This game stands out from other tactical RPGs in two main respects.
The first is that most of a character’s available actions are determined by a personal customizable card pool (Draw Cards and Guard are always available). Characters unlock new cards as they level and you can mix and match which cards you want to include. Which is good since, as with most card-based games, each deck should be kept as small as possible to increase the chances you’ll have the most useful abilities available at any given time.
The second is that every action gets modified by a die roll. Every time you take an action you get to roll any bonus dice associated with the card along with any dice you have equipped; unlike other games, rather than getting money or weapons/armor as battle spoils you get new dice. Effects from this roll can range from increased effectiveness, to bonus effects, to free healing or card draw, to getting an additional action. So, unless you’ve been debuffed with bad dice, the die roll will never make an ability worse.
This is a somewhat novel approach that, at least at first, feels fresh without being overly random. The issue is that after awhile (the start of Chapter 2 for me) battles end up feeling pretty same-y since you’re effectively always using the same abilities and hoping for the same bonus effects on die rolls. Compounding this issue is that the characters are pretty one-note so far and the storyline’s just a string of sequential ‘go steal item X’ directives. Maybe it gets more interesting in later chapters, but I’m uncertain at this point whether or not I want to keep playing to find out.