Boxerhockey

A really funny comic: Boxerhockey

It's about a fantasy sport called Boxerhockey which consists of half naked people running around on a playing field with clubs and trying to get the ball (which is actually a frog) into the goal.
Sounds weird, is weird. But also funny, here are a few examples:

Epic Rap Battles of History

So there's this guy who's making videos of celebrities rap battling each other, be it fictional, real, alive or dead people, they are all covered. He usually takes one part of the rap battle and someone else raps the other part. It's not really "new" but he keeps updating with new videos and there are currently 12 of them.
This one is my favourites:



or check out nicepeter's youtube channel

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)

Interesting Youtube Channels

Today I would like to introduce you to 2 interesting people!
Many of you may already know the first one as he is very successful with his webshow "=3" and is on the frontpage very often.
His Name is Ray William Johnson and basically all he does is reviewing viral videos while adding his own funny comments about it and making me laugh. Some videos alone are funny enough, but some of his comments make them even better, you should definitely check his Channel out:

http://www.youtube.com/user/RayWilliamJohnson?blend=1&ob=5

Now the second person is not that well known, but I think she definitely deserves more fame!
Her artist name is Erutan and she's a very talented singer and likes to sing songs based on videogame music like Final Fantasy. She (sometimes?) even writes her own Lyrics and I think she is really good.
She also has her own Album out already and if you like her music you should buy it and support her :D

http://www.youtube.com/user/katethegreat19

My personal favourite of hers is "Roses of May" but the other songs are very beautiful aswell.

Eden Eternal (New MMORPG)

Last week I found this little gem and I was one of the lucky people who got to participate in the Closed Beta, which ended a few days ago. Now I'm bored while waiting for the Open Beta so I can kill some time by writing a Review about this game.

This game as a childish anime/comic cutesy look and I'd like to say that I personally do not like games with graphics like that, but I can live with that, because the game has a very unique speciality..
(Also it looks kinda nice when you get used to it)


I have played more than 100 MMOs to this date and noticed how almost every MMORPG was the same, just with different names, so when I play a MMORPG now I only play those with special and unique features. And this game definitely has that.
Instead of choosing a single class and play that one, you can actually change your classes during the game all the time!
This does not work in combat and  has a short cooldown, though.
More to that later, but first I'd like to tell you about the game in general:

Quests
 Main Quest
Nothing really unique here, you have the typical main story quests that give you awesome rewards but are only playable once.

Repeatable
Aside from that there are also repeatable Quests on every map, which you should complete when you have the chance to, because you can not obtain these Quests once your level is too high.
Why would I bother doing that, you ask?
Because you get Fame for completed Quests, which is used to unlock unique items in the so called Fame Chest. You only get fame for the map you are currently on when completing Quests there and every town has a different Fame Chest, so check them all out!

Books
On every map you can buy 2 books and by clicking them in your inventory you start a short quest chain. This usually consists of 3 or 4 quests and after you complete it the book disappears and some books give you a title for this.
(Scroll down for more details on Titles)

Guild Quest
Once you create or join a guild you can buy these in a city called "Aven". Yes, you BUY them. This may sound ridiculous, but don't you worry; the reward for completing such a quest is more than twice the amount that you paid to get it and some guild fame, which is needed to level up the guild.

Town Quest
Can't tell you much about those, because I never had these. They can only be acquired when your Guild owns a Town, as far as I know. I heard they give even more Guild Fame than regular Guild Quests, but other than that I don't know anything.

Quests can be stacked, meaning if you have to kill a monster for 3 different Quests, a kill counts for all of them. Of course you can speed this up in a party, as kills count for everyone and quest items are picked up by everyone aswell!

Guilds
As I already mentioned you need Guild Fame in order to level up your Guild and once it reaches lvl 3, you can create your very own Guild Town!
You can then build structures and hire NPCs to work for you and sell or craft things. Depending on the tax you set your guild will get money form players that use these NPCs.
Other than that there is nothing special about Guilds in this game.


Dungeons
Every map has 1 or 2 dungeons which can be entered by either 3 or 5 people at max, depending on the dungeon.
Do not even bother trying to solo those dungeons as you will fail horribly unless you have a much higher level.
The monsters here are especially strong and there are usually several boss monsters at specific locations in the dungeon. After beating those a soul guid appears and you can talk to him to leave the dungeon instantly instead of running back all the way.

Classes
Now this is the main part of the game as you have the ability to switch between classes as needed.
I love this feature! Not only will you get to know other classes, but you may find one or another class pretty cool even though you wouldn't have touched that class in other MMORPGs.
But that's not all!
By leveling different classes you get Class Expertise experience which levels up at certain amounts. This will give you additional HP, MP, ATK and M-ATK points on EVERY class! How awesome is that?
Aside from "normal" levels, you can also gain class levels, which unlocks skills for that class and also certificates.

Skills
There are 2 kinds of skills:

1.Regular Skills
These are Skills affected by your character level. You can level them up by paying money (this gets more expensive with every level and in the end it ends up in ridiculous prices!) and they can only be as high as your current character level. Also regular skills are shared among the same group of classes (There are 3 classes in 5 different categories).

2.Class Skills
These are affected by CP (Character Points) gained by fighting while using this class. Each level requires more CP, of course. These skills can only be used by the current class and are not shared with any other class!

Aside form that you get 1 Knowledge Point to spend every time your class levels up. You can use these to level up passive skills that increase things like defense, crit rate, damage with specific weapons, skills duration/effect, etc. depending on the class. You can not spend KP that you gained from one class on another class.

Certificates
When reaching a certain level with a class you unlock certificates that grant you a Bonus and these certificates can be used by ANY class (yes, it's also used by multiple classes). Not only that, but when combining specific certificates you can unlock an additional bonus which depends on the color (every class category has one), effect (HP+ 5% etc.) and amount of certificates.

Outfits
Different levels for different classes.
Unlocking and using them has no effect on the game, it only changes your appearance (some outfits more, some less).
Every outfit can be dyed on 3 parts and you can also dye the helmet/hat.

The classes
(To learn more visit the official website)
Eden Eternal has 15 classes so far, but currently you are not able to unlock all of them: 

• Defense Class/Tank

1. Warrior
2. Knight
3. Templar

• Melee Damage/DPS

1. Thief
2. Martial Artist
3. Blade Dancer

• Ranged Damage/DPS

1. Hunter
2. Engineer
3. Ranger

• Healing

1. Cleric
2. Bard
3. Shaman

• Magic Damage

1. Magician
2. Illusionist
3. Warlock

Upgrades and Crafting
You can upgrade your equipment by using scrolls and paying money. Weapons have a 100% success rate till +4 and Equipment till +5. If it fails, your equipment piece is destroyed and gone forever. You can prevent this by using Safety Stones, which can be bought with real money.

I never tried the crafting, but from what I have heard people say it's a waste of time and money, because you have to pay money for the ingredients, for assigning the craft and for the crafting itself, or something like that. Basically you have to pay 3 or 4 times and not just a bit money, but lots of it.
The good thing about crafting is that orange items will not use durability and therefore you don't have to pay to repair them.
You should only do this on very high levels because you will use the equipment for some time then. But collecting equipment from monsters works aswell.

Titles
Titles are rewarded for completing specific sotry or book quests and grant you an additional bonus. This may increase one of your stats (Strength, Agility, Wisdom, Intelligence, Luck) or give you additional MP (but personally I think it's not worth using since the bonus is close to nothing.)
New titles give a higher boost and you can only use 1 title at a time.

That's it.
Alright so form what I have experienced in the CB this game is pretty cool and unique and it's easy to make new friends.
If you want to try out the game, go to the official website:

http://edeneternal.aeriagames.com/

You can meet me ingame by whispering my character "Shinyo" (to whisper use /t Shinyo Text)

Badass of the week

Today I would like to show you guys a fun website called "Badass of the week".
As the name implies there will be a new badass every week and the guy owning the website will write "an essay" about it.
Now this probably sounds boring, but it's actually pretty funny, because you will find gems like this:

When he conquered the Ottoman Empire, he thought that the Byzantine gates to the capital city were so cool that he ripped them out of the wall and had them installed in his own capital. Not only that, but he also captured the Ottoman Sultan and his wives, kept the Sultan in a cage in his parlor and had his wives get naked and serve everyone food and drinks. So when his friends would come over he'd be like, "dude, check out these kickass gates, my badass pinball machine and a cage containing the Ottoman Sultan."

 and:

One time, he led his army into India, kicked the asses of the Indian army and captured the capital of Delhi for no reason at all.

(Both exampels are taken from the Tamerlane article.)

Sometimes it's not just a single person, but a group, or a virus. Not all badasses are real, but some of them are fictional (like the Archangel Michael or Poseidon).
Anyway the articles are informative and funny, how could you NOT like this?
The first article I read was about Nikola Tesla, which I found pretty interesting (and funny, of course) so I read some more and maybe you want to start out with him aswell:

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/tesla.html

if not, just cut the "/tesla.html" out.

The Last Remnant (Game Information)

Introduction
I am currently playing this game and so I decided to make a review for it. Chances are that even if you are a gamer you never even heard anything about this game. Actually I never heard of it but one day I stumbled upon it in a game store. It looked quite interesting AND it was made by Square Enix, and since I'm a fan of Final Fantasy (and other Squaresoft/enix games like Front Mission, for example) I bought it right away.
It is a game that was created for the Xbox and the PC. I have the PC version.


The Story
The game starts out on a peacful meadow with Rush Sykes, the main character wandering through it. He's looking for his sister Irina and as he crosses the meadow he witnesses an ongoing battle (this is where you control the units of one of the armies and get an idea of the gameplay). Among all those people and monsters he spots a woman and thinking it is his sister he rushes to the battlefield. Unfortunately he chose a bad time as David Nassau, leader of one of the armies and Marquis of a town called Athlum uses his Remnant, the Gae Bolg (which consists of a handgun he carries and a huge cannon that is fired by pulling the trigger on the gun). With this powerful attack he wipes out the entire enemy army and Rush and the mysterious woman are consumed in a big flash of light.
Somehow a force shield was created around those two and they are safe. Apparently it was created by Rush's talisman which he got from his parents.
However there's no time to celebrate as the ground under them collapses and they fall into a cave. After a short conversation you learn that the woman is Emma Honeywell, one of the 4 generals of Athlum. Rush and Emma decide to get out of the cave together as they can see a light at the end. Going towards this light you get a  short tutorial about treasure chests and monsters (or rather how to trigger a fight with them).
And just when they think they are safe a big monster drops from the ceiling just before the entrance. During this fight both Emma and Rush deal absolutely no damage, but after  a few turns Rush's talisman glows and he performs his Omni attack which kills off the big thing easily.
Now David and some soldiers enter the cave and he introduces himself and thanks you for helping Emma and invites you to his castle. After some cutscenes David decides to help Rush to find his sister and so the story begins.

The World

Cities

Let's begin with Athlum, since it's the first town you enter. It is near the Yamarn Plain, where Rush first meets David and Emma. This plain is a battlefield and Athlum fought several battles there protecting not only the town itself but also a big city not far away called Celapaleis. Athlum is pretty much their little guard dog and under the control of Celapaleis. David is not even able to use the Gae Bolg unless the Marquis of Celapaleis allows it. There are also several more towns, but I will only give a short description:
Elysion is the heart of the continent and it's where the Academy is located. The Academy consits of scientist who research Remnants and that's pretty much all to it. It is also the place where Rush's parents are working as probably the best scientists.
Anyway, there is also a town called Ghor, which is a big ruin of an ancient big city and now inhabited by strong warriors around the continent who came here to serve the Duke of Ghor who is an awesome fighter. His weapon looks a bit like a giant axe and is also a remnant.
Another city called Melphina is the home of scholars and also has a Knight's Order.
Baaluk is a small village that's behind the Vale of Gods, a dangerous area inhabited by monsters. That's the reason why they rarely ever see any tourists.
In the middle of a desert there is a town called Balterossa, which is the city of merchants, they sell their wares to every town and get some of their wares from mining town of Royotia which lies far to the south behind the big desert. Next we have Nagapur, a very big city and canals are found everywhere due to flood control measures. The only town left now is Undelwalt, where the God Emperor resides.

Remnants
Remnants are basically magic items with special powers. As I mentioned above David Nassau has the Gae Bolg, which is a big cannon.
All remnants are unique and have different powers; some of them can fly, some of them can transport people, some of them are weapons, etc.
Every town has its very own BIG Remnant that protects the town, or at least that's what all the people believe.
Remnants can only be bound to a single person at a time and this bond usually lasts until that person dies. An unbound Remnant can be dangerous as it can become unstable and break out, though such an outbreak doesn't happen very often and usually does not destroy the Remnant itself, but can bring forth monsters or other kinds of destruction.
Even though Remnants are used all over the world and have awesome powers there are still some unknown Remnants around the world and it seems like the people do not know everything about the Remnants. And that's what the Academy is good for. Also Remnants seem to have a price for being used: For example David's Gae Bolg drains a bit of his life from him every time it is used. It is also the reason why his father died at a young age. At the beginning of the game Remnants aren't really important to you or the story, but this changes later on in the game.

The People
There are 4 different races in this game:
Mitra: Nothing much to say, they are humans. No need for pictures, I guess.

Yama: Much bigger than humans (or the Mitra), they usually look like giant fish-people. Even though some of them don't have faces that look like fish, it's a bit hard to describe, you should just see for yourself. However every Yama has a fishtail. Also they are either fat or have lots of muscles, or maybe both.

Qsiti: I hate names like this as I don't know how to pronounce them... Anyway, these are rather fragile looking guys that are smaller than Mitra look like frog-people with long ears (kinda reminds me of Enel from One Piece).

Sovani: I'd say they are feline humans. For example Torgal, one of the 4 generals of Athlum looks like a puma or a panther in human form. These folks are bigger than most Mitra and have 4 arms and are a very proud race. Some of them may be a bit arrogant, too.


Gameplay
Aah, finally we come to the main part of the game!
The gameplay is pretty unique: it is a mix of RPG battles and strategy..

Unions
When you are in a battle you take control of so called unions.
These unions can consist of 1-5 members and you can have up to 5 unions. At the beginning you don't get to control lots of units (to be honest I don't remember how many people you can take into battle and how many unions you can form). As the story progresses you can form more unions, take more characters into battle and recruit more people.
During the fight you give orders to your unions and because it would probably melt your brain to command every single unit (with a maximum of 18) every single turn you instead give them orders like "Attack", "Keep your health up", "Attack with Mystic Arts", etc.
Depending on how much AP (Action Points) a union has they can use more powerful techniques and magic. It also depends on the current situation (status ailments/health/position of your unions) you can give different orders. By pressing the X button on the controller (or the Z button on the keyboard) you can see what every unit is going to do. Usually you have at least 2-3 different options, sometimes up to 5. Some of these options may change depending on which enemy Union you target.

Formations
You can form different formations with your unions to increase some attributes of your union for different situations. There are formations that work good against bird monsters, some work good against beasts, etc.
Some formations boost your defense but lower your mobility, some will boost magical attacks, etc.
There are many different formations which you get from completing sidequests or guild tasks. Also you will finde some in treasure chests.

Deadlocks
When a friendly Union engages an enemy Union, this is called a Deadlock. Every unit from both Unions executes their given commands, but sometimes a unit decides to do something else, but I will tell you more about this later.
There are more things than just Deadlocks, though:

Flank Attack
When a second Union engages a deadlocked Union, this is called a Flank Attack. It lowers the morale of the attacked Union. When executing a Flank Attack the attacking Union deals additional damage and the attacked Union does not fight back (however they can still evade or block your attack).

Rear Assault
After a Union has been flanked twice and is attacked by yet another Union, this attack is called a Rear Assault. It lowers the morale even more and the attackers dish out even more damage.

Massive Strike
If a Union that was attacked with a Rear Assault is very unlucky and gets attacked YET AGAIN, it is called a Massive Strike. This is very very bad for the attacked Union and can be devastating. Now usually in the next turn all Unions would attack the same way as before (Deadlock, Flank Attack, Rear Assault) if you target the same enemy again, but once you get a Massive Strike ALL units that attacked this enemy (except the deadlocked one) with a Massive Strike. As the name already says it deals massive damage and lowers the morale even more. Massive Strikes are pretty rare as there are usually several enemies crawling around and even if there is a single unit it's still very hard. If a Union is hit so often, it usually dies before the Rear Assault.
Now you may think that bosses should be strong enough to sustain this much damage so you can perform a Massive Strike on them, but unfortunately that's wrong because of

Multi Deadlock
This is pretty annoying, but the game would be pretty boring, because it would be too easy to just bash the enemy to death with Massive Strikes. Therefore rare monsters and bosses have this ability:
If a boss is deadlocked with a Union and is attacked again, it is not flanked, but instead creates another Deadlock called Multi Deadlock. Here the boss may attack again and most bosses and rare monsters can take up to 3 Deadlocks at once, though some can "only" take 2.

Raidlock
It's a one turn surprise attack and deals extra damage. There are several ways to initiate this:


1) If a union breaks a Deadlock to perform another action, such as healing, and is then Deadlocked by the union which it was previously engaged with.

2) If a union is on standby, and is then Deadlocked by another union.

3) If a union is doing a long-range attack, and is then Deadlocked by another union.

4) If a union issues a flank or rear assault command, but there are no other friendly unions deadlocking the enemy when that command is executed, then the enemy will be raidlocked instead.

Interference/Interception
This happens when union A targets union 1, but is attacked by union 2 while running towards union 1. This lowers the morale of the interecepted union.

(Please not that not only your unions, but also the enemy unions can use everything I mentioned above even though I have never experienced a Massive Strike on my unions yet. Also Multi-Deadlock is only available to enemy units.)

Morale
Up until now you've read this word several times now, so it's time to explain:
At the top of the battle screen there is the morale meter. Morale is a pretty important part of battles because the team with high morale deals additional damage and the team with low morale takes more damage and has weaker attacks. I already explained how to raise/lower the moral, but there are a few more ways:
Killing an enemy raises the morale of your team, losing an ally lowers it. There are also a few attacks that can lower the enemies morale with or without damaging them.

Reinforcements
Depending on how many enemies you have to fight there can be reinforcements during the battle. There is a maximum of 6 enemy unions per battle, but sometimes you face more than just 6 enemies. In this case you will see rotating squares on your minimap and when you finish off an enemy, then another unit will appear at the end of the turn. When reinforcements arrive, your morale is lowered with each enemy union that enters the battlefield.

Critical hit chance
During a battle the action will sometimes slow down, the background will be turned a bit grey and the 4 Xbox buttons will appear on the screen. Then a big circle appears around one of these buttons and gets smaller and smaller. When it's about the same size of the button you have to press it. Successfully doing so will have positive effects for you:
If you are attacking an enemy and this happens, then you will deal more damage and initiate a critical combo. Now no matter how many enemies would attack after your current party member, the next member will strike now and you will have to press a button again. If you have 3 units and the first and second ones perform a critical strike, the third unit will automatically perform his action or change it (if it was a normal attack and you have enough AP the unit will usually change the attack and use a technique or magic instead) and deal additional damage.

The Critical hit chance can also occur when an enemy unit attacks one of your people:
When a unit dodges or blocks the attack and the critical hit chance initiates, then the unit will afterwards either hit the attacking unit with a VERY strong counter attack or knock the attacker unconscious. This prevents the enemy from acting during this turn again (Only useful for bosses or rare monsters).

Initiating a Battle
There are no random fights in this game. Instead you will see monsters running around and you can engage them in different ways:

1. Run into the enemy
This is BAD. You don't want this. If you just run into the enemy (or rather the enemy runs into you), you start with very low morale and all enemies can attack your units without your people fighting back.

2. Press the RT Button while being near the enemy.
Enemies always have a bubble over their head, you can see their current status with this. Some enemies can be aggressive, some can be non angressive and sometimes you encounter sleeping enemies. You can run into non aggros without problems, because this won't start a fight. When the bubble above the enemy turns from white to red, it means you are in range to start a battle. If you press RT now you will start a battle.

3. Using the timeshift.
Rush's talisman has the abilty to slow down time for everyone and everything for a few seconds.
When in timeshift mode you can run near enemies, which will then turn red. when you press RT now (standing anywhere) you will battle all the red enemies. This is the best way to fight lots of enemies at once.

Why the hell should I battle more monsters?
When you fight more enemies it will increase the experience you gain and raise your chance to get better, rarer and more items.

Battle Rank
There are no levels in this game, your stats increase after battles. Your party members will get more strength, intelligence, HP, AP, etc. when they got enough experience.

Skills and Magic
Depending on the equipped weapon and the race your units can learn different skills and magic.
Rush can learn pretty much everything and he learns new things by getting certain items. Your other people will learn new things automatically when you use them in battles. While browsing the worldmap or the townmap they will sometimes ask you if they should learn something new or not. You decide.
Skills and Magic include things like herbs, remedies, psionics, hexes, healing, support magic, etc.
Different characters will learn different magic and skills.
Note that only leaders and no soldiers will ask you.


Leaders and Soldiers
You can recruit leaders (who are required as a union leader, to create unions) in guilds for money. They are usually stronger than generic soldiers who can be hired in different towns. Soldiers can't learn new moves, but leaders can...
There are also unique leaders, who can be acquired through the story or through certain quests. Some unique leaders can also be hired in certain guilds. The more you progress in the story, the more people you will unlock in the guilds. These unique leaders are stronger and you can talk to and befriend them, unlocking their full power. Some of them may also give you sidequests. I'd suggest that you only use these people instead of generic leaders or soldiers, but You have to decide yourself.

Guilds
Every town has at least 1 guild and you can unlock additional guilds by completing certain sidequests. In guilds you can recruit leaders and you can also get rewards for completing guild tasks. These include things like killing a certain amount of a specific enemy, kill a rare monster, collect specific components or create a specific weapon, etc.

Equipment
The Equipment consists of the main hand, the off hand, 2 accessoire slots and 1 special slot (for a few characters like Rush, this slot is used for his talisman)
You can buy different equipment in different towns as usual, but you can also upgrade your weapons and create new weapons that way. You also have the option to create certain equipment items, if you have the correct components and enough money. Components can be found by killing and disassembling monsters (sometimes you catch a monster after a fight and you have the option to disassemble, or keep it to sell it for some good money to a store, which also unlocks new wares). You can also find components in some treasure chests or by using Mr. Diggs.

You can change Rush's equipment as you like, he can use every kind of weapon. His companions, however aren't that easy to equip. When you have a weapon or accessoire that somebody is interested in, he or she will eventually ask you to "borrow it". If you agree they will equip it. Your units will sometimes ask you to get certain components and after a fight sometimes they want to take some items. You can either give it to them, or keep it yourself. You don't have to worry about upgrading their equipment, as they will do this themself, which is why they need components.

Mr. Diggs
This little mole-like fellow will join you after a certain sidequest. When you enter an area you will see the dig count, this is the amount of digs you have left. In these areas there are different glowing points where you can harvest different components. This can be trees, walls, mountains, spots in the water or on the floor, etc.
You can not dig in towns!
Sometimes you will find special harvesting spots that glow in a circular form. You can only harvest these once, then they are gone, unless you leave and re-enter the map again. However there are some of them that contain Morsels. Mr. Diggs will eat these Morsels and each time he eats one his dig count grows by 1 and your current dig count is refilled.
When your dig count reaches 0 you can not dig anymore until you leave and re-enter the map.
Mr. Diggs will get experience for harvesting and level up in technique, instinct and strength seperately. At specific levels these stats will unlock skills that increase the amount of gold found while digging, the probability of getting more and rare items, etc.

Rare Monsters
Every area has at least 1 rare monster, but usually it's even more. They do not always appear and there are some that can obly be fought once, but there are also rare monsters that reappear. Those guys are a pretty good way to earn some money as some of them have a 100% capture chance so you can sell their body for a high price at a store.

Remnants in battle
Some characters own a Remnant and can use this in battle when their little bar on the left fills up. These remnants can have offensive or defensive effects and even summon a monster to help you in battle!



It's possible that I left out the one or the other thing as this game has a lot of stuff in it, so just leave a comment if you think something's missing.

(I already mentioned some more things in the review, so read it for some additional info.)

The Last Remnant (Game Review)

Alright since this is the game I am currently playing and I kinda like it I decided to make a review for this game. You'll probably see the name here for the first time as it doesn't seem to be very famous. Actually it's a coincidence that I even found this game, because I once had an hour to kill and nothing to do, so I was browsing some video games in a store and found this game.
The cover looked quite interesting so I decided to buy it. And I don't really regret doing so, because it's kinda fun to play.


This could almost be another Final Fantasy, but somehow it doesn't have the right feeling to it, but I don't know why. Also there's no chocobos here, unfortunately. But there is one similar bird in a certain city, maybe a reference to chocobos, but it's easily overlooked as it's just mentioned by a random citizen.

Anyway, this game has a unique battle system:
It's a mix of strategy and typical RPG battle systems.
You do not control individual people, but instead you control unions, which can consist from 1-5 people. You have hundreds of people to choose from!
However you can only use up to 18 people and 5 unions at max.
You start with a limited amount of people and unions possible, but as the story progresses you get upgrades and you can bring more people and unions into play.
Develpoing skills and magic is both easy and a bit complicated, basically it's like this:
The more you use a skill or a magic spell, the more experience will the character gain with this and so his skills and spells level up (poison gas becomes poison gas 2, etc. up to 5).
Skills can also get different attributes like nimble, mighty, swift, peerless which affects speed and damage.

You give commands to your unions like "Attack" or "Keep your health up" or "Heal them" etc. depending on the current situation during the battle. The individual units will execute different skills and magic with different commands (you can see what every unit does if you press the X button). You can also land critical blows and create critical combos and also counter enemy attacks (if you like to know more see the other post about the game and look at "critical hit chance"). At the top of the screen you will see the Morale which works pretty much like tug of war. The higher your teams' morale is, the lower the morale of your enemies will be, which will boost your attack power and let you use more/better skills (at least it seems so to me) and it will also lower the attack power of enemies. I am not sure about this, but it may also influence your critical hit chance as well as evasion and blocking.

You can create, buy and upgrade your own equipment and indirectly for your army, as they will ask you for an item of their interest after some time. They will also take care of their own equipment and upgrade it as they gather components... or actually you gather them, and they take it, but you can keep the items for yourself if you need them. Your companions will also ask you how to develop - should they concentrate on magic, or melee? Or maybe balance everything? It's all up to you.

It is also possible to use different formations for your unions, which will affect different things:
it can increase/decrease specific stats, it can raise your defense but lower your mobility, or the other way around, some formations work good against specific enemies and you can get lots of them.

There is also something like an overdrive for several characters, of course including the main character. Only union leaders can use those and only if they have a remnant. You can either attack an enemy with a devastating attack, or protect your own unit, or you can even summon a more or less powerful monster to assist you in battle, awesome!

All in all I would say it's a pretty good game, though not as good as most Final Fantasys in my opinion. You should definitely buy it if you like RPGs and strategy, it shouldn't cost too much, either, since it's a few years old now. The game was made for both Xbox and PC and is made by Square Enix, hence my comparison to Final Fantasy.
This game CAN get a bit boring and/or frustrating sometimes, but it's still pretty cool.

(If you wanna know a bit more about a specific subject, just look at my other post about TLR)