The Whole Game in My Hand #7
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Once you have completed a mission (and watched any subsequent cutscenes) you have many options. You can find a shop in a previous location to buy and sell items, or continue following the story to the next area, or replay one of the previous missions in 'Free Combat' mode. The game encourages you to replay missions to enhance your characters and earn more gold by changing the enemies you meet in the story mode and the free combat modes. Free Combat serves several purposes - first you will find that the game assumes you will have reached a level based on some amount of replay, so if you don't then you will often be too low-level to successfully complete a mission. It also allows you to learn - trying different approaches for the same battle is a wonderful way to develop your strategic skills. Finally, you will generally have more units than you can deploy, and will likely develop favorite combinations. This means that some units will be underutilized and not level up as fast as others. Taking those members back through Free Combat missions is a great way to even out your party so that you can call upon an even greater breadth of skills for a mission.
As you continue through the game you will become more and more engaged with the characters and story, and you will be surprised by the various twists and turns the plot takes along the way. It is wonderful and amazing in a game that is focused on a series of tactical combat missions that you get such a wonderful story to carry you through the many hours you will play. It isn't perfect - there is a certain simplicity to the combat based on only attacking on the ordinal directions, and some of the dialogue doesn't flow very well, but in general it is a solid and fun game that you won't want to put down until the very end.
