Nothing you do will alter the story line, everything is 100 percent linear. You can walk around some of the towns to buy improved weapons and armor, but you can't sell the armor or items that are surplus. This half hearted attempt at inventory and customization of characters just turns out awkward, since the only intelligent strategy is to load up two fighters with the best armor and weapons and let them do all the fighting while the rest of your characters watch from a safe distance. Each of the 30 odd battles is fought against progressively tougher opponents on a grid of squares. Characters move in turns based on their speed and can move and attack or move and rest to regain mana and hit points each turn.
Attacks can take the form of magic, melee, or special skills.
The special skills are not available to all characters, but allow you to do a lot of damage to multiple enemies but at the cost of taking some damage yourself. Enemies function much the same way. You are always outnumbered, but the number of opponents is irrelevant since enemies won't move or attack until one of your characters come within a certain range of them. This might sound pretty neat, with ranged attacks and short ranged attacks mixing along with magic. And, initially at least, it is kind of fun.