I picked up Yggdra Union over the weekend. Likely the last brand new Gameboy Advance game that I’ll ever buy, so it’s a farewell song to the console (not really, I’m playing it in my DS anyway). And what a sweet farewell it is.
Playing Yggdra Union is like being transported back in time to when games were simpler. On the surface, it appears even simpler than its pseudochronological siblings (Tactics Ogre, Warsong, Fire Emblem), but that simplicity is deceived shortly into the game. If you know the genre well, I’ll tell you the differences. If you don’t, this is probably not the game for you (though not the worst starting place to get into SRPG).
First off, each distinct faction only gets one attack move per turn. Every character can move but only one can directly attack. Secondly, movement points are shared between all units like Christmas presents are shared between siblings (there is a joke here). Thirdly, the amount of movement points you have this turn is based on the card you put down. When you are out of cards, the game is over (you didn’t get Blastoise), so there is a set amount of movement (and number of attacks) that you must complete each mission in. This makes most of the mission levels and the game in turn feel relatively ’small’. If the game were left at that, it would be of flash-game-turned-handheld depth and I’d probably not be talking about it right now.
After Tutorial Chapter 1, much like severe allergic reaction, the game expands to fill all available space in the small world it has crafted for itself. It’s an allergic reaction to boring. While only one character can directly attack, formations and chains come into the picture (Front Mission fans rejoice!). All the rock-paper-scissors you can possibly take also hops in around this point (Kartia fans, rejoice?). The original title じゅんけんぽ極度 (Jun Ken Pow Extreme) made this pretty clear, but this was ditched in translation due to cultural gaps.
While not my favorite mechanic, it does create some decent “add water, receive strategic depth” that gets magnified by the ’small space and time’. Once this is brought to a boil, they add in some delectable card mechanics and simmer. Character leveling is present though somewhat auxiliary. Card leveling is where it’s at. The characters and the cards are equally varied and colorful (beautiful art I’d want on my wall), and there’s a lot of Tactics Ogre wow without the Tactics Ogre ho-hum all around. One of the prime problems however lies in the leveling. There are almost Fire Emblem (more comparisons to this later) levels of XP-Catch-22 seeping through every system in which advancement is a piece in this game. The primary reason for this is that battles only do damage to the loser, regardless of how close the fight is (the closer the fight, the less the damage), but the lose/win aspect makes it impossible for a weaker character to win a fight against a stronger one without some heavy rockpapercissoring, and without winning, they don’t get the valuable XP they need. Likewise cards power up based on how much damage you do while they’re active, but how much damage you do is based on their power level. Pretty soon, you don’t bother bringing out the cards with sub-par damage levels even out pity (you lose the game if you don’t kill them fast enough). By the way, if you took the Jun Ken Pow Extreme thing seriously I apologize. If you’re reading this, Atlus, you should buy the license to that game too I hear it’s really cool.
Story-wise, I see a lot of similarities between this and Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (I promised). If asked to draw a venn-diagram of Yggdra Union and Fire Emblem, I would probably just draw a really thick circle and then scribble all over it. But then again, I hate venn-diagrams so all of mine typically come out like this.
If you like SRPGs, Import games with good art, difficult to pronounce titles, or venn-diagrams (just to spite me), you really ought to pick this title up. Even if you just miss the familiar streamline bulge of the GBA-SP and long for a ‘no stylus mini games found here’ breather, you should pick it up. It’s nice to see that older style games can still be done right today, and in a time when next gen warriors abound: it’s nice to nestle in to the warmth of a cult classic on a system of two-yesteryear during these colder months.
