War of the Human Tanks

[Kageryuu]

http://fruitbatfactory.com/humantanks/
http://vndb.org/v11122

Story:

Spoiler for Hiden:

War of the Human Tanks pits the group of Human Tanks commanded by the player against the opposing Commanding Officers and their forces in a campaign fought on a series of grid-based maps. Players will have to use their wits to upgrade their units and utilize them to the best of their abilities in order to progress throughout the game.

This story takes place in a land vaguely reminiscent of modern-day Japan. In the twenty years since the first Human Tank was developed, the war raging between the Empire of Japon and the Kingdom of Japon has turned into a proxy war fought between Human Tanks on both sides.

The Empire of Japon once ruled the entire land of Japon. Now diminished and cornered, the Empire prepares to make its last stand as the tanks of the Kingdom of Japon draw close to its capital. Shoutaro Daihon’ei, Lieutenant of the Imperial Army moves out to the battlefield, followed closely by the loyal Human Tanks in his company.

Trailer:

Spoiler for Hiden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt9kfhYhA7Y

Gameplay:

Spoiler for Hiden:

War of the Human Tanks is a visual novel/ strategy game crossover, similar to Gadget Trial in some ways. Now, the first thing that comes to mind when you have a grid based map, sorta turn based strategy, and tanks is probably Advance Wars. The battles in WotHT... are actually very different from those in Advance Wars.
War of the Human Tanks is not really turn based, but sorta real time. Every unit has a certain speed, and this determines how long it takes for them to "connect", which allows them to take action. Also, there's no capturing or building stuff during a battle. You get to assemble your tanks before battles (and any surviving ones carry over), and you can develop new tanks and upgrades between the episodes.
Every episode consists of a (long) story sequence, a battle, another story sequence, and then an "intermission", in which you develop new stuff and can fight free battles.
Developing and assembling costs you supply, which you get from blowing enemy tanks up and fighting battles.
Also, the battles are surprisingly challenging. Fog of War, generally low sight range, and lots of units that are either fast or have a long range, make for lots of surprising explosions. Especially combinbed with the fact that it only takes one hit for the tanks to blow up. After a while you get bigger tanks that need to be hit in every field they take up, but in turn the attack areas also grow bigger.

Units:

Spoiler for Hiden:

There are 5 different base units, with another 2 becoming available as the story progresses. You start of with Command Tanks (you need at least one in every battle, if all get destroyed you lose the battle), Barrage Tanks (slow, long range artillery), Assault Tanks (basic attack units), Shock Tanks (very fast, attack by blowing themselves up), and Scout Tanks (they, uh, scout). After a few missions you get Interceptors (they protect a certain area from Barrage Tanks), and later on you get fast melee attackers.
You can develop several newer versions of all units (making them faster/have a higher range/make them attack a bigger area), as well as upgrade them through different modules.

Story and Characters, Art and Sounds:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The story in War of the Human Tanks starts off as nothing special, but becomes really cool later on. Lotsa things from the past are brought up, dark secrets are revealed, some pretty nice twists...
It's also presented pretty well and very funnily. The high comedy in this game actually seems a bit weird sometimes, with the way the Human Tanks are treated and stuff blowing up left and right.
The characters are pretty cliched, you have the laid back MC, the genius little sister, the very correct advisor, and a lot of weird and/or crazy Human Tanks. The enemies are somewhat interesting, and make for an interesting story, but again, nothing really new. Imo that's fine though.

The art style, if you haven't already guessed so, is all cute and chibi. It fits pretty well with the overall comedy theme, but again, it feels a bit weird sometimes with the stuff that's going on.

There isn't full voice acting in WotHT, mostly it's just a few words during the battles (when units take action or get attacked). The music is very good, and one of the strong points of this game (imo).
There are quite a lot of different tracks, and for example it changes depending on how a battle is going.

All in all War of the Human Tanks is a very fun and fast paced strategy game, with long story sequences between the battles. It has a very distinct chibi art and very good music.
The battles are usually challenging, and the fog of war in combination with low sight ranges and high speed make for a bit of randomness.
You do have to like the combination of visual novel and strategy game though. Just the story isn't enough to get you through the game if you don't like the battles, and you'll spend at least as much time skipping text as fighting battles if you're only in it for the battles.
The art and comedy are very distinct, and there probably are people who don't like either or both.
I like it a lot though and have lots of fun playing it. Imo it's more of game for in between, I usually play one or two episodes at a time.

On a final note, War of the Human Tanks is also on Steam Greenlight, so if you're interested make sure to support it (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92918806).

Edit: Also, this has bonus missions, new game+ mode, special characters you get after beating the game, and lots of other stuff that make it worth to play this game for a long time.