Pretty darn decent
I ended up having quite a bit of fun in the sandbox mode. The concept of this game is really great, balancing the new students against the older ones and strategically planning for the tourneys ahead of time. The graphics were splendid and the music was really suitable. I question the over usage of the speech though, I found that rather annoying.
This game is great to start with. But it certainly has a few flaws.
Firstly, the tutorials aren't very well made. The whole system takes a lot of getting used to. Like the whole concept of 'organize student' to mean leveling them up as well and the green face meaning they had already leveled - none of that was explained. I kid you not, my first playthrough I didn't even know I could train the students and I just kept sucking at missions before giving up. I then read your note about 'training' and decided to give it another go, and then found that out. The system of gameplay should be explained more - by events rather than by clicking. Like if I leveled up, have the tutorial pop up again talking about that stuff.
The other thing that isn't explained very well is how classes are determined. I found myself longing for another gunslinger, but left with no clue how to train one. I still don't know what I'm looking for to get a particular class. Or is it just random? I don't even know that.
That out of the way, there are other things too. The gameplay becomes way too repetitive after a while. The hunt battles are fun, but they are too similar. And the errands yield so little LP that I'm forced to play through the same levels over and over again. It's quite frustrating.
The leveling feels quite uninvolved too. I say this because there's nothing much to do but click a button and let their stats pile up on their own. I would actually prefer if I could have some form of personal customizing of stats or something. Or even weapon choice or skill trees or something. Make the whole thing more involved.
This thing is actually quite fun to play. I especially enjoyed the tournament battles when I pitted my best students against the others, and each time it came around I had new recruits which made it quite challenging too.
I strongly suggest you work away from the repetitive gameplay. The concept is sound, but it needs more dimension in the battles and the leveling system.