Name: Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone
Genre: Tactical RPG
Platform: PSP


Over the course of this year, I have developed a more friendly relationship with tactical RPGs. It was previously a genre that I didn’t take the time to get to know, as I usually like my role-playing games either traditionally turn-based, or of the action variety. However, with the growing number of tactical RPGs showing up in the western hemisphere on various platforms, they’re getting harder and harder to ignore. Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone is actually a remake of a 2006 Game Boy Advance tactics game developed by Sting and localized for North America by Atlus, one of my favorite publishers. Even though I originally feared the hard-to-pronounce title, promise of card-based combat, and notably difficult gameplay, I found Yggdra Union to be a fun and challenging experience, even with occasional frustrations.

The plot centers around Yggdra, a young princess from Fantasinia who has lost her parents and fled her kingdom with only her trusty sword. Along the way, she meets several other characters that join her party, among them thieves, knights, witches, and Undines (the game’s version of mermaids). Yggdra’s quest is to reclaim her kingdom, defeat the evil Empire that pursues her every step of the way, and eventually bring peace to all the land. It’s not the deepest storyline, but the characters are highly likeable, with most of them bringing unique assets to the party.



What makes Yggdra Union different from most of the tactical games I’ve played is the battle system, which incorporates cards, weapons, and party alignment in ways that add various layers of strategy to the game. Battles take place on an overhead map, with a grid showing the player where to go, as with most games of the genre. While not the most remarkable-looking PSP game, the visuals have been notably improved from its GBA predecessor. Before each level begins, the player chooses a set number of cards, one of which is used at the start of each turn. The cards determine the number of blocks the entire party can move, the attack power of the group, and the special power assigned during that turn.

When an individual battle commences, a different screen appears with the opposing foes on either side. During the battle, the player chooses to either go into passive mode, aggressive mode, or simply do nothing and watch the fight play out. While in aggressive mode, attack power rises, but the bar drains quickly, and you will have to go into passive mode (in which you take more damage) to fill it again. You also have to max out this passive/aggressive meter in order to unleash the power attached to the card you’re using. Powers vary and can be offensive or defensive; some can only be used by characters with certain weapons, so it is very important to know what you’re going into battle with before you’re nearly defeated and relying on a power you may or may not be able to use.



The weapons used play a vital role in the game, and it is important to know what both you and the enemies have equipped before rushing into battle. The weapons form sort of a “rock-paper-scissors” relationship, with swords beating axes, axes beating spears, and spears beating swords; later on, more weapons come into play that share similar connections. The location of your soldiers on the grid is important, as you can take more than one ally into battle with you and attack multiple foes in a single meeting. This is often necessary because if you use up all of your cards before you’re done fighting, the game is over; you must make the most out of each turn and deal as much damage as you can. However, you can’t just rush in blindly; all of these factors must be taken into account, and forgetting about a single element could lead to the death of a character.

As much as I enjoyed the battle system, there were parts of the game that were stupidly unforgiving. The game walks a fine line between frustrating and challenging at times, which seems even more unnecessary given that the difficulty was supposedly lowered for the PSP version of the game. Now, here’s the thing that really gets me: you cannot heal yourself in battle in any kind of traditional way (i.e., simply using a healing item). Instead of HP, the characters have “morale”, which is slowly depleted every time they lose a fight. The only time you will have any morale restored is if you level up, but you get so little experience from each fight that this doesn’t happen nearly enough to help you out. You also can’t buy healing items to use in between battle screens; you have to hope to pick them up randomly on the field. If a character sits out a battle, he or she will have some morale restored, and a select few cards come with healing powers, but overall the inability to help your wounded fighters can be remarkably exasperating.



This wouldn’t be so terrible, except that the penalty for the death of one of your characters is fairly steep: for a supporting character, he or she will get an immediate level reset, and if it’s a main character (depending on the victory and defeat conditions for battle, this could be one or multiple characters), the game is over. Add to this the fact that some stages are very long, and it’s not hard to imagine why Yggdra Union sometimes left me seeing red and cursing at my PSP after seeing the Game Over screen appear.

Yggdra Union is by no means the definitive tactical RPG experience, nor is it a perfect game. However, for all of my qualms, I found myself continually going back for more—and not just because I had to in order to review the game, but because I felt myself drawn to the strategy and enjoyed the satisfaction of victory. If you’re a tactics fan and a PSP owner, you owe it to yourself to at least try out this game, especially if you’ve never played the original. Though the gameplay experience did not go quite as smoothly as I might have hoped, this is definitely a solid game that deserves some notice.

 



 

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