Those Who Rule is a very small team's love letter to the old Fire Emblem RPGs. Its made with a lot of heart, but as a small team made it; the game is something of an unpolished gem. There is good content and gameplay in here, but there is also a lot of grit and unsanded edges that drags the game down. If it was possible to give a game a neutral review I believe that would be warranted. Since it isn't, let me apply a big IF to my recommendation. This game is worth playing IF you are hungry for that old GBA/Game Cube era Fire Emblem feeling and you don't mind some jank. If either of those aren't true, you should probably pass. With that out of the way, lets talk about the game. Its Fire Emblem but with some mechanics changed around. Its a turn based game, There are weapon affinities, a damage calculation preview, certain marked enemies drop items when killed, true-hit % system, consumable healing items that units can skip their turn to use, etc. Characters basically have fire emblem stats, 4 speed is the difference between double attacking or not, you can do the damage calculations in your head because its just strength + weapon attack - enemy def, etc. So, whats different? The game is hex based instead of grid based, this means that each unit has 6 tiles surrounding them. This is done because you get to pick the direction your unit is facing. Attacks from the front deal the lowest damage and have the highest chance of being evaded. Attacks from behind deal additional damage and have a lower evasion chance. There are no "critical hits" because you can get them for free by stabbing an enemy in the back. To prevent "backstab fishing" from being the main gameplay mechanic, each unit equipped with a melee unit has a zone of control around them. Units lose all remaining movement if they take a step into an enemy zone of control. Thus your "Knight" doesn't just defend the hex they are on, they also prevent enemies from bypassing the surrounding 6 hexes. This isn't a perfect solution to every problem as there are ranged units, units that can bypass Zone of Control, and lastly if you put two units to surround the Knight (one going clockwise and one going counter clockwise) you can eventually get one to its back for easy damage. The Knight will have to pick one to face, leaving itself open. There are other differences too, equipment works much differently than a regular fire emblem game. Everything you equip to your character has passive and/or active abilities. Wielding a Sword feels different from wielding an Axe not just because each has different damage/hit stats but because each has a different passive ability. This helps make up for the lack of a weapon triangle (though Hammers still exist to explode armored units). Additionally, weapons/items don't have durability instead some of their abilities have limited uses per chapter. Your character can carry up to 3 weapons, two accessories, and a shield. However, each item has a weight and each character has a weight limit preventing them from just loading up on all the best gear. You need to choose whether to wield a couple weaker weapons or just one powerful one; whether to use a heavier shield or have room to equip additional accessories. This system is actually really good and one of the things that kept me invested in the game as we got to later chapters. There are 6 basic classes, these classes each come with a basic ability and each character has their own unique ability. Then, each basic class has 3 choices for upgrades at level 10 to an advanced class, some of these overlap between the basic classes. For example; both the basic armored unit and the basic healer can evolve into the Crusader advanced class. The advanced classes add another two abilities to the mix, on top of the basic ability and character ability. Finally, at level 20, a unit will advance from Advanced Classes to Expert Classes. Expert classes grant a final two abilities, for a total of 6 abilities per unit. Unfortunately, your choice of Expert Classes is locked in based on your starting class. It would have been nice to have the advanced class determine your expert class options; as this would give more options for replayability and build diversity. Okay, all of this is well and good, but why don't you recommend the game without an *IF* associated with your recommendation? Four reasons. My first reason is that the combat system really breaks down at high level. Late game enemy units require extremely specific answers: there are units with absurd dodge, absurd defense, complete status immunity, immunity to zone of control, that always attack first and perform all their attacks before you can strike back, and more. If you don't have the right tool for the job (high accuracy, defense bypasses, status immunity bypass, correct positioning, and defensive walls respectively) you are likely to just lose a unit. If you do have the right tool for the job, its a cake walk. More so, late game all units will have one of 4 levels of defense: Basically Invincible, Incredibly Tough, Dies in Three Attacks, or Dies instantly. Most of the allied cast should, in my humble opinion, be inbetween Incredibly Tough and Dies in Three Attacks. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Some of that could be bad growths on my end, but from personal experience it feels like most of the cast dies far too quickly. Of my whole band of 30+ characters, I would say about 8-10 of them could be attacked by more than two enemy units and survive. Some of those are dodge tanks too, so they die if they're hit past their evasion. This goes into my second reason; the game is hard and will kill your units: even on normal. This isn't a bad thing, but the game does not have any kind of mid-battle save. If you're like me, you don't let your units die, and that means that any mistake during (especially late game) very long and difficult chapters resets you to square one. That is part of the fire emblem experience, but I feel like its worth pointing out. My third reason is a little pettier, but its about the game itself. The game was made by a small team and it shows. The option to see where enemies can attack sometimes causes it to stay on screen but be in the wrong spot, you can't see enemy attack range while moving your units (a problem when you've got to move your skirmisher 2 squares after their action), the game will switch your weapons for you or highlight skills you don't mean to use (thus clicking too fast through things can cause you to screw up, mis place a unit, and start the whole map over again), and you can't open the main menu during enemy turns so you have to wait the entire way through the enemy turn to restart the mission. My fourth and final reason is that there are various story kerfuffles; the party escapes on a pirate ship across the ocean to a landlocked section of the same continent they started on, characters appear or disappear with little warning (what happened to Mathias, where did Jorah come from, etc), and I'm sure I've forgotten others. Despite all the above issues, The game is inexpensive, there might be a sequel, and the author actually responds to message boards which is a point in their favor. The class/equipment systems kept me hooked even when the game got a little janky. The game was solid and you'll like it IF you like fire emblem and don't mind some indie developer jank. It took me about 40 hours to beat, though I bet you could beat it in much less if you knew what you were doing, didn't care about unit losses, or were going through the game a second time.