Now here's the real twist of Soul Nomad: each room has a designated leader, and when that leader dies the room dies with it when the turn is over. So placement of the leader is the most important thing to consider when putting your group together. Putting a weak leader in front is obviously a waste of time because once that group has been defeated they cannot return to that particular battlefield. Each designated leader also has special skills that they can use outside of battle. Most of these are buffs that do everything from increase your attack and defense to healing and defense. The only other thing that affects combat is range. If an enemy attacks from a distance melee units can not directly engage them but ranged units like archers and mages (thankfully) can strike back. When battles occur the game shifts to a 2D view showing two sides - the defender and the aggressor. Usually the attacker goes first, followed by a counter attack by whatever survived.

Each side gets one turn and if no one's leader was defeated the group remains on the map. That's the gameplay in a nutshell, and while it is simple, it certainly is a lot of fun.

I should mention the ability to upgrade your room by going inside it. Much like the item world in Disgaea, Soul Nomad lets you jump into your room and battle the entities within to upgrade it. This improves the decors you have equipped, adds additional decor slots and generally makes the room better. There are some stark differences from Disgaea's item world gameplay that should be noted. First, there is no geo system to manipulate in the game at all. Instead each level has some type of condition on it like extra EXP, enemy level up, etc. Players have no control over this so being careful about placement and how to attack are very important factors for surviving. The other thing that is different about tackling rooms is that you don't have to go ten levels to get out. After each battle you have the option to exit, or continue clearing the room's levels. Finally it should be noted that much like the generals in Disgaea's item world, each level has a group called a room sentry. But unlike Disgaea you can end the action quickly by simply defeating that "leader."

The other important aspect of the game is gig edicts, which are just a fancy name for items. These items can do everything from healing to allowing you to steal enemies' equipped decors or give away your decors to someone else. There has been a lot of talk about gig edicts that let you level up by thousands of levels, and while I have encountered them they are one time use affairs that you won't find too often. A lot of times you won't need these kinds of edicts if you have done the bumping and grinding you are expected to do in an NIS America game. These particular Gig Edicts are simply amazing because you will be able to take on the World Eaters with relative ease - which is saying a lot considering how powerful these god-like bosses are in the game.

The other part of the game that is interesting is the ability to fight townspeople. To do this you simply grab a "fight" edict and use it while in the town menu. Next thing you know, you're fighting the shop keeper. The only penalty is that you lose the edict you used. Some of the more difficult townsfolk prove to be cash cows. As an example, I tried 15 times to beat this one particular merchant. At the end of it all I was rewarded with 80,000 HL! There are other things you can do with gig edicts, but I don't want to spoil it for you. Suffice to say, you'll be doing much more than beating the snot out of townsfolk when the game ships.

Soul Nomad is so unlike anything that NIS America has brought to America, and fans of their other games will find it an odd but enjoyable experience if the game is a little more refined than the version I'm playing. After about 30 hours of playing the game, Soul Nomad proves to be fun, challenging and engaging. There were some issues with bugs, which I suspect will be fixed by the time the retail version of the game ships in late September but these are overshadowed by an awesome storyline and one of the most colorful characters in a video game I've encountered this year.