Yggdra Union review (GBA)

Yggdra Union is a turn based tactical SRPG that has a non-traditional battle system. It suffers from uncontrollable and punishing luck based combat that can't be minimized through good planning and strategy, unlike the Fire Emblem series. The union system and cards give the game a different feel from other tactical games.

The graphics are good, interface is uncluttered, informative, and responsive, and it feels like a mini-Playstation game at times.. a high compliment for the tiny GBA system. The plot is the usual J-RPG garbage, but it's easy to ignore. Music and sound effects are tinny repetitive GBA fare but the volume knob is there for a reason.

The games combat is too highly based on luck. If your unit gets KOed with a critical hit (pretty much a guaranteed loss since your unit leader is instantly killed), which happens often enough, expect to see a huge hit to their morale. Even normal battles swing between victory and defeat simply based on random factors, basically whether you kill or lose one more or less unit in an assault often determines victory. I could tolerate this if your units regenerated some morale based on either winning fights or at the end of a battle, but it's really just irritating and often destroys your chances at collecting items or finishing a map in short order. Enemies being able to randomly crit-kill your unit leader and chop off 1/2 of their morale or battles simply being determined by luck is simply unfair given the penalties involved and time needed to complete each fight. I wouldn't even attempt the game without a guide that shows the numerous items and secrets hiding around each map, especially considering the restart trial and error it would otherwise involve.

Combine this with the user unfriendly 'can't skip pre-battle dialogue' and being unable to save during battle preparations, and the game will easily try ones patience as far as time invested vs. skill and luck and trying to achieve battle goals such as grabbing as many items as possible or trying to shore up underleveled characters like Yggdra. Each battle is slow and drags on, with no option to speed it up.

The battle system has a lot of potential and perhaps a sequel will see the light of day on the DS.. although there is no guarantee it will reach the US. I'm afraid I can't really recommend this game to anyone looking for a skill-based challenge, although there are few games in the genre that manage to meet that criteria anyway. It feels like the developers desperately wanted to make Fire Emblem with a twist, but ended up with something that's even more frustrating.