Yggdra Union GBA

[ryodi]

This is the new card battling SRPG from the makers of Riviera: The Promised Land (which was the best GBA RPG of last year IMO). I've only played through the first battle and with I'm having trouble keeping up with whats going on despite the excellent (and skippable) tutorials. I won the first battle although I'm not entirely sure how so hopefully the tutorials will keep the game ticking along for me giving me a vague idea of what I'm supposed to be doing. The translation is also very good and the dialogue is very amusing in places.

I'm playing it on a backlit SP but there is a lot of information on screen at one time at times during the battles so I wouldn't fancy playing it on a Micro. The graphics style of the game is very similar to Riviera and the background music is great. A special mention must also go to the animation during the battles. Whilst in Advance Wars the opposing sides just launch attacks from either side of the screen and Fire Emblem little contact between the characters when they attack, in Yggdra the attacking side launches themselves across the screen when they have the upper hand which sends your opponents bouncing away as you wipe most of them out with your first strike.

How's everyone else who picked this up this week progressing with it?

[AdamJW]

I've played the first few battles. Its a really old school style of SRPG more in the Ogre battle, Dragon Force, Langrisser mould, but not only that the battles and movement grids are also very similar to the PS2 Idea Factory 'Generation of Chaos' games.

I'm finding it to be pretty decent, though, but its not a style of SRPG I'm unfamilar with. I also enjoyed Riviera aswell so I'm liking the character design in this game. I'm still playing FFXII and Super robot Taisen OG2 the most though, but I'm always going to welcome any kind of old school SRPG with open arms.

[toythatkills]

I've been too scared to start tbh. I flicked through the manual and it seems absurdly complex!

If the tutorials are as good as you say though, I'll give it a go later. Though it'll be on a Micro!

[AdamJW]

I always enjoy taking the time to learn new stuff like this myself. I would never have discovered the joys of Ogre Battle or the Idea factory games had I never taken the time to learn all the different gameplay elements that the more traditional StrategyRPGs such as this have. I have to admit the manual does make it seem a bit overly complex but once you get using that tutorial you should be ok and I'd say its definitely worth taking the time to learn, but I suppose I would do.

[briareos_kerensky]

I've been too scared to start tbh. I flicked through the manual and it seems absurdly complex!

I haven't played much, but from what I've tried, it's nothing real different from a mixture of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, with some twists. The basics are well explained by the tutorials and are understood the moment you read them and as all elements are introduced progressively, you haven't too many things to master at once. Luckily enough the first missions aren't as restictive as with FE7, they give you some degree of freedom.
The screen in cluttered with icons and texts, even more than Riviera, with ultra-tiny 2-pixels wide fonts that sometimes make things hard to read. Shifting the game to the DS or an home console, where you would have had more visible area, would have improved the UI.
And that reticle pointing latitude and longitude at the beginning of each mission is totally off the fantasy setting of the game.

[dai jou bu]

I need basic reading skills in order to fully enjoy this game. =\

Fun game though, and I love the artwork. Gets rid of the bad taste in my mouth that was the PSP port of Gurumin.

[AdamJW]

I need basic reading skills in order to fully enjoy this game. =\

If you are on about the quote on the box then I think that is for the benefit of parents when their kids who can't read yet ask them for these types of game in the shops because they're cool, or have robots in them. Its been on the back of all the recent SRPGs released by AtlusUSA.

[Dogg Thang]

The title sounds like a Welsh game.

[AdamJW]

Lol!! it does, like some mine workers union or some other such.