Makai Kingdom is brought to us by the same people who created Disgaea, La Pucelle, and Phantom Brave. You are cartoon style characters moving in grid combat on random boards.

The graphics are quite reasonable for this style of game. Makai Kingdom is about strategy and not about visual speed, so while the individual characters are cute, they are not overly detailed. This is OK if you're playing on a small screen TV, but once you move up to a larger screen and/or high definition TV, the characters begin to look a bit fuzzy and pixellated.

The sound falls into the same category. You get generic electronica-sounding background sounds, along with dialogue such as "Take This!" and effects like "BOoooom!" Since you tend to tune out all of those sounds while focussing on your strategy, it's fine.

Actual gameplay is very enjoyable. Each character has strengths and weaknesses, a variety of attributes to customize and weapons / armor to work with. Makai Kingdom can easily take you weeks, if not months, to finish, if you really put the time and effort into tweaking your characters to fit your playing style. The more effort you put into your characters, the more fun gameplay will be, and themore smoothly your battles will go.

Really, the game is a colorful, multi-dimensional, customizeable strategy game that really tests your planning and strategy skills. Given the number of characters and situations you have to keep track of at any point in time, it's an impressive way to keep your brain cells active and alert. For anyone who reads those studies that say "crossword puzzles help keep your mind alert", I suggest they give this game a try. Talk about a game sure to help your thinking processes become more acute!!

Highly recommended for any strategy / RPG fans.

Buy Makai Kingdom from Amazon.com