This strategy game from Atlus is destined to be overlooked in the holiday rush. I've found it to be a fulfiling experience, regardless of hype or publicity. I have heard that the game style is a bastard child of Ogre Battle and Shining Force. Since I haven't played Shining Force, I'll have to make my own observations.

You pick one of five rulers on the continent of Forsena. Cai, the Silent and Wise King is the easiest character. Lance, the Prince of New Almekia; and Lyonesee, Queen of Leonia are reputed to be moderate in dificulty. Vaynard, the White Wolf of Norgard; and Dryst, Mad King of Iscalio are refered to as hard routes. In addition to some leader's quests being harder than others, Brigandine has three dificulty settings. I haven't tried "Hard" yet. Normal was quite sufficient. Each one has a story that goes with their quest, though the game is not story driven. You are treated to dialogue scenes ever so often as you conquer new towns and annihilate more countires, so the game is not devoid of story... but it almost might as well be. Beware, though. This game is also very time consuming. Be sure you've got plenty of time to kill before you turn it on.

In terms of gameplay, every kingdom has "Knights." Specifically, they are people endowed with protection by the "Runes." These people are officially refered to as "knights" regardless of their class. Each knight can lead a group of monsters into battle. Monsters are created during the "organize" phase of the game. Once created, the monsters can be assigned to a knight. Be wary, though. Strong monsters tend to have a high "rune cost." And some knights only have a low rune power. Therefore, you must be careful not to give low rune powered knights monsters that are too strong, or you will be overpowered. Often times, your lowest level characters will have the potential to have the higest overal rune power, so it can pay off to use them.

Unlike Kartia, where monsters were disposeable and humans were gods, you really have to be careful not to suffer too many casualties in Brigandine. The backbone of your army is monsters. The best army has a wide assortment of high level monsters. You really want to keep monsters alive so that you can change their class every 10th level. Just try taking a group of level 1-6 dragons, angels and centaurs up against some Satans, Bahamuts, and fairies... I guarantee that even a high level knight would not be able to pick up the slack for the 1-6 level monsters.

Once you annihilate a country, you will gain the service of two of it's knights. This is a very good thing, since expansion requires you have a good number of Knights to both patrol your borders and lead assaults on enemy land. Once you get a couple of extra Knights, you can send the inactive ones on quests. These quests are much more interesting than the ones in Final Fantasy Tactics, though they can be somewhat repetative if you get the same ones too often. Sometimes certain knights will go on certain 'story' related quests to bring you back more knights (always a plus). Usually, though, they come back with equipment, an ability bonus, a special monster's class chane item, or sometimes they come back injured.

Battles take place on a hexagonal grid. Once you tell a character to attack another character, you will see a 3-D representation of individual characters attacking each other. This can be turned off, in the interest of time. My only real complaint is that navigating menues (especially in the Organize phase) can be a chore at times. This all leads to a very time consuming game that can easily suck hours of your life away. I personally was rather addicted for a while.

There are some really nice Anime style portraits for the characters... and the intro movie was nice... But the battle map is strictly 16-bit. Even the 3-D battle scenes are clearly 1st generation PSX quality.

Well, is the game fun? "Just one more castle!" "Just one more organize phase!" "Just one more quest!" were common thoughts running through my head as I played through Brigandine. Summed up in two words: "Highly addictive."

Destined to be overlooked in the Christmas rush in favor of higher profile titles like Metal Gear Solid and Zelda: tOoT, I think Brigandine will likely be a very underrated game this year. Sad too, since it is quite fun... though admitedly, the strategy genre isn't for everyone.