Review
Release Date: 03.23.2006
Platform:
Game Boy AdvanceDeveloper:
StingPublisher:
StingReviewed by
Ashton Liu on 8.4.2006
| Review Rating: 10/10 | User Rating: 10/10 |
The Gameboy Advance has never been lacking when it comes to strategy games.
Nintendo's near-dead handheld has a myriad number of tactical simulations; between
Advance Wars,
Fire Emblem,
Tactics Ogre,
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, to name but a few, strategy fiends have always had their thirst quenched. With such a large library of games with which for players to plan out cunning strategies, it may seem redundant for
Yggdra Union to be released - near the end of the system's lifespan, to boot. But there may be more to this humble game than most players will expect.
The story of
Yggdra Union involves the princess of Paltina, Yggdra, whose home kingdom has been invaded by a young prince named Gulcasa who has recently taken control of his own empire and commanded his armies to seize and annex all lands not under his rule. As Yggdra's home is destroyed, she steals her family's heirloom sword, the Gran Centurio, and escapes. Yggdra, however, didn't plan out her escape method very well and ends up running into a bandit named Milanor. Fortunately, this illicit warrior, deemed the Silver Wolf, is one of those Robin Hood-type thieves who have a strong sense of honor, so he decides to help Yggdra reclaim her kingdom from Gulcasa's iron fist.
Yggdra Union is from a rather small company by the name of
Sting; being small didn't deter them from making one of the most visually impressive games on the Gameboy Advance. Though the map graphics are nothing to write home about, when the game switches to battle mode, the extent of Sting's work is very apparent. Large, detailed sprites blitz through the battlefield in combat, their movements are incredibly fluid, and special effects are very well done. The art style is also quite unique, if a bit unusual.
Yggdra Union also contains one of the best soundtracks ever found in a Game Boy Advance game. The composition for the game is astounding, and after hours upon hours of gameplay, I never grew tired of it. The only flaw that can be found is that, due to the low quality speakers the Gameboy Advance uses, as well as the hardware limitations of the system itself, the music quality drops quite a bit if one doesn't play with headphones on. The inherent problem lies not with the game though, so this flaw is negligible, at best.
Undoubtedly, the main question on everyone's mind is how
Yggdra Union stacks up to other games of its genre. The answer is incredibly well. The game keeps the standard grid-based system inherent to all strategy games of its type, while introducing some new aspects via the card-based gameplay. Yes, I uttered the unholy words, "card-based gameplay." Worry not, it's not as terrifying as most other games with the same feature. The battle system in
Yggdra Union is completely governed by the cards the player has in his or her possession. At the beginning of each turn in battle, the player must select a card to use for that particular turn. Cards do not refill, so running out of cards leads to the game ending, encouraging the player to defeat the enemy in the shortest amount of time possible.
Instead of individual characters possessing specific movement ranges, each card has a movement value. Characters draw upon this movement pool in order to make their way through the battlefield. For instance, a card with a movement value of 12 allows all the characters to move 12 spaces in total. Thus, unit placement and movement effeciency is an important aspect in the game. Each turn, the player is allowed to attack once; however, characters are able to participate in union attacks if positioned correctly, allowing successive battles to take place. Two different positioning types are present in the game -- one where unions can occur if units are placed diagonally from the character who begins the union, and one where unions can occur if units are places directly adjacent to the union starter. For example, if three characters are placed beside a unit with the adjacent positioning type, it can lead to up to four battles assuming the enemies are not completely defeated before then. This method of combat may sound cumbersome - and it is, at first - but quickly becomes easy to manipulate once the player learns the details of the system.
During battle, there are six soldiers on each side (three if the unit is a mounted unit type). The unit that activated the battle attacks first, with the defending unit counterattacking afterwards (this may not happen for certain units, however) with no drop in attack power. During the actual battle, players are allowed to have their own units go into passive or aggressive mode. Passive mode lowers the unit's attack strength but charges the energy bar to enable use of special attacks, and aggressive mode increases attack while draining the energy bar. The bar itself always starts at a certain point depending on the time of day as well as the unit involved, so the player must assess whether passive or aggressive mode would be more advantageous for the particular situation. As in most strategy games, the weapon type a unit uses plays an important part in battle, with certain weapons being strong or weak against certain other weapons in a rock-paper-scissors fashion. However, unlike in many other games, a disadvantageous matchup does not mean that the unit with the weaker weapon type will always lose; this is where the cards play an essential role.
Each card has a special ability that can be used when the energy bar in battle reaches 100%. Some of these abilities can only be used depending on the time of day or the unit using it, but regardless, they grant incredibly powerful effects to the unit using it. One ability may completely destroy the enemy ranks regardless of their number, but can only be used when the player only has one combatant remaining. Another may cause all damage to the unit to be negated for a set time period. These card abilities are split into two types: A and B type. A type requires the player to press A to instantaneously activate the ability and continue holding it down to use the ability until the bar runs out, while B type requires holding down B to charge the ability for a certain period of time, then releasing it when full to activate the attack, which drains the bar completely. Both types can be interrupted during the time the player needs to hold down the button, so it's important to use them at a moment when there's the least chance for cancellation.
After each battle, the game calculates a percentage determined by elements in and out of battle, such as terrain, battle performance, and so on, then applies this percentage to the damage value on the card currently used. The final value is subracted from the defeated unit's morale count, and once a unit's HP becomes 0, the unit dies. Fortunately, there are very few instances where units are killed in one attack, so players need not worry about one turn completely obliterating their strategy when an important character is killed near the end of a battle (
Fire Emblem, I'm looking at you). Defeated units also come back at the end of a battle with one morale and all exp gain lost, with the exception of the two main characters. Morale does not regenerate between battles, so the player must rely on items found during the game to heal the characters. Many of these items can be equipped to enhance certain stats for a predetermined number of battles, as well as used to heal characters between battles. However, once they are equipped or used, they are gone forever, so the player must plan accordingly.
There is a sizable amount of extra content within the game, though none of it is gameplay focused. Instead, it's mostly made up of unlockable sections where the player can view art, card lists, and other such details about the game. This content is unlocked by actually playing the main scenario, which is quite long (over 30 battlefields, many of which have multiple parts). Later the game also gets incredibly difficult, with some battlefields requiring numerous retries to complete.
Yggdra Union isn't without its share of rough edges. One flaw with the game is that, due to its design, battles are unskippable. This makes watching battles incredibly monotonous and repetitive at times, even though the player needs to see the battles in order to properly play the game. Another shortcoming is the bizarre item system; I constantly found myself running out of items to heal my characters with, much less equip, forcing me to start battlefields with incredibly weakened characters. This got so bad that I had to restart the game because I was unable to progress any further.
However, these potential pitfalls are incredibly minor in comparison to the other facets of
Yggdra Union's gameplay. The game's graphics and sound are both the best the GBA can offer, and the game's battle system, while simplistic at first, quickly becomes incredibly deep due to multiple elements affecting combat as well as the different effects the cards grant the player. Each aspect of the battle system adds another layer of strategy, so it is unbelievably rewarding each time a battle is won. It seems that the last strategy game released for the Gameboy Advance is also the best one, usurping the crown from even Nintendo's own
Fire Emblem and
Advance Wars series. GBA owners looking for a new strategy game to satiate their hunger are in for a treat when
Atlus releases this game stateside later this year.
