From it's Japanese ported roots we have something new for your Sony PSP to load up... and load it will do. Inspired by anime and traditional role-playing basics, NIS America is hoping for a classic to be born. It's a battle for control of neverland a place where demons and can humans can never get along. What a shame, as John Lennon would say "I'll I am saying, is give peace a chance". Welcome to our review of Spectral Souls for the Sony PSP.

If you're familiar with publisher NIS America then you will know about its Nippon Ichi gaming roots, most famous for their tactical role-playing game, Disgaea. Now along with Idea Factory, NIS America hopes to bring another unique anime inspired game heavy on tactics, attack combos and story telling. From the games title alone, Spectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empires, you should know you're in for the long hall.

Spectral Souls is heavy on words, and a tragic storyline putting control of the neverworld at stake. This isn't your comedic Laharl and his gang of good hearted friends, its dark and geared for a more adult audience. Spectral Souls has many elements RPG fans will be accustomed to, world maps, towns, shops, stats, magic, and more. Battles also impact the historical factors which change along with your actions.

In the beginning you're a lead through the storyline as it progresses and later things become more interesting by letting the player choose what army the want to represent. You have three armies that you can run through Spectral Souls with, each uniquely different in beliefs and characters. The three armies are the "Reformed Simba Empire" a human army who oppose demons, "Rozes Liberation Army" who wish for peace and freedom for both humans and demons, and lastly the "Imperial Neverland Army" who are on the demon side and detest human life forms. Pretty simple, demons hating humans, humans hating demons, everyone wanting control, peace, or annihilation!

Adding multiple roots that you can follow greatly increases the replay value of Spectral Souls and if you wanted to go for all three endings or a secret "true" ending get ready to invest some real time. If you're digging the action then why stop. The combat can drag on at times, but that is what strategy properties are all about. Look out for Saulve Bastion and Hiro they can pose quite the challenge. It's good to see that Idea Factory is sticking to the roots while giving gamers customization options along with some unique storytelling twists. Spectral Souls isn't re-inventing the wheels, it's just adding new rims.

For combat you are placed on a multi leveled grid and you need to do battle in a turned based system. There is an active time gauge that places your characters as icons and cycles through them for turns. You can do some advanced combos using a hold technique and you can even capture enemy monsters. Charging your attacks is also important to victory if you want some extra damage. I would classify Spectral Souls in the medium to moderate level of difficulty, it's not as hard as a game like Final Fantasy Tactics, but it's a little more complex then Advanced Wars.

Despite a good build up between the storyline and ideas implemented in the combat, something is missing and I think it stems from game flow. Spectral Souls really doesn't seem to be moving in a fluid motion, at times it seems like a chore to plug away at simple goals. The pace is really slow which can be partially blamed on its ultra long load times. I'm sure Idea Factory tried to get the loading times down, but I would have held off until releasing the project until it was perfectly stream-lined.

One reason Spectral Souls might take a while to load is because it's filled with a lot of detail. The environments are fairly basic because of the grid design, but within the basic design are a lot of little touches that make the world seem more real. You can even zoom fairly close to the action using the PSP analog stick, so you can adjust the playing field if necessary. The art in Spectral Souls would be a high point, although one complaint is that the sprites in game don't match the artists renditions. The in game 2D characters are a too cartoonish compared to the art found in game or even on the box design. In comparison to other RPGs on the PSP handheld, Spectral Souls graphically holds it own.

On the audio side, Spectral Souls does a great job with a dynamic orchestral score. It's really doesn't add anything new to the genre, but its good to hear it being up to par. Now the second area which could of helped the over all flow of the game is overdubbed voice work. Spectral Souls is void of any voice over talent and this means reading, reading and more reading. Again, it's to be expected, it's nothing new to read in a RPG, but to make this title stand out it really needed that extra touch. Overall the presentation is strong to keep up with other games on the PSP, but there is nothing you haven't seen or heard before.

Spectral Souls is going to appeal to the fan who likes to take their time with an RPG and learn the intrictacies of the game. Spectral Souls expects you to invest a lot of time and if that's something you don't have you can safely put this one aside. The load times are a concern; this game really needs to be re-tooled to run on the PSP hardware. Aside from the negative points, Spectral Souls should be looked at by strategy and role-playing fans. There are lots of great ideas laced into the soul of Spectral Souls, unfortunately you'll just have to wait until it loads.