Yggdra Union
| Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Sting Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Designer(s) | Shinichi Ito |
| Artist(s) | Satoko Kiyuduki Sunaho Tobe |
| Writer(s) | Nobuhiko Matsumura |
| Series | Dept. Heaven |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable |
| Release |
Game Boy Advance PlayStation Portable |
| Genre(s) | Tactical role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Review scores | ||
|---|---|---|
| Publication | Score | |
| GBA | PSP | |
| Destructoid | N/A | 9 of 10 |
| Eurogamer | 5 of 10 | N/A |
| Famitsu | 35 of 40 | N/A |
| Game Informer | 7.25 of 10 | N/A |
| GamePro | N/A |  |
| GameSpot | 8 of 10 | 5.5 of 10 |
| GameSpy | N/A |   |
| GameZone | N/A | 8.3 of 10 |
| IGN | 7.8 of 10 | 7.7 of 10 |
| Nintendo Power | 7.5 of 10 | N/A |
| PSM | N/A | |
| 411Mania | N/A | 8.3 of 10 |
| Aggregate score | ||
| Metacritic | 77 of 100 | 73 of 100 |
| Award | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Award |
| Famitsu | Reader's Top 100 Games of 2006 |
Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone is a tactical role-playing game for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment as the second episode of the Dept. Heaven saga of games. Atlus USA localized and published both versions of the game in North America. 505 Games published the Game Boy Advance version in a limited number of European countries, such as Italy and France. A Nintendo DS side-game was released in Japan on December 3, 2009 as Yggdra Unison: Seiken Buyuuden.
The game is a tactical RPG with an overhead view of a 2D map, managing miniature versions of the units. A card system dictating unit movement and potential skills plays into both enemy and ally turns, as well as the "Union" formation system, in which massive battles can take place between several platoons. There are also some real time elements included during actual battle sequences, such as being able to control how units attack the enemy.
The game follows a linear succession of battles. Within each battle, units are displayed on a grid of spaces which decide where the characters can move. The player and the computer take turns in which movements are determined and one attack can be executed against an opposing character. The player may choose to end his/her turn at any time. Unions are the eponymous game play mechanic. Unlike most games, the player is allowed one attack per turn. Attacks are performed in formations called unions. Most unions involve multiple units, but it is possible to attack with a "union" of one unit. Forming unions allows more than one unit to join the battle, allowing for battles between as many as eighty soldiers, grouped into up to five individual battles between two units named 'clashes'. Depending on the gender of the unit, the formation required for a union will be different. Males have an x-shaped formation, whereas females have a plus-shaped formation. Linked unions, which become available during the fifteenth battlefield, allow units within the core union to apply their union pattern to extend the overall union.
Each unit that can be included in a union is composed of a leader, the head, and as many as seven underlings, or 'members'. For example, in the case of Yggdra's unit, Yggdra is the head, and her five members are Sword Maidens. Each unit has a weapon type, with strengths and weaknesses in a rock-paper-scissors fashion. Each unit comes with six stats: Morale, an indicator with a function similar to Hit points; GEN, generalcy; ATK, attack; TEC, technique; and LUK, luck. The final stat depends on alignment of the unit. Player units have REP, reputation, measuring victory rates, and enemy units have POW.UP, which is a reducible stat that increases card POW upon player victory. Each unit also has the potential for five 'effects', which are strategy altering hooks that do many things, from the in-clash voiding of damage enhanced with a particular element, to out of clash Morale restoration. Up to four effects can be innate to the unit, with one effect coming from the unit's equipped item. Items are multi-purpose in Yggdra Union; they can be equipped for stat ups and effects, or they can be consumed to recover Morale. Equipped items cannot be removed, and will disappear after a set amount of battlefields.
...
Wikipedia