairly early in the game and involves a character ogling a big-breasted woman in an over the top anime way]. For the most part, the joking doesn't cross any lines. And there is a lot more going on in the story than the juvenile antics of one character anway. Don't let one cringe-worthy cut scene keep you from playing a really interesting and inventive game.
BATTLE SYSTEM: When you trigger a battle, you start up like you do in any traditional rpg: your three party members appear on one side of the room and the enemies appear on the other side of the room. You know the drill – each character in your party then takes a turn attacking an enemy and the enemies take a turn attacking your characters. Of course ROF adds some extras onto the basic formula to keep things interesting.
(1.) Management of Resonance Points: You start each battle with a certain amount of special move points, aka resonance points. [As you progress thru the game, you will earn more of these points]. The focus of battles is the management of these points, because the only time your characters can die is when you run out of these points.
There are two ways to lose points during a battle. First, you can lose a resonance point when one of your characters takes enough damage to completely break his health bar. When this happens, the health bar doesn't break. Instead, you lose a resonance point. Once you lose all your points, if an enemy completely breaks a character's health bar, he will die. If any character dies, it's game over.
Secondly, you can choose to spend a point. Spending a point allows a character to perform a special move that makes him invulnerable to enemy fire that turn. Plus, if you position your characters in a triangular pattern while chaining resonance point moves, they will perform a powerful combo attack.
The only way to regain a point is to break an enemy's health bar completely. (Some enemies have multiple health bars, you will get a point back for each health bar you break completely). You will have to manage you resonance points carefully if you want to win your battles in ROF.
(2.) Action elements are used to make battles more energetic. There are two ways that ROF interjects a feeling of action into battles: the use of a mixed real time/turn based movement system and the use of reflex based button pushes.
During your turn, you can move one character around the battle room. If you spend a resonance point, you can make a special move (during the special move your character will be immune to enemy fire and will be able to attack multiple times). A special movement line appears – it is always a straight line -- you choose the direction and the place the line will end, and your character automatically moves along this line when you hit the action button. When the character gets to the end of the line, your turn ends.
If you don't spend a resonance point, you can move your character with the controller. When the character moves, the enemies move and they can attack that character. You will see a movement gauge onscreen, when it is depleted, your turn ends.
When your turn is over, the enemy gets a turn. It can attack all of your characters during its turn. You can't move while the enemy takes its turn. When the enemy's turn is over, your next character gets his turn and the process repeats.
While you are moving your character, you have to pay attention to your charge gauge, your movement gauge, and your enemies' charge gauge so that you can press the attack button at the right time. Let me explain.
Before you can attack each turn, you must charge up your weapon. Your weapon automatically starts charging when you start a special resonance point move. If you don't use a special resonance point move, you can start charging a weapon by holding down "x." When a weapon starts charging, a circle appears on screen. Each time the circle rotates you store one attack charge.
Your goal is to try to store as many charges as possible and hit the attack button before your movement gauge runs out and your turn ends (all stored charges are lost if the turn ends before you hit the attack button). If you aren't using a special move, you must also make sure you hit the attack button before an enemy charges up and fires on you because enemy fire will interrupt your charge and make you lose all stored charges.
(3.) Strategic elements are used to keep things interesting. In battle, you will sometimes find walls to take cover behind, explosive barrels to damage enemies with, and raised platforms to get away from ground level enemies. These elements give the battles a strategic flavor. However, ROF is definitely not an SRPG -- the battle rooms are small and and the main use of these elements is not really as a strategic aid for you. Rather, they are mostly used by the developers as obstacles for you to overcome.
When you perform a special resonance move your character will automatically move along a straight line in the direction you choose. If your character runs into a wall or other obstacle while he is traveling along the line, it will interrupt his movement and his turn will immediately end. (Note: while your character is automatically moving down the special movement line, you can hit the jump button. If you time the jump correctly, he will jump over the wall/obstacle, which will allow him to continue on his straight line path uninterrupted.) Walls and other obstacles are often placed in the room in a way that makes it more difficult for you to move your character in a straight line/position your characters so that they can chain their special moves.
ROF may not be an SRPG, but it does force you to think a couple moves ahead while you are taking your turn. Battle is all about positioning your characters strategically so that when you use your special move, you can move them in a nice long straight line (the longer the line, the more attacks you get),; move them in a way that they will be able to chain their special moves (you have to make sure that one character always moves in between the two other characters); and move them in a way so that they can use their special combo attack (you have to get them to stand in a triangular pattern). And, of course, you always have to be thinking about resonance point management – if you decide to use a special move you have to make sure that you can survive without the point or that you have a way of getting that point back.
DIFFICULTY: I've heard some people compare the difficulty of ROF to that of Demon's Souls. I don't think that is the right comparison. Both games are challenging, but they are not anything alike in difficulty. DS is easy to learn and difficult to master. In contrast, ROF is difficult to learn but easy to master.
Let me repeat: ROF's reputation for being difficult comes almost entirely from the fact that its tutorial sucks so much. This is a shame because that is something that was fixable and the developers should have definitely spent more time on the tutorial aspect of the game. Anyway, if you are going to buy this game, realize that you will have to put a lot of effort in the beginning of the game just figuring out on your own how things work. For a lot of people, that is a deal breaker. But if you do put in the effort to figure things out, things will click eventually, and you will be treated to a really interesting and fun battle system.
Actually, once you get past the crappy tutorial, you will discover that the ROF developers went out of their way to keep frustration to a minimum: you can make your own save points, you can teleport out of dungeons, it's impossible to get lost in dungeons because you always have a helpful, color-coded mini-map, you can pay a small fee to replay a battle instead of having to go back to a save point, a battle arena is there from the start to allow you to make $ and easily level your characters if you want to, etc. A lot of care went into ensuring that ROF was challenging, but not frustrating.
CONCLUSION: ROF is a really solid RPG. It is not an action RPG and it is not a strategic RPG, but it does mix in elements of both to form its own unique battle system. I'm giving it an A- because it gets the important things right (story and gameplay) and only gets a few things wrong (graphics could be better and drops the ball on the tutorial).