My music library isn't anything to sneeze at. I may only have about 20 gigs of music, but it's because I'm picky and only stuff that I know I'm going to listen to makes it into the sanctity of my iPod. That's why Square-Enix's musically themed strategy game, Song Summoner Encore, really appealed to not only the music lover in me, but the collector and strategy fan as well.

Song Summoner Encore for the iPhone is a remake of Song Summoner for the iPod, an exclusive Final Fantasy Tactics style game with a healthy dose of the Monster Rancher franchise for good measure. The concept of the game is simple: defeat your enemies using your army of Tune Troopers and their special skills. As you advance the storyline and use your Tune Troopers, they'll level up and improve in quality, allowing you to better whomp your enemies in battle.

The gimmick of Song Summonerand what really makes it stand out is how Tune Troopers are created. By going to the Hip-O-Drome in most every town you stop in, you can access your library of songs and choose any one of them to turn into a living, breathing, fighting Tune Trooper. Each song makes a different breed of Trooper with different stats, different classes and different ratings. The number of factors that go into creating a Trooper are so vast that, much like your potential music collection, the types that you can summon are nearly limitless. It's odd which songs make the best Tune Troopers, though. Some of the music you listen to will make fantastic Troopers while others will make you wish you'd never heard of the song in the first place.

While the main part of the game is enjoyable, it's very much a spiritual sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics, so if you enjoy strategy games, this is definitely your speed. You play as a young adventurer whose brother was taken by robots at a young age and now as the world's newest Song Summoner, you're out for revenge. Along the way, you'll gain allies that can be used as unique, significantly more powerful Tune Troopers to help you on your way. Your existing Tune Troopers will also get more powerful as you play with them, but Square-Enix did something a little different this time when it comes to Trooper deployment. When you create a new Tune Trooper from a song, it starts with a certain number of times it can be deployed. When that number gets to zero, you will no longer be able to use that Trooper unless you use the Rewind item to increase the number by one.

Another excellent tweak is the ability to level up your Tune Troopers when not even playing the game. If you listen to any song that you've made a Tune Trooper from, your squad will accrue special moral boost points that will help it in battle. Beyond that, though, there is very little integration of your music library into Song Summoner, which is a shame because the initial concept of creating a music-based game that isn't Rock Band or Guitar Hero is incredibly appealing.

It should also be noted that the graphics in this particular Square-Enix game are nothing to write home about. They're very reminiscent of the SNES sprites of old and can't hold a candle to Chaos Rings, Square-Enix's other popular iPhone app, and for a game based on variety of music, the soundtrack is surprisingly limited. However, the cutscenes are very well put together and the story is pretty compelling, if somewhat silly.

Song Summoner Encore is a great concept on the perfect platform, but Square-Enix could have done a lot more conceptually with the game other than re-skinning Final Fantasy Tactics and adding a few bells and whistles. The game takes almost 20 hours to complete and by that point, you're pretty much done with the concept because the game takes it no further than it absolutely needs to in order to keep the player somewhat entertained for the first few hours of the game. However, it is a great game to play while travelling and getting bonuses in-game for just listening to your favorite music on the go is a welcome tweak, but while playing you can't help thinking that they could have taken the concept so much further.