There's nothing like putting an unnpronunciable leading character's name in the title!
The basics of this game are pretty much the same as the other famous ones in the GBA; you have an army and you fight the enemy, that's it.
What makes this game different is the freaking weird combat system it uses. When you first see the cards you go: "Yeah, right, like I've never seen this before", but when you get to actually use the cards, you realize that you haven't seen a thing yet! And there are plenty of cards to master, giving that special something that only hard games get to deliver.
Graphics are just cool. You don't like anime you say? Well, that's fine, because you still can love the characters in this game, for they are fairly more "occidental" developed than usual anime-inspired games.
Battles are stunning to watch; I believe it is the greatest achievement in the dying GBA concerning real action sequences. It is a nice mix of Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem battle system. The bad thing is that once you get to familiarize with all the cards, that's pretty much it... It'd have been great if programmers added some sort of special movements or something.
Also, sometimes you feel like your army is being controlled by someone else, because there is so much left to "luck" (being luck the incomprehensible result of some battles) that sometimes you won't get what the hell happened with all your troops. Some stats would been a great help to realize the result of a battle.
Music fits perfectly in the action sequences, yet it doesn't seems in place when talking or in the dramatic parts of the game. Sound effects just seem dull, like the sounds a fisher price game would make.
The other bad thing about this game is the map and the limited control it gives you among your troops, for it is as small as a cookie and has most of the roads obviously designed, providing you with the most essential decision ever: should I stay or should I attack. Where's the strategy in that? I know probably some people would argue with this, saying the real strategy goes when placing the units so they'll form an effective attack pattern. Well, that's just as boring as it sounds.
Other let down are the units. In Fire Emblem you get to manage an entire army with, at least, 20 units in it. Here, if you have luck, you get to use 4 or 5 of a pretty limited roster, at the same time. That puts the W in "where, in god's name, are my other units!?".
Putting all thing together, this game still deserves a 7.5, specially for the well Riviera-style designed characters and units, the massive and amazing battle sequences, the good music and the fair difficulty it gives to experienced players willing to play something new.
Other than that, I specially love the "We'll never fight alone" subtitle.