Picking the right ace for a battle gives your tactics gauge extra bonuses, so choose wisely.

Sting once again tries to innovate the strategy RPG by making battles more about micromanagement of time, versus the value of individual units. Other than your “Ace” character on the field who takes the lead, you can have up to five characters joining you in the thick of the fight against insurmountable odds. Each character doesn’t have a movement turn, but rather shares one turn through a time mechanic and the tactics gauge. The gauge fills up by taking control of marked points around a battlefield, so the higher the tactics gauge is, the more movement points, attack power, and special moves a character can take.

So, battles become a management of what is important in the long run, versus the short term. Moving a character and waiting a turn will allow you to act faster, while causing a huge hit on an enemy may drain the entire tactics gauge in one shot. Unlike other games in its ilk, such as Final Fantasy Tactics, being a bruiser and cannibalizing on one-two units at time will usually fail as a tactic. The system rewards tactical innovation, so is becomes a constant balancing act that will be refreshing for strategy fans due to the complexity of the system, but daunting for the casual players for that same reason.

Other aspects of battle are also manipulated through the tactics gauge. Scrambling, which is an extra move action, can have units take an extra move action before their turn ends, while casting attack spells also takes several turns before a spell is released, allowing you time to box in or remove casters before they do major damage. Other aspects of combat, from changing equipment at checkpoints, using cooperative attacks known as “beat” and “boost” on the battlefield, and even replacing weaker units with fresh troops from retreat points add more wrinkles into the tactical system. Oh, and you also have ring outs, although they are rare and only come into play if you really screw up tactically.

I am not one to complain about an innovative use of tactics, which is something of a hallmark of Sting as well at this point. Their edgy mix of bullet hell shooters and tactical role-playing in Knights in the Nightmare is proof of their pedigree. But despite the complex combat mechanics found in Gungnir, at times it becomes an exercise in tedium as to what the correct strategy really is. One example would be during a siege mission, where my small group was bombarded by a ballista weapon on top of a castle I had to overrun. Without the proper timing of both scrambling towards capture points on the field to boost the amount of turns I have, it was almost impossible to beat. Thankfully Gungnir is forgiving to failure, having you retry with all experience earned through combat intact if you lose, although this can become a cheap way of exploiting the game in the long run as well.

Yeah…that's a battle screen. Crowded much?

Gungnir also suffers from a rather poor menu system. The screen is filled with gauges, lines, health bars, and menus to pay attention to, and that is just during combat. Outside of combat things are bit neater, but it becomes a chore to categorize and prioritize your squad with good equipment and abilities. The equipment menu is a travesty to navigate, while changing, moving and removing equipment on characters becomes as time consuming as battles at times to deal with. With so much going on in menus to deal with, it becomes distracting to the task at hand at times.

In terms of graphics and sound, Gungnir is fairly good. The soft-pencil like illustrations that take the form of character portraits is a smooth contrast to the 3-D rendered world maps, allowing for a casual, aesthetic akin to Chrono Trigger. The animation is fairly vibrant, using gestures and speech bubbles to express different emotions, making the sprites dynamic instead of being static on the battlefield. The menus are brightly colored, and games twenty-six missions have varied terrain to offer some really good fighting scenarios. The games music is standard stock for Sting, orchestral scores for battles, event scenes, serious scenes, and there menu’s have enough pop to be noticeable and in some cases, catchy.

Gungnir is the victim of several pitfalls that prevent it from standing out against big-time releases, but it’s definitely the perfect game to pick up at the tail-end of a handhelds life. While many of its ideas are promising, the overall package is somewhat bloated by features, making the game at times a chore to slog through. With only twenty-six missions, for a tactical game it is on the short side, but there is easily 40+ hours of tactical goodness here to enjoy if you are looking for something new to try out. And if nothing else, an excuse to turn your PSP on one more time.

A review code was provided by the publisher for review. It was played for around 42 hours to completion on the PSP, with a new game plus mode unlocked.

Gungnir Review

By Robert G.

Gungnir is the victim of several pitfalls that prevent it from standing out against big-time releases, but it’s definitely the perfect game to pick up at the tail-end of a handheld's life.