Yggdra Unison
Encyclopedia
Yggdra Unison is a real-time strategy game for the cellular phone and Nintendo DS
, developed by Sting Entertainment as a "fandisc"-type spinoff to Yggdra Union. The original cellphone version was self-published and released on November 11, 2007; the DS version was published by Atlus
and released on December 12, 2009. Neither installment has been released in any language other than Japanese.
The tagline to the original game was "Beat Out Our Obstacle", while the tagline to the DS version is Seiken Buyuuden ("Holy Sword Legends", 聖剣武勇伝). The game display is similar to that of Yggdra Union and Blaze Union
, but all action is in real-time and units are allowed to move freely instead of on a grid. The DS version is mainly stylus-based with support functions and menu displays toggled by the R/L and directional buttons.
The player selects one of these nations, and their storyline unfolds as they conquer other territories, eventually culminating in their achieving world domination. Because of the sandbox-style gameplay, the game focuses more on character interaction and gameplay itself than a linear plot; there are twelve storylines, each following one of the twelve playable characters.
There are twelve playable armies, but at the start of the game, only Yggdra and Milanor may be selected. The other ten armies must be unlocked by fulfilling two to four conditions during a playthrough; what an army's conditions are can be viewed from the selection screen, with fulfilled conditions appearing in red.
Once the player's army has been chosen, the player is shown that army leader's prologue and prompted to begin the game. Much like other Sting games, the phases of Yggdra Unison are called "turns"; "turns" are split up into three parts—preparation, combat, and treasure hunting.
During the preparation stage, the player is prompted to choose which card will be effective during the combat stage. The cards are presented face-down, and each playthrough has them in a different randomized order. Each card may only be used once per playthrough; there are exactly as many cards as there are domains, and so every card cannot be used in a single playthrough. As long as this is not the first turn, the player will also receive two Medallions at this time.
After this, a scout will appear and give a report on what is happening in the rest of the world. These reports contain information on two types of things: First, if two enemy characters have fought, then the player is told the outcome of that battle; second, if there are geographical effects, then the player is told which territories have been hit with them. There are two types of geographical effects—disasters and sickness. An enemy territory that has been affected by a disaster will have lower defense over the next turn; an enemy territory that has been affected by a sickness will have fewer soldiers than normal over the next turn. The player's conquered territory will never be invaded, nor will it have geographical effects. In addition, reports are never given for the first turn, and towards the end of a playthrough, reports will usually not be given as the number of free territories decreases.
After this, the player is prompted to choose an enemy territory to invade; it is possible to attack any territory that directly touches one's own. Once the player's choice is confirmed, the game progresses to the combat stage.
Villages may be captured back and forth with impunity, but when a non-village deployment point is captured by the enemy, it is permanently destroyed. Villages are denoted with small house-shaped icons, allied deployment points are shown as small cannon-shaped icons, and defensive ones are portrayed as fences. Each side's base is shown as a small flag icon. Units that sit on villages and fortresses slowly recover HP as they do so, which is shown by their outlines flashing green.
Other map objects include ballistic weapons, which can be captured and used by one side or the other; treasure hunt points, depicted as hut icons; card discovery points, which allow the player to see which card is in play and are shaped like magnifying glasses; and event triggers, which are shaped like question marks. These cannot be used unless touched by an allied unit.
When two units touch, a clash begins, and the two units attack one another in the style of Fire Emblem
battles; after the player's unit attacks, he or she will be prompted to begin a Unison. Once a Unison begins, a circle of effect called an Impact Circle appears, and every other allied character on the field will be assigned a number; by entering the numbers of any allies within the Impact Circle, those units will join in the attack and do even more damage. Any unit whose HP is reduced to zero retreats; if the player continues a Union Attack after the enemy's HP hits zero, they start dealing fatal damage. If the HP bar reaches zero twice, this is considered a Kill Out. Unison Attacks can only be used by players.
Sometimes characters with a connection to each other will converse with each other before a clash actually begins, or after it concludes. In the DS version, this is displayed on the top screen. These are known as Duel Events, and the dialogue changes based on who is attacking whom and whether the clash ends in victory, defeat, or death.
Units
The unit types from Yggdra Union make a return for this game, with the only difference being that Yggdra, Milanor, and Gulcasa no longer have unique classes. Each unit has several different statistics: VIT (vitality, which shows a unit's morale), HP (which is twice their current vitality), ATK (which ranges from 1 to 10), Impact Circle size, a hidden DEF stat, elemental affinity, movement type, and Pride. VIT decreases slowly each turn for every character except the protagonist, and can be restored after battle by giving that unit items that they like; VIT decreases faster if a unit is deployed against a character that he or she does not want to fight. Movement type denotes how quickly units will move over certain types of terrain. Pride determines how easy it is to recruit a character.
The weapons triangle also makes its return, but is similarly altered: Scythes still have no weaknesses, but also have no strengths; bows are both strong against and weak to the sword-axe-lance triangle, but are weak to lump-type weapon. If a character's weapon type is trumped, they are knocked back and unable to counterattack; however, if a character attacks someone with a weapon that trumps theirs, the enemy blocks that attack completely.
Cards
The gauge at the upper-left corner of the screen, which shows how much time is left, also displays colored bands that show when cards will activate. A gray bar indicates that the card's activation conditions have not been fulfilled (the right character type is not deployed, for instance); a blue bar shows a positive effect, a red bar shows a negative effect, and a green bar shows a neutral effect. Each card has different effects, which can be seen described either when they activate or examined in greater detail in the Extra Contents section after the game has been beaten once.
After Victory
Once the player captures the enemy's territory, the battle's wrap-up begins. First, the enemy's territory is added to your own; if you have captured the enemy's capital, all of his or her unconquered territory will be added to your own at once. After this occurs, the enemy general will be brought to you as long as you have not killed them in battle, and you will have the opportunity to attempt to recruit them.
Character recruitment is determined by both the Pride statistic and your own army's relationship with the enemy army. Generals belonging to an allied country have no recruitment conditions and will join your cause automatically when asked. If the enemy's army has no ties to your own, your conquered territory must be equal to or greater than that general's Pride stat to recruit them. If your army's relationship with the enemy's is bad, then your conquered territory must be equal to or greater than twice that general's Pride to recruit them. The characters with the lowest Pride are the Servant (Roswell's Skeleton) and Sodom (Rosary's Golem); the characters with the highest Pride are Gulcasa and Milanor.
The player's army may only have five characters at a time, including the protagonist. When attempting to recruit a sixth character, you will be prompted to dismiss one of your current subordinates to make room (or cancel the recruitment).
After this, you will be prompted to give your units items as rewards. By giving units items that they like, their VIT will be restored and their HP will increase. Characters do not necessarily like all items that they can equip, and cannot necessarily equip all items that they like. Items' equipment conditions and status bonuses can be viewed at this time, as well as the VIT bonus they will restore to each unit. Some items have humorous equipment conditions that expose certain aspects of characters' personalities that could not be shown in Yggdra Union
itself, which is why this game is seen as a "fandisc" to it.
If you found either of the special event triggers, then that hidden character will also join the war publicly at this time. The player is then prompted to save, and the Treasure Hunting part of the phase begins.
The treasure hunt system is deceptively simple. When deploying a unit, you are able to check each area's elemental affinity and type of terrain. If the deployed unit has a favorable elemental affinity and move type, they will be able to return quickly, but if they have an unfavorable alignment, then the treasure hunt may take a number of turns to be completed.
Once a unit is deployed, they will have 30 steps with which to discover a treasure inside a contained labyrinth. The character's view and commentary are displayed on the top screen, with the map on the lower screen. Each dungeon will contain three treasures out of six possible items available for each stage. When a treasure chest is discovered, it's possible to choose to keep searching for a different box, but if all 30 steps run out, then the unit must return empty-handed. In addition, if the deployed unit's VIT is too low, they may desert the army instead of coming back.
There are six types of treasure chest that can appear in a dungeon: A burlap sack, a wooden box, a sun box, a moon box, a present box, and the Gorgeous Box (an actual treasure chest). Wooden boxes will always appear, no matter what, and contain common items. Sun boxes only appear if the battle ended during the day, and moon boxes only appear if the battle ended during the night. Causing the other types to appear is much more difficult.
Each territory has a hidden condition that influences whether the other types of treasure will appear. If this is fulfilled, then the present box will appear in the dungeon; in addition, if certain characters with a high affinity to the area are sent to search for treasure, the Gorgeous Box will appear instead. When the hidden condition has not been fulfilled, sending one of these certain characters (with the exception of the territory's owner) will result in the burlap sack appearing. Otherwise, a sun/moon box and two wooden boxes will appear instead. For instance, the condition for discovering the present box and Gorgeous Box at Castle Paltina is to defeat Yggdra using a Unison Attack. If this is done and then Yggdra is sent to search the area in the same turn, the Gorgeous Box will appear in the area.
Titles have several different ranks: 0 points, 1-500,000 points, between 500 thousand and one million points, over one million points, over two million points, and over three million points. Titles from the two lowest ranks tend to be either humorous or negative, depicting the character as unsuccessful or contrary, while the third rank up depicts them more positively; each rank is displayed with a different card on the Hall of Fame screen.
Each route's protagonist has a special title set, and the rank divisions for protagonists are also slightly different. Units' dialogue on the Hall of Fame screen is also determined by their VIT.
Special events are also new to the DS version. When these are not discovered, the game handles much the same as the original cellphone version; the special event items must be found in order to involve the new characters in the war.
The biggest difference is that Nessiah and Mistel themselves are now featured characters who do battle. Nessiah was present in the cellphone version, where he explained card effects, but in the DS version he is an unlockable main character. In addition, fourteen new items are included in the DS version—six each for Nessiah and Mistel's territories, the Mirror of Truth as Mistel's event trigger, and the Cloverlight, which replaces the Revelation of the Gods (now Nessiah's event trigger) as the item in the Gorgeous Box at Castle Bronquia.
Kingdom of Fantasinia's Chapter
In this episode of the drama CD, Yggdra (Mai Nakahara
) and her forces find themselves lacking the number of generals necessary to confront Bronquia, and so they must seek allies elsewhere. Mistel (Kozue Kamada) recommends that they go to find and ally with Milanor (Miyuki Sawashiro
), because she thinks that a noble thief fits the Royal Army's image the best. The Royal Army heads towards the south of the continent, conquering all the other countries in the way, and accidentally winds up battling Milanor's forces after they encounter and get into an argument with Kylier (Yui Sakakibara
). Mistel attempts to stop them and remind Yggdra why they came here, but becomes offended when Milanor and Kylier refer to her as "oba-san", and tells Yggdra to defeat them instead. Once this is done, Yggdra remembers that they had a reason to come down to this area of the world, but Mistel hurriedly assures her that it's not a big deal.
Milanor's Thieves' Chapter
This episode follows Milanor, who has been successfully gathering allies but is plagued with bad luck in his choice of cards, which cause Flunky (Katsuya Fujiwara) to desert the army, temporarily transform him and all of his allies into Undines, chests and all, and break all the items he has in his possession. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Kylier attempts to get his romantic attention, and their ally Rosary (Akemi Sato
) tries to foil her by pushing Milanor towards Yggdra instead. All of this continually backfires when Milanor's unlucky hand at cards makes things go from bad to worse, and even Yggdra turns on them in the end.
New Bronquian Empire's Chapter
This chapter focuses mainly on Luciana (Tomoko Fujino), one of the Imperial commanders. She and her twin sister Aegina (Tomoko Fujino) must project the illusion that they are the same person up until Fantasinia is defeated, because otherwise the two of them will be in danger (alluding to certain plot elements of Blaze Union
). Luciana, however, is disheartened when she realizes that even her own allies can only tell her apart from Aegina based on their hairstyles and the color of their clothes, and begins to worry that Gulcasa (Hiroaki Miura
) might have the same problem. When Eudy (Ai Maeda) discovers this, she decides to try to help Luciana express her individuality by "hinting" that the twins are separate people, and has her equip strange items when going into battle. This eventually upsets Luciana, who starts to worry that Aegina's reputation will be ruined by her behavior, and despite Aegina's reassurance, she becomes angry and rejects her friends' item suggestions in favor of the Golem Suit, beginning to rampage around the fortress. At this time, Gulcasa arrives; unable to understand the bizarre circumstances, he confuses Luciana's antics for a test to see if he can tell who she is. He laughs her off and tells her that no matter what she does, he'll never fall for the twins' disguises because they're individual people, thus laying the issue to rest.
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, developed by Sting Entertainment as a "fandisc"-type spinoff to Yggdra Union. The original cellphone version was self-published and released on November 11, 2007; the DS version was published by Atlus
Atlus
is a Japanese computer and video game developer, publisher, and distributor based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for developing the console role-playing game franchise Megami Tensei. The first Megami Tensei was a Nintendo Entertainment System video game published by Namco based on a trilogy of...
and released on December 12, 2009. Neither installment has been released in any language other than Japanese.
The tagline to the original game was "Beat Out Our Obstacle", while the tagline to the DS version is Seiken Buyuuden ("Holy Sword Legends", 聖剣武勇伝). The game display is similar to that of Yggdra Union and Blaze Union
Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future
Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Atlus, with its scenario written by R-Force Entertainment. It is currently only available in Japanese....
, but all action is in real-time and units are allowed to move freely instead of on a grid. The DS version is mainly stylus-based with support functions and menu displays toggled by the R/L and directional buttons.
Plot
Yggdra Unison begins in the year 1490 M.D., with Emperor Gulcasa—the ruler of the New Bronquian Empire—and his vast army attacking and capturing Fort Karona, which lies on the border between his own nation and that of the Kingdom of Fantasinia, the country perceived to be the greatest world power. Fantasinia's defeat and the death of its king shock the world, but unlike the events of Yggdra Union, this shock causes every major world power to strike out in an attempt to conquer the continental world.The player selects one of these nations, and their storyline unfolds as they conquer other territories, eventually culminating in their achieving world domination. Because of the sandbox-style gameplay, the game focuses more on character interaction and gameplay itself than a linear plot; there are twelve storylines, each following one of the twelve playable characters.
Characters
- The twenty-year-old emperor of New Bronquia, whose capture of Karona sparks off the world war. Gulcasa's actual motivations for wanting to conquer the world are not explored in this game, but are instead revealed in Blaze UnionBlaze Union: Story to Reach the FutureBlaze Union: Story to Reach the Future is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Atlus, with its scenario written by R-Force Entertainment. It is currently only available in Japanese....
. He is a charismatic leader who enjoys doing battle with powerful opponents, and is part demon. Gulcasa has the highest number of generals in the game--his bodyguards Luciana and Aegina; the Dragon Generals Baldus, Emilia, Russell, and Leon; court magister Eudy; assassins Zilva and Elena; and militia captains Canaan and Monica. He is also the most powerful unit in the game, and for these reasons is the most difficult to recruit and unlock. Certain elements of Yggdra Unison's advertisements along with the "heroic" sound of Gulcasa's theme suggest that he may be considered the game's true protagonist.
- The seventeen-year-old ruler of the Kingdom of Fantasinia, whose parents were killed by Gulcasa when Bronquia captured Fort Karona. While she also seeks revenge for this, her main motivation for world conquest is to end the war as quickly as possible, in order to find a better way to settle conflicts. Yggdra's subordinates are the knight Durant, the freedom fighter Cruz, and the tactician Mistel. She loves strawberries and dislikes mushrooms. Yggdra is one of the only two characters available from the beginning of the game.
- The seventeen-year-old leader of a band of southern thieves. The oppression of the nobility has influenced him to become an anarchist, and he seeks to free the world from the control of aristocrats and rulers. Milanor's followers are his childhood friend Kylier and one of his Flunkies. He is one of the only two characters available from the beginning of the game.
- The ruler of Embellia, a nation of Undines. She is twenty-six years old. Emelone holds pacifistic views, but joins the war nevertheless in an effort to discover why all the humans began to fight and create a lasting peace. She is supported by her general and confidante, Ishiene, and the young girl Nietzsche.
- The ruler of the northeastern half of Verlaine Hills, an intellectual young man. Roswell is twenty-one years old. He enters the war after an incident in which some of his family's important research is stolen, and has a long-standing rivalry with his distant relative Rosary. He is followed only by one of his summoned skeletons. Roswell is particularly fond of bananas.
- The ruler of the southwestern half of Verlaine Hills, a haughty young woman. Rosary is nineteen years old. Like Roswell, she enters the war after some of her family's magical research goes missing. She considers Roswell her rival. She is followed by one of her summoned golems, which she named Sodom. Rosary loves her witch's hat too much to equip any other headgear.
- The thirty-two-year-old leader of a band of mountain bandits who frequent the Lenessey Mountains. Ortega has a very genial personality, and he and his men enter the war not out of a desire to rule, but simply to determine how powerful they are. He is supported by the mercenary Inzaghi.
- The thirty-eight-year-old leader of a group of desert bandits who attack travelers in the Nyllard Desert. Dort enters the war because he sees it as a chance to revive belief in the sun god Barlabasa, which has been dying out of late. Contrary to his appearance, Dort has a good education and is literate, unlike the other bandits in the game; he also speaks in a unique dialect. He is followed by the golem Protector.
- The forty-nine-year-old head of the Meriant religious faction, centered in Lombardia. His sect is in conflict with the Pope's traditional faction. Juvelon seeks to conquer the world solely for personal gain, but he is very cowardly and panicks when he believes he may actually be harmed. His allies are the archbishop Mardym (who is said to be manipulating Juvelon behind the scenes) and the assassin Amareus.
- The leader of the Temple Knights who serve directly under the Pope, Gordon is twenty-eight years old. He and his men enter the battle both to oppose Juvelon and to spread the Pope's religious influence. Gordon is very stern and a fundamentalist. He has no subordinates.
- The leader of the United Forest Forces. Pamela is an eccentric young woman who appears to be fifteen years old, but is said to be older than that. She wants to study the Undines in order to learn about how they perpetuate their race, and frequently tells Undine opponents to "become hers". She usually ends her sentences with the tic "da wa sa", and her speech patterns are very childish. Her only subordinate is the bounty hunter Mizer.
- A fallen angel who is physically nineteen years old but has been alive for over a thousand years. He intends to reclaim his sword, the Gran Centurio, from the kingdom of Fantasinia and unite the world as preparations for taking revenge on the gods. Nessiah and Gulcasa were once close friends, but their differing goals have made them rivals. Nessiah has no subordinates, and his nameless soldiers are very strong; however, he has difficulty recruiting enemy generals because he is viewed by the other characters with fear and suspicion. He has a bad habit of constantly teasing his opponents.
Gameplay
The object of the game is to bring the rest of the world under your control.There are twelve playable armies, but at the start of the game, only Yggdra and Milanor may be selected. The other ten armies must be unlocked by fulfilling two to four conditions during a playthrough; what an army's conditions are can be viewed from the selection screen, with fulfilled conditions appearing in red.
Once the player's army has been chosen, the player is shown that army leader's prologue and prompted to begin the game. Much like other Sting games, the phases of Yggdra Unison are called "turns"; "turns" are split up into three parts—preparation, combat, and treasure hunting.
Preparation
After this, a scout will appear and give a report on what is happening in the rest of the world. These reports contain information on two types of things: First, if two enemy characters have fought, then the player is told the outcome of that battle; second, if there are geographical effects, then the player is told which territories have been hit with them. There are two types of geographical effects—disasters and sickness. An enemy territory that has been affected by a disaster will have lower defense over the next turn; an enemy territory that has been affected by a sickness will have fewer soldiers than normal over the next turn. The player's conquered territory will never be invaded, nor will it have geographical effects. In addition, reports are never given for the first turn, and towards the end of a playthrough, reports will usually not be given as the number of free territories decreases.
After this, the player is prompted to choose an enemy territory to invade; it is possible to attack any territory that directly touches one's own. Once the player's choice is confirmed, the game progresses to the combat stage.
Combat
Combat is performed in real-time in a capture-the-flag format; the player is given 300 seconds to defeat the enemy general and capture his or her fortress. 150 seconds are considered "daytime", and the other 150 seconds are "night"; what time the battle starts is usually randomized. Each side is initially able to deploy two units, but by capturing neutral villages or deployment points (the latter are exclusive to each side), up to three additional units may be deployed at a time for a total of five. When one side's deployment points are captured by the other, the attacked side's units are forced to retreat if there is not a surplus of deployment points. For instance, if Milanor's army was fighting Ishiene and had captured one village in order to deploy three units, then that village were captured by one of Ishiene's soldiers, Milanor's third unit would have to return to base, losing half its hit points. In addition, enemy soldiers which are made to retreat cannot be redeployed, but allied units can be deployed any number of times as long as they still have hit points.Villages may be captured back and forth with impunity, but when a non-village deployment point is captured by the enemy, it is permanently destroyed. Villages are denoted with small house-shaped icons, allied deployment points are shown as small cannon-shaped icons, and defensive ones are portrayed as fences. Each side's base is shown as a small flag icon. Units that sit on villages and fortresses slowly recover HP as they do so, which is shown by their outlines flashing green.
Other map objects include ballistic weapons, which can be captured and used by one side or the other; treasure hunt points, depicted as hut icons; card discovery points, which allow the player to see which card is in play and are shaped like magnifying glasses; and event triggers, which are shaped like question marks. These cannot be used unless touched by an allied unit.
When two units touch, a clash begins, and the two units attack one another in the style of Fire Emblem
Fire Emblem
is a fantasy tactical role-playing video game franchise developed by Intelligent Systems , the maker of Advance Wars , and published by Nintendo...
battles; after the player's unit attacks, he or she will be prompted to begin a Unison. Once a Unison begins, a circle of effect called an Impact Circle appears, and every other allied character on the field will be assigned a number; by entering the numbers of any allies within the Impact Circle, those units will join in the attack and do even more damage. Any unit whose HP is reduced to zero retreats; if the player continues a Union Attack after the enemy's HP hits zero, they start dealing fatal damage. If the HP bar reaches zero twice, this is considered a Kill Out. Unison Attacks can only be used by players.
Sometimes characters with a connection to each other will converse with each other before a clash actually begins, or after it concludes. In the DS version, this is displayed on the top screen. These are known as Duel Events, and the dialogue changes based on who is attacking whom and whether the clash ends in victory, defeat, or death.
Units
The unit types from Yggdra Union make a return for this game, with the only difference being that Yggdra, Milanor, and Gulcasa no longer have unique classes. Each unit has several different statistics: VIT (vitality, which shows a unit's morale), HP (which is twice their current vitality), ATK (which ranges from 1 to 10), Impact Circle size, a hidden DEF stat, elemental affinity, movement type, and Pride. VIT decreases slowly each turn for every character except the protagonist, and can be restored after battle by giving that unit items that they like; VIT decreases faster if a unit is deployed against a character that he or she does not want to fight. Movement type denotes how quickly units will move over certain types of terrain. Pride determines how easy it is to recruit a character.
The weapons triangle also makes its return, but is similarly altered: Scythes still have no weaknesses, but also have no strengths; bows are both strong against and weak to the sword-axe-lance triangle, but are weak to lump-type weapon. If a character's weapon type is trumped, they are knocked back and unable to counterattack; however, if a character attacks someone with a weapon that trumps theirs, the enemy blocks that attack completely.
Cards
The gauge at the upper-left corner of the screen, which shows how much time is left, also displays colored bands that show when cards will activate. A gray bar indicates that the card's activation conditions have not been fulfilled (the right character type is not deployed, for instance); a blue bar shows a positive effect, a red bar shows a negative effect, and a green bar shows a neutral effect. Each card has different effects, which can be seen described either when they activate or examined in greater detail in the Extra Contents section after the game has been beaten once.
After Victory
Once the player captures the enemy's territory, the battle's wrap-up begins. First, the enemy's territory is added to your own; if you have captured the enemy's capital, all of his or her unconquered territory will be added to your own at once. After this occurs, the enemy general will be brought to you as long as you have not killed them in battle, and you will have the opportunity to attempt to recruit them.
Character recruitment is determined by both the Pride statistic and your own army's relationship with the enemy army. Generals belonging to an allied country have no recruitment conditions and will join your cause automatically when asked. If the enemy's army has no ties to your own, your conquered territory must be equal to or greater than that general's Pride stat to recruit them. If your army's relationship with the enemy's is bad, then your conquered territory must be equal to or greater than twice that general's Pride to recruit them. The characters with the lowest Pride are the Servant (Roswell's Skeleton) and Sodom (Rosary's Golem); the characters with the highest Pride are Gulcasa and Milanor.
The player's army may only have five characters at a time, including the protagonist. When attempting to recruit a sixth character, you will be prompted to dismiss one of your current subordinates to make room (or cancel the recruitment).
After this, you will be prompted to give your units items as rewards. By giving units items that they like, their VIT will be restored and their HP will increase. Characters do not necessarily like all items that they can equip, and cannot necessarily equip all items that they like. Items' equipment conditions and status bonuses can be viewed at this time, as well as the VIT bonus they will restore to each unit. Some items have humorous equipment conditions that expose certain aspects of characters' personalities that could not be shown in Yggdra Union
Yggdra Union
Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone is a tactical role-playing game for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment as the second episode of the Dept. Heaven saga of games. Atlus USA localized and published both versions of the game in North America...
itself, which is why this game is seen as a "fandisc" to it.
If you found either of the special event triggers, then that hidden character will also join the war publicly at this time. The player is then prompted to save, and the Treasure Hunting part of the phase begins.
Treasure hunting
If the player has discovered treasure hunt points during the battle phase, then during this phase of each turn, it is possible to spend the points earned during battles to deploy named generals to search for items in any area whose treasure hunt icon was found.The treasure hunt system is deceptively simple. When deploying a unit, you are able to check each area's elemental affinity and type of terrain. If the deployed unit has a favorable elemental affinity and move type, they will be able to return quickly, but if they have an unfavorable alignment, then the treasure hunt may take a number of turns to be completed.
Once a unit is deployed, they will have 30 steps with which to discover a treasure inside a contained labyrinth. The character's view and commentary are displayed on the top screen, with the map on the lower screen. Each dungeon will contain three treasures out of six possible items available for each stage. When a treasure chest is discovered, it's possible to choose to keep searching for a different box, but if all 30 steps run out, then the unit must return empty-handed. In addition, if the deployed unit's VIT is too low, they may desert the army instead of coming back.
There are six types of treasure chest that can appear in a dungeon: A burlap sack, a wooden box, a sun box, a moon box, a present box, and the Gorgeous Box (an actual treasure chest). Wooden boxes will always appear, no matter what, and contain common items. Sun boxes only appear if the battle ended during the day, and moon boxes only appear if the battle ended during the night. Causing the other types to appear is much more difficult.
Each territory has a hidden condition that influences whether the other types of treasure will appear. If this is fulfilled, then the present box will appear in the dungeon; in addition, if certain characters with a high affinity to the area are sent to search for treasure, the Gorgeous Box will appear instead. When the hidden condition has not been fulfilled, sending one of these certain characters (with the exception of the territory's owner) will result in the burlap sack appearing. Otherwise, a sun/moon box and two wooden boxes will appear instead. For instance, the condition for discovering the present box and Gorgeous Box at Castle Paltina is to defeat Yggdra using a Unison Attack. If this is done and then Yggdra is sent to search the area in the same turn, the Gorgeous Box will appear in the area.
Titles
When the player has completed the game, each character will be awarded a title during the epilogue. The title describes what happens to them after the war, as well as how their efforts are honored, and is based on the character's performance.Titles have several different ranks: 0 points, 1-500,000 points, between 500 thousand and one million points, over one million points, over two million points, and over three million points. Titles from the two lowest ranks tend to be either humorous or negative, depicting the character as unsuccessful or contrary, while the third rank up depicts them more positively; each rank is displayed with a different card on the Hall of Fame screen.
Each route's protagonist has a special title set, and the rank divisions for protagonists are also slightly different. Units' dialogue on the Hall of Fame screen is also determined by their VIT.
DS version changes
The DS version involves several additions that were not originally present in the cellphone version, aside from the information on the single screen being divided to display on the two screens of the DS. The method of entering the units' numbers has changed from using the cellphone's number keys to writing them manually using the stylus. For the DS version, composer Minako Adachi wrote thirteen new tracks—one each for the armies, as different themes were now to be used during the day and night, and two for the new army.Special events are also new to the DS version. When these are not discovered, the game handles much the same as the original cellphone version; the special event items must be found in order to involve the new characters in the war.
The biggest difference is that Nessiah and Mistel themselves are now featured characters who do battle. Nessiah was present in the cellphone version, where he explained card effects, but in the DS version he is an unlockable main character. In addition, fourteen new items are included in the DS version—six each for Nessiah and Mistel's territories, the Mirror of Truth as Mistel's event trigger, and the Cloverlight, which replaces the Revelation of the Gods (now Nessiah's event trigger) as the item in the Gorgeous Box at Castle Bronquia.
Development
Sting's programmer JaJa began posting blog entries about Yggdra Unison's development as early as 2006. The project was originally codenamed YZ, and early screenshots show that the game's beta title was Yggdra's Ambition ~Holy Sword Legends (Yggdra no Yabou ~ Seiken Buyuuden ユグドラの野望 聖剣武勇伝). While this was changed to Yggdra Unison: Beat Out Our Obstacle, the original tagline was reused for the DS version. Initial screenshots of the game were displayed in black and white.Merchandise
Yggdra Unison has a few pieces of independent merchandise. On December 25, 2009, a 127-page strategy guide was released by Enterbrain. The game's original soundtrack was released on February 24, 2010 by the label Geneon Universal, featuring all 40 tracks used in-game plus a full-orchestral version of the Flash Movie BGM, the version rearranged by Shigeki Hayashi which was used in the promotional video. The booklet included notes from Adachi about certain tracks. Later in the year, on the 25th of March, a drama CD was released by Frontier Works, featuring the same voice talent as the PSP version of Yggdra Union.Original Soundtrack Tracklist
Drama CD Synopsis
The drama CD contains three short stories, focusing on the Royal Army, Milanor's thief band, and the Imperial Army respectively. The former two are lighthearted and comedic, whereas the last of the three is more serious and melodramatic.Kingdom of Fantasinia's Chapter
In this episode of the drama CD, Yggdra (Mai Nakahara
Mai Nakahara
is a voice actress. She is employed by I'm Enterprise. Some of her hobbies include cooking and watching movies, and she is skilled at kendo. She worked with voice actor Ai Shimizu in eight anime where most of the characters they voiced in together had close connections: DearS, Kage Kara Mamoru!,...
) and her forces find themselves lacking the number of generals necessary to confront Bronquia, and so they must seek allies elsewhere. Mistel (Kozue Kamada) recommends that they go to find and ally with Milanor (Miyuki Sawashiro
Miyuki Sawashiro
is a female Japanese voice actress and singer who works for Mausu Promotion.She voiced Puchiko in the English dubbed releases of Di Gi Charat the Movie and Leave it to Piyoko, making her one of the few Japanese voice actors to have reprised a role in English in addition to the original Japanese...
), because she thinks that a noble thief fits the Royal Army's image the best. The Royal Army heads towards the south of the continent, conquering all the other countries in the way, and accidentally winds up battling Milanor's forces after they encounter and get into an argument with Kylier (Yui Sakakibara
Yui Sakakibara
, is a female Japanese choreographer, dancer, singer, songwriter, and voice actress from Hyōgo, Japan. She appeared on Kōhaku Uta Gassen as back ground dancer behind Ami Suzuki in 1999 and 2000. She used to use the name and others in her previous voices...
). Mistel attempts to stop them and remind Yggdra why they came here, but becomes offended when Milanor and Kylier refer to her as "oba-san", and tells Yggdra to defeat them instead. Once this is done, Yggdra remembers that they had a reason to come down to this area of the world, but Mistel hurriedly assures her that it's not a big deal.
Milanor's Thieves' Chapter
This episode follows Milanor, who has been successfully gathering allies but is plagued with bad luck in his choice of cards, which cause Flunky (Katsuya Fujiwara) to desert the army, temporarily transform him and all of his allies into Undines, chests and all, and break all the items he has in his possession. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Kylier attempts to get his romantic attention, and their ally Rosary (Akemi Sato
Akemi Sato
is a Japanese voice actress from Akita Prefecture who is a member of Aoni Production.-Voice roles:*Tsuri Baka Nisshi - Koitarou Hamazaki*Kanon - Shiori Misaka*Mizuiro - Kenji Katase *La Corda d'Oro ~Primo Passo~ - Fuyūmi Shōko...
) tries to foil her by pushing Milanor towards Yggdra instead. All of this continually backfires when Milanor's unlucky hand at cards makes things go from bad to worse, and even Yggdra turns on them in the end.
New Bronquian Empire's Chapter
This chapter focuses mainly on Luciana (Tomoko Fujino), one of the Imperial commanders. She and her twin sister Aegina (Tomoko Fujino) must project the illusion that they are the same person up until Fantasinia is defeated, because otherwise the two of them will be in danger (alluding to certain plot elements of Blaze Union
Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future
Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Atlus, with its scenario written by R-Force Entertainment. It is currently only available in Japanese....
). Luciana, however, is disheartened when she realizes that even her own allies can only tell her apart from Aegina based on their hairstyles and the color of their clothes, and begins to worry that Gulcasa (Hiroaki Miura
Hiroaki Miura
is a Japanese voice actor from Nagano Prefecture. He is affiliated with the studio Aoni Production and has starred in several voice-over roles for anime, video games, and film since 1998.-Anime:* Air Master...
) might have the same problem. When Eudy (Ai Maeda) discovers this, she decides to try to help Luciana express her individuality by "hinting" that the twins are separate people, and has her equip strange items when going into battle. This eventually upsets Luciana, who starts to worry that Aegina's reputation will be ruined by her behavior, and despite Aegina's reassurance, she becomes angry and rejects her friends' item suggestions in favor of the Golem Suit, beginning to rampage around the fortress. At this time, Gulcasa arrives; unable to understand the bizarre circumstances, he confuses Luciana's antics for a test to see if he can tell who she is. He laughs her off and tells her that no matter what she does, he'll never fall for the twins' disguises because they're individual people, thus laying the issue to rest.