Last month, we had a chance to offer a preview of Yggdra Union, a PSP remake of the GBA strategy-RPG of the same name. Developed in Japan by Sting Entertainment and put through Atlus’ localization process, the game tells the story of an epic, nation-spanning war across the realms of Fantasinia, featuring clashing armies, magic, monsters, as you battle against the most adorable enemies you’ve ever seen. Assuming you can stop pinching their cheeks long enough to overwhelm them with your clever tactics, Yggdra Union for the PSP promises remastered audio and visuals, new characters, and new missions, all of which make the game a reasonable improvement over the GBA version. Of course, for those who never played Yggdra Union on the GBA, you’re in luck — the basic premise and gameplay are enjoyable enough that Fantasinian veterans and newbies alike ought to give this enhanced version a try.
Our preview goes into a little more depth regarding the basic strategic elements of Yggdra Union, but the basic gameplay works as follows: You have an army consisting of a handful of units, occupying squares on a grid-based map, and must complete a specified objective on each level — defeat all enemy units, occupy a certain square, survive a pre-set number of turns, etc. Careful movement and placement of your units through a card-based system will allow you to arrange favorable battle circumstances, including superior numbers, environmental defenses, and rock-paper-scissors weapon advantages. Once your troops are properly placed, you carry a “Union” into battle, affecting a small number of strategic elements in real-time (aggressive/defensive stances, special abilities), while the fighting itself is done automatically, with each side’s cute sprites standing in place and flailing away with their weapons. The unit which loses will suffer damage to their morale, and once a unit’s morale is depleted through one or more battles, they are removed from play and/or killed.
As simple as the game looks on the surface — both mechanically, and aesthetically — Yggdra Union actually contains quite a few strategic nuances, requiring the player to carefully match his offensive cards to the proper units, reserve his special moves for the right moments, and lay out his troops for the strongest offense while being mindful of how vulnerable they will be to counterattacks. What’s more, the game keeps changing up the rules, available tactics, and battle conditions, forcing the player to stay on his toes if he wants to keep his army alive. Yggdra Union, furthermore, spreads these changes and surprises across the length of the game, introducing new allies and special abilities long after most games would be finished trying to teach you new things.
This does, unfortunately, speak to Yggdra Union’s biggest potential flaw, and that is the game’s pacing. Yggdra Union promises to provide 50-60 hours of game time on the first playthrough, which is a staggering amount for a portable title, and that number seems accurate. Even the first actual plot-altering decision doesn’t arrive until some 8-9 hours into the game. Gamers are likely to have mixed feelings about the epic length, and the manner in which it is presented; when the game is still popping up tutorials to explain new gameplay elements after the 10th hour, some might feel that the game is so long because it takes forever to get anywhere. Others, however, may enjoy this measured pace — a game which holds some of its cards in reserve can keep players guessing, allowing them to enjoy the new discoveries at a time when the game might otherwise be stagnating.
The pacing issue also holds true for the battles themselves. Special abilities aside, most battles will be completed by occasionally pressing left or right on the D-pad for a while, and hoping for the best while your soldiers swing away at eachother for extended periods of time. The special abilities may change up the flow of things, but they, too, present their own problem: Each special ability, when triggered, touches off a long and elaborate animation, full of new voice samples and very pretty effects. Unfortunately, this animation never changes, and is unskippable, which gets tiresome extremely fast. The saving grace of both of these problems lies in the inclusion of a fast-forward button on the R button, allowing you to drastically increase the battle speed. This is not just a good feature — it is utterly vital. After a few hours of play, you should expect to be holding down the fast-forward button during every single battle, keeping the skirmishes at merely 15-20 seconds apiece. As enjoyable as Yggdra Union is from a strategic standpoint, the battles can get extremely repetitive, and without the fast-forward feature, I don’t think I’d have been able to stick with it for more than a few hours. Thankfully, it’s there, allowing the game to continue at a reasonable clip.
Finally, the pacing issue applies to the game’s story. A great deal of Yggdra Union’s game length is occupied by the dialogue between its many characters, explaining at length their various motivations and analyzing the battles at hand. The voice acting is fun and enjoyable in the PSP remake — nobody in Yggdra Union is going to walk home with an Oscar, mind you, but everybody does a fine job handling their character. All of the JRPG cliches are there: The modest, reluctant heroine; the brash, youthful vagabond; the honorable all-business soldier; the rich, fey magician — every character is predictable the instant you lay eyes on it, but every one is still performed admirably. Even the shrill, irrepressibly cheerful little girl character is present, and for once you don’t instantly want to punch her in the mouth. (Lookin’ at you, Yuffie.) Still, after hearing the characters groan “Not you again!” at the recurring, bumbling minion of the villain, you may begin to feel the same way, and start skipping through the cut-scenes, which is really a shame — a fair amount of direction seems to have gone into the vocal work. Still, this is one of the hazards faced by having a portable game with decent production values.
50-60 hours is a long time to ask of the modern gamer, and it’s worrying to see a number like that for a portable title. Yggdra Union is by no means a bad match for the PSP; quite the opposite is true. The simple controls work quite well on the system’s basic pad-and-buttons configuration, and the game’s colorful animations, detailed character art, and fully-voiced cut-scenes work extremely well on Sony’s handheld device. What many developers seem to miss, however, is that a portable game which is designed to work like a standard console game is going to alienate a large portion of the system’s audience. Admirable though it can be to try and pack a full console-game experience into a portable title, not everyone will be playing their PSP on the couch with unlimited play time and no distraction. Many players, instead, purchase a portable gaming system in order to play under portable circumstances, breaking out the PSP while stuck on the bus, or waiting at the airport. At any time, their stop may arrive, or their plane may board, or their batteries might even give out. Portable games should always have an option to stop playing at the drop of a hat — and the ability to drop back into the game just as easily. It’s extremely encouraging, as such, to see that Yggdra Union handles these problems excellently.
Apart from having to miss out on Yggdra Union’s cinematics when one is in a hurry, the game offers a long and comprehensive list of features that allow gamers on the go to stop playing, and start again, whenever the situation warrants. The PSP’s inherent “sleep” feature will obviously allow you to stop and start playing at your leisure, but for those situations when the batteries are about to die, Yggdra Union offers the “suspend” feature, a must for any portable title: The player can save a single mission-in-progress to the memory card, allowing them to pick up right where they left off even if the system needs to be completely shut down. But, what if you need to take a break for days at a time, and resume after you’ve forgotten what you were doing? Yggdra Union has you covered — at any time, on demand, the player is able to look up the battle’s current objectives, consult easy-to-read, no-search guides to his cards, items, and weapon advantages, or even replay any of the tutorial cut-scenes he has witnessed thus far.
By providing these tools, Yggdra Union allows players to give themselves a refresher course whenever they need, and offers an admirable level of portable-friendly game mechanics while still delivering an epic (though unusually cute) story and battle system for strategy enthusiasts. By dodging a number of potential design problems, Sting and Atlus have managed to deliver a title which allows players to lose themselves for several hours in the ever-changing battlefields of Fantasinia, yet still hop off the train halfway through the war. If you enjoy SRPGs, Yggdra Union has a lot to offer, and is worth checking out.
Yggdra Union is scheduled to launch on September 16th, 2008 for the PSP.
Leave a Reply