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The combat is fun, which is good, because tactical RPG's are all about the combat. It is also a little innovative, mainly in the fact that members of your party can transform into Weres, giant monsters with more hit points and a variety of special attacks. They turned out to be less useful and important than I'd imagined, because only one person at a time can be one, and you have a very restrictive number of Were points to work with, especially early on.
The battles are also smaller than is most preferable. The maps aren't very big, first of all, and you can only control 6 people at a time (most things don't match Shining Force's 12 people). One annoying combat point is that Saiyuki is king of palette swapping; in general, rather than introducing new monsters, it just changes the color and level of the old ones, which isn't very cool. Also, the attack animations for spells are repetitive, and way too long, and are poor quality anyway, but they can be turned off. The entire game, actually, is graphically plain, though that isn't too important in any sort of RPG, and there are some nice touches, like the character portraits.
The plot is actually very good, especially for a tactical RPG. It is linear, but very interesting. It is based on a Chinese myth, the same one which spawned Dragon Ball Z (although it is similar in Goku's name only). It is cool, without having a fancy presentation. Saiyuki also has a very good cast of characters, including the main enemies.
Saiyuki took about 30 hours to finish, but it is easy to play in small amounts, like one or two battles, so length shouldn't be a deterrent. I recommend Saiyuki, but not particularly highly. You should play it if you like tactical RPG's, but there are some better ones to play, like the Shining Force series, Front Mission, or Final Fantasy Tactics, especially as an introduction to the genre. Still, it is fun.
At the begining of a new game, Saiyuki lets the player choose if they want to be a boy or a girl. I'm assuming this leads to multiple endings, but since I haven't beaten the game yet, i'm not sure. Anyway, the game puts whoever you choose in charge as your main protagonist. The story starts out with the player seeing a vision from a goddess, who tells him/her that they must travel from their home in China to a temple in India. I'm not going to reveal any more of the story since I don't want to give anything away.
The battles are standard ones in any normal tactics game. You are put in control of about 5 - 10 guys on a 3D battlefield, and you must complete objectives such as "kill all enimies" or "get to this point". This is a fun and challenging aspect that some people will enjoy, and some will be bored by.
In all, Saiyuki is a fun game that will appeal to anyone who likes tactics games. However, if you don't like tactics games, this won't change your mind.
Mechanically, it's quite similar to Final Fantasy Tactics; you travel from point to point, learning parts of the story as you go, and then engaging in tactical battles that become more complex and more dangerous as time goes on. Since FFTactics was a good tactics game, this means that Saiyuki, too, is a quite enjoyable tactical game.
Where Saiyuki shines, though, is in the story and characters. There have been many different adaptations of the Monkey King and Journey West -- a game called "Wu Kung" for the PC, the anime Dragonball, and so on -- but this one has its own charm. The wandering monk, Sanzo, gathers together a group of guardians to oppose certain dark forces and to retrieve a collection of ancient wisdom from distant India. Each character is given several expressions to accompany and emphasize their dialogue, and their designs are well-executed to reflect their character; the self-serving, mischievious Monkey King Son Goku, the innocent and earnest monk Sanzo, the haughty Daughter of the Dragon, and so on. The characters do not just focus exclusively on the plotline, but often banter amongst each other, giving us insights into what they are like and how they get along during their travels. There's nothing tremendously deep or literary about these characters, but for a video game they're amazingly well executed. When I'm playing, I'm looking forward to each interaction and wondering what I'm going to learn about the characters. The battles are good, but the story's better.
A little-appreciated gem. If you like tactical RPGs, grab this one!
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