***The following is a long read, but details a lot of what I've learned by playing the game***
Hey,
Being a complete Fire Emblem and Advance Wars WHORE, I got into this game about a month ago. Let me tell you, it shares very little with those two games. It's not bad, it's just different. This is one of those titles where the tutorial isn't quite up to snuff. If you wanna get into it, I would highly recommend having a FAQ open to help out. I don't endorse using FAQ's, but this games explaination on things is severly lacking. So here are the highs and lows of the title:
-Cards. Now I personally don't care for card based systems, but this game handles them extremely well in my opinion. Every card has a special ability, an ace value, a movement value, and a power level. The ability can be considered like a spell or technique you can use until your next card selection. Some are very nice (steal an enemies item, lower their attack strength to 1, blast em with fire....ect) but some are rather useless (cure status effects, swap geography). The ace value is represented by a weapon (sword, axe, wand, ect). If the person that starts the union has the weapon that matches the card, then you can use the ability of the card. I like the statagy element of that, but unfortunately the CPU dosen't have to follow those rules (ala fog in advance wars). The movement value is how many squares you can move, but this is movement based on the entire group. So, if my card has 8 movement, everyone moves a total of 8 squares, not 8 squares each! Again, very different from AW or FE, but the maps are smaller to compensate. Finally, the power value. I thought this effected how much damage I do in combat, but it only effects how much "moral" damage you do after the battle is over. If I win a fight the game tallies up certain results (how many characters survived, the geography difference, and special effects) then it takes the results as a percentage and that percentage is how much damage I do. It's very confusing at first, but can be picked up after a few maps. Example: I win a battle with a total percentage value of +40%. If my card had a power value of 1000, I would do 40% of that, in this case 400 points of damage to my enemies moral. If my card's power vaule was 1200, I would do 480. This isn't explained anywhere in the game, but isn't too difficult to figure out.
-There are weapon triangles ala fire emblem (ex. sword beats axe, axe beats spear, spear beats sword), but then you get some weapons (the sickle) which dominates everything. Kinda like psychic in pokemon red/blue without the bug weakness.
-You can only attack once per turn. This was confusing for me at first, but they compinsate for this by making multiple people attack in that turn. Every attack is called a union, ergo the title Yggdra's Union. Everyone can create a union when they attack. Males create a X shape and women create a + shape. Both shapes extend 2 squares out from the main character. Anyone within the shape will join in on the union. A great concept, but what they fail to mention (and it frustrated the hell outta me) is that everyone in the union attacks in a certain order. I read on how it works and can deal with it now though. This wouldn't be a big deal normally, but when everyone shares the same movement, you had better know where everyone is supposed to be before you attack.
-There are hidden items scattered in each map, but there are little to no clue on how to get them. In FE or AW, you could talk to villagers or get clues somehow, in this game the villagers say next to nothing important. Most of the time you simply stop on a square and get the item, but it could be right in your walking path and you would never know it. Again, FAQ's are a huge help here. I would have missed a character early on without reading a FAQ on a map. I had to move any unit south on one map to open up a new section of the map, but I had no clue. The spot was not obvious by any means, if someone in a village had said something along the lines of, "I saw a women to the south" or "No one dares visit the traitor in the southern island" it would have been better.
-Items can be equiped for stat bonuses or used to recover moral. If you equip an item, it will last for a certain number of maps, usually between 1 and 5. Sometimes and item increases and decreases stats, so you have to choose wisely. More importantly though, is that you do NOT get a moral back between maps. NONE, ZERO, ZIP! The only way to get it back is to use items. So, do you want to equip that ice spear and get an attack and technique bonus, or do you want to use it and recover 3000 moral? Some choices are obvious, like items that give more penalties than bonuses or only last 1 map, but mostly it depends on how badly you need to heal.
-Looking at the map before it begins. This is HUGE in my opinion. In FE, you can look at what your dealing with before the map begins to better prepare yourself. In this you can look at the map and see geography, town locations, and enemy location. There is no detail though. I can see an enemy unit, but I have no idea what it is and what weapons it can use. You also have no idea what kind of card they are using. You also cannot arrange your starting characters, which for the most part isn't that big of a deal, but on some maps the enemy starts right next to you and you can't do anything about it (one map in particular had me and the enemy on top of each other with no room to move, so my unions and characters were already set and unchangealbe-not cool in a stratagy game).
-The characters are actually a group fighting together. So, if I have Yggdra attacking, it's actually her and 5 other generic girls fighting with her. Kinda like a mix of AW and FE there. I like that feature.
-Combat. This is a biggie. Again, much like everything else in this game, it's a double edged sword. In FE/AW the combat is already set and you know the outcome before the battle even begins. Unless you get screwed by the RNG, you know the results. In this game, you can change the flow of combat and effect the outcome by your actions. It's a lot more interactive and tense than the standard fair (kinda like how the combat is in the Mario and Luigi RPG's). You have a bar at the top of the screen which you can fill up by going defense or you can deplete by going aggressive or you can do nothing and watch the battle play out. If your bar is maxed, you can use your card's special ability. If you go aggressive, you can overcome weapon or type mismatches. The bar will carry over to the next person to attack as well. If you have a huge advantage in the first fight, you can go defensive and still win the fight while handing over a full bar to the next person who might have a harder fight ahead of them. Also, every fight starts with a "charge" attack. Basically, the attacker rushes in, leaps into the air and gets the first strike advantage, the enemy then counters. Another random effect of combat and based on a different set of attributes. Some characters suck at combat, but can overcome with there overpowering charges. Also, it's possible to get a critical hit and kill the leader (head) of the group. The leader decides to raise or lower the bar and use card skills. Typically, if the head character gets killed the other team is going to win.
Ok, so I've talked my head off about this title. I do enjoy the game even though it has it's flaws. I would recommend anyone who is a fan of turn based stratagies to give it a whirl, but make sure you have a FAQ handy to save yourself a lot of headaches. I'll answer any other questions if you got have them based on what I've done so far. Later.
Topic: Yggdra Union? (Read 8443 times)
