The continent of Prodesto has a long history of war and strife. Much blood was shed and tragedy brought as its nations vied for supremacy. Then, three centuries ago, Lord Median the Conqueror finally put an end to war, defeating all his enemies and uniting the nations under a single banner. This hard-won peace was short-lived, however, as both Median and his son died in a deadly plague. Again, the old hostilities arose as survivors battled for control.

This new upsurge of strife also was short-lived, as Median's daughter Layna rose to claim her heritage and pacified the warring states. Under her rule, Prodesto would prosper for five decades in peace — until the day the World Eaters arrived. This triumvirate of monsters proved unstoppable, laying waste to everything in their path. Only Layna's ultimate sacrifice against their master silenced these beasts. Now two centuries have passed, and the World Eaters are stirring again. There is only one hope against them: a new hero, and the spirit of their former master, Gig ... the battle for world's fate is about to start anew.

So begins Soul Nomad, the latest in a line of strategy role-playing games from Nippon Ichi. Strategy RPGs are niche games with a blend of elements from their namesake genres. Combat plays a central role in these, usually conducted on a grid map. Action is turn-based: Your unit orders issued and played out one by one. Combat units bear an array of typical RPG features, like levels, attributes, equipment and special abilities. This unique blend offers both tactical challenges and an ability to develop battlefield units.

Although plot sometimes plays second fiddle to intricacies of combat in these games, Soul Nomad does have a plot. Unfortunately, its delivery is a bit lacking in the game's early parts. You receive information at a brisk pace and get dragged through changing situations equally quickly. Just as troubling is when you are later kept in the dark about the main character's plan until after it is actually executed. Though the story solidifies toward the end and delivers a few good twists and surprises, the start can be described only as uneven and haphazard. There also are some missed opportunities with how little some characters are explored and the general lack of definition for the world's history and mythos. I can't say Soul Nomad ranks amongst Nippon Ichi's best efforts in storytelling.

Voice acting, which is merely average most of the time, gives the story's delivery further trouble. Many characters' voices are hammed up too much, giving them a nearly one-dimensional, cartoony personality. There are several good efforts, primarily Gig and the loony priestess Kanan (main character is a silent one again), but most fail to enliven the characters beyond their archetypes. To be fair, if you switch to Japanese voices, they sound equally uninspired, some being even worse than their English counterparts. (I'm looking at you, Grunzford.)

Further in audio department, Soul Nomad's soundtrack fares much better. It is another excellent composition by Tenpei Sato in his distinctive style. While it is a "typical" collection of usual RPG pieces like light background music, menu music, battle themes, shop themes and story exposition themes, none of them are poor filler pieces. Overall, the music brings a lot to the game and stands well on its own with such pieces as "The Last Supper," "Will You Dance" and "Requiem of Gemini." If you've liked Sato's previous performances in Disgaea or Phantom Kingdom, your ears are in for some more candy here.

In Soul Nomad, the function of money is taken by GP, or Gig Points. This represents the amount power Gig — the former master of World Eaters — is letting you harness. Gig Points are used to recruit new units to your army, summon squads into battle and buy decorations and Gig edicts. I'll explain these below. Technically, Gig Points is just a funny name for money, but it emphasizes how these abilities are available only through Gig's whims. Fortunately, you don't need to manage equipment; it would completely bog down the game once you had dozens and dozens of units to oversee.

Undoubtedly the game's main offering is tactical, turn-based combat, in which you'll be spending a lot of time. Before you can go blazing into battle, however, you need to set up and manage your forces. Here, Soul Nomad introduces an additional layer of arranging your units into squads (as opposed to usual style of moving single combatants on the battle map). The basis of squad arrangement is a three-by-three squares platform called a "room," each square accepting a single unit.

The squares are divided into three rows: front, middle and back. Obviously, units placed into front squares will be the first to face enemy assault, and units placed into the back are relatively safe — except from ranged and area attacks.

There's more to unit placement that merely their attacks. A combination of units in proper rows (or just a certain amount of them) will open special skills. For example, a melee unit in front and middle combined with a ranged unit in rear opens a damaging special attack, while two knights in front avails you with a damage-reducing skill. Sometimes the mere presence of the unit opens new skills, such as the cleric's protective spell. Unit placement and a good combination of units within a squad are critical for victory.

Rooms themselves have bit more going for them than just unit placement squares. Each room comes with one — in certain cases more — permanent decoration item plus additional decoration slots to a maximum of four. Each decoration boosts the squad's performance in different ways. Some offer direct attack bonuses; others boost certain unit types' combat performance; and yet others boost statistics, grant immunities and terrain-based statistics buffs, or add special rules like forbidding movement but doubling gained experience.

You face one more important decision when populating a room: Which unit will be the squad leader? The leader determines what the squad's movement speed is, how quickly its turn to act comes again and what type of terrain is advantageous for the squad. The leader also determines what kind of limited-use tactical abilities the squad has. Tactical abilities are performed on the battle map, outside actual combat. Assigning a pyremage as squad leader avails the squad with ranged magic blast, while an archer gives the ability to initiate combat at distance in which only ranged units may participate.

Squad leaders get their own perks. Each unit in the squad gives a class-based percentage of their statistics as boost to squad leader. Thus, a few knights in a squad led by a pyremage will considerably boost the leader's hit points and defense — important point as the leader's death always removes the entire squad from of battle.

Major plot characters are a consideration all their own. Each of them (and sometimes their combinations) gives unique skills to use in combat as well as tactical skills if assigned as squad leaders. Their statistics are far above equivalent-level units of their class, so they are always a major asset to your squads.

At this point, now that you are done with constructing your unbeatably combined arms squads, you can taste actual combat.

Those who have sampled Nippon Ichi's previous offerings will immediately notice two things. Firstly, the field is again grid-based unlike in the forays into free-movement combat (Phantom Brave, for example). Second, the field is devoid of elevation changes. Instead of uneven topography, we get terrain effects. These are mostly defensive bonuses offered by fortified or forest squares, once-per-turn autoheals in settled squares and special bonuses depending on squad's movement type — defensive bonus on water for water-movement squads, for example. Some room decorations interact with terrain as well.

All squads are arrayed in action order based on their relevant attributes, and their maneuvers are executed in that order. You start with just your hero's squad on map and need to summon the rest of your squads into battle (another ability granted by Gig), calling in as many or few as you wish — but only the hero's squad has the ability to summon. During their turn, each squad has the option to move, use tactical skills, defend, engage in combat or use Gig edicts.

Movement is straightforward — the squad may move across an amount of squares determined by its speed. You cannot pass through enemy units or across any squares adjacent to them; the same applies to enemy squads. This allows for protective formations of stronger units defending weaker ones that attack at range. Deep sea is off limits to all but sea squads; chasms or otherwise barred territory is available only for flying squads.

Gig edicts allow for various special actions taken on the field. These let you kick squads across several squares, steal their decor items, enhance or diminish their attributes, split or join squads, and even press enemies to your service. (Some edicts can be used outside battles to harass and press citizens to your service — that's just how Gig rolls.)

When a squad enters into combat with another, their units will face each other on separate screens. The attacker's units have initiative, first performing healing and defensive abilities, then normal attacks, and finally specials if you selected one when initiating combat. Surviving defenders will then respond in kind.

Battles last until the map's victory or defeat conditions have been met. Usually, victory equals to eliminating all enemy squads, and defeat equals to losing the hero's squad.

Besides just improving your units by leveling them up, you also may improve your squads' rooms. This is done by performing a Room Inspection. When an inspection is made, you are presented with a random battlefield with random opponents. Their difficulty depends on the type of room inspected as well as how much the room has been improved already.

There are several ways to ace the inspection. If opponents are difficult, you can just tough it out until required number of turns has passed. You also can choose to sweep through the field and kill everything, if you are intending to level up your units. You also can attempt to go straight for the boss kill for immediate victory, which is necessary for actually improving the room. For every five killed bosses, the room ranks up, and all decoration effects gain an additional +1 percent benefit (maximum rank is five). Simply toughing out an inspection has its advantages, as every 20 cleared inspections opens a new unit square up until all nine are open.

Also, since there are no limits to room difficulty, you can use inspections to level up your units as high as you want. In typical Nippon Ichi fashion, you don't much need to grind levels to complete the story part, but you are allowed to level up to 9,999. Of course a completely ridiculous number as even level 50 is enough to complete the game, but this basically allows you to fight, fight and fight to your heart's content against toughening opposition until you can't even bear to look at the game.

The last advantage offered by inspections is room points, a room-specific supply of points that can be used to improve units in areas that leveling up doesn't.

I wouldn't recommend Soul Nomad to people as their first strategy RPG. Squad management adds a layer of complexity to the game and may confound beginners struggling to familiarize themselves with staples of the genre. They might be better off with some other Nippon Ichi's game like the Disgaea Series or Phantom Kingdom, or even try to dig out genre classics such as Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics. Veterans, no doubt, will welcome the new twists Soul Nomad brings to their pastime. Not a brilliant title but enjoyable enough for a playthrough.