Sigma Harmonics is a hybrid of an adventure game and card-battling RPG made by Square-Enix. While I can't understand one word of the story, it's presented with anime still pictures, and you can get a gist of what's going on based on that alone.

All menus have english language written on them, so combat is perfectly workable. Let me say, I found the combat very easy to pull off, and quite fun. I can see the challenge ramp up later in the game and forcing you to think on the fly as you work strategies. Here's how it works. Your main character Sigma does not fight. He basically conducts his friend Neon to do the battling, which is a pretty bitch move on his part, making a girl fight his battles.

You are given three cards on the screen to play with. There is an attack card, a turning card, and a healing card. Each card can be used and then regenerates it's bar so it can be reused. There are no actual turns, just the cards themselves that would regenerate use.

Monsters can appear in at least four directions, North, South, West and East, but I believe there will be four more for the cross directions like Northwest, Southeast, etc. for a total of 8 enemies at a time. This is where the turning card comes in. If you don't use the turning card, you'll continuously use your action card on thin air if you beat the enemy in that direction. Your turning card turns you in the next direction towards a new enemy.

All cards have a second bar that applies to the beat of the music playing. If it reaches towards the top and the card is played at that time, it becoems more powerful. If it's played towards the bottom of the beat, less powerful. Each card reacts differently to each song, of which there are supposed to be many. You can change songs in an active submenu during the fight, which helps certain cards regenerate faster and react better towards the beat of the song.

There are also new outfits for neon to wear(like FFX-2) that will change abilities, and new decks of cards can sub in for each other in battle. Overall I would say the combat is fantastic. Very enjoyable indeed.

The larger half of the game is the adventure portion, which basically sums up to figuring out a mystey involving murder and why your present reality is changing as the past is beng changed by a man in a black mask and cowl. You must search for icons that signify you trying to piece your memories back together and figure out the past so it makes more sense. It culminates in a puzzle sequence you must finish and then off to a boss fight. It's all in Japanese, so not import friendly. It takes up a much larger portion of the game than the battling does. It should be noted that because of this, I would consider this more for fans of mystery games as opposed to fans of traditional RPGs but it should be thoroughly enjoyable for both.

Localization for this game is going to be a bitch. The text bubbles go straight up and down and would need to be redone to fit English in there, which means moving the anime stills down some and putting the bubbles ontop of the chaacter probably. There is also an immense amount of text in this game. I had two battles in my first two hours with the game, a few minutes of walking around, and then over 1 hour 40 minutes of straight text bubbles. I do expect it to be localized though, but not until well into next year.

That's all for now. Discuss if you've played Sigma Harmonics also. If there's something else you want me to check out in the game I will.

I know nothing about this game and your "hands-on" has confused me.

Where can I see video footage of this game in order to have some idea what you're talking about?

Ask and ye shall recieve. I know it's confusing. Imagine having to sift through the game not knowing Japanese. I forgot to mention in the Hands-On that the game is held in book form like Brain Age and Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword.

Puzzle screen whjere you try to rebuild memories

An example of what encompasses a good portion of this game, dialogue.

Battle screen. Your left card is attack. Your middle card is to change directions. Your right card is to heal.

Your drag the card you want to use into the empty box at the top-middle of the screen.

On the right upper side of the screen, submenus appear. Only card skills can be seen on this one, but more such as Change Outfit and Change Music show up.

The left bar above each card represents the regeneration time  before the card can be used again. The bar turns red when full.

The right bar is your cards power in time to the music that is playing. It thumps up and down to the beat, so you want to drag the card at the most opportune time to maximize the effects.

This is a piece of memory that is used to solve the puzzles with. You find these as you explore a mansion. I'm assuming it's my main chaacter, Sigma's mansion.

Japanese trailer for the game.

I tried it too. Didn't like much. Too heavy texted at the beginning. Inazuma 11 however seems a masterpiece.

Wow, that's a lot of text! It looks interesting, however.

Been hearing great things about Inazuma Eleven from neogaf.

Do you speak Japanese? I tried out Inazuma also and just can't get anywhere. I'm tying to get myself to a first battle to try out the soccer combat but can't figure out what to do. I do like the art style though. It looks like Rocket Slime.

The text is supposed to be heavy throughout Sigma Harmonics I believe. I heard some say it'll be as text heavy as Hotel Dusk was.

No I don't know japanese :-|
However the first thing you should do to trigger an event with a "tutorial" match is to head to the square/field in front of  the school.

I will try that. I wanted to write a Hands On with Inazuma also. So far I wasn't impressed with the touch screen controls. I hate that it anchors you to one position when you move your character with the stylus. Luckily the D-Pad movement works fine.