Yggdra Union, while takes some getting used to, is a thoroughly enjoyable game for any fan of Turn-Based Strategies.
The story, centers around Princess Yggdra, and her kindom which has been conquered by the King of Bronqia, an evil lord who has aggressively annexed the sovereign from her land. It also follows the tale of a tough, but righteous thief named Milanor. Together, them and their compatriots must end a war by starting another if Yggdra wishes to reclaim her thrown.
Like many(all) TBS games, battles take place on gridded fields where each side takes turns attacking each other. That's where the similarities end. Yggdra Union uses a special card system, depending on the number on the card, decides how many moves the entire army can make during that turn. In example, if you have a card with a value of 8, this means you could potentially move one character 8 squares, but then you'd have none left for the rest of your allies, most likely leading to your untimely and unfortunate demise (death however is not permanent). Also, another number on these cards decides its strength when in combat with other enemies, and this number goes up with successful battles, similar to gaining experience, except for the card as well as the character.
The battles are probably the deepest part of Yggdra Union. When one unit enagages another, their squad of either 3 or 6 will begin to fight each other until all of one side's fighters have fallen. You can alter the outcome of this by choosing whether to fight in Aggressive or Passive stance. While Aggressive stance means your fighters will fight hard and faster, your Tension meter goes down. In the opposite, Passive means your fighters will probably get beaten faster, but the Tension meter will go up, allowing you to use your card's special attack. Each card when chosen in the beginning of a turn, allows the use of a special ability. This can range from creating a barrier, casting fire magic, to even killing every unit on your opponent side. Some of these abilities have certain requirments, such as one must be fighting on sand or only the leader of the squad can be left to use it.
To make this battle system even deeper, Unions can also be formed to cause even more damage to the enemy (or if done badly, more damage to you). Because only one attack can be made a turn, this greatly increases what you can do. Depending on how characters are positioned next to the attacking character, they too can join the fight and attack enemy squads that may happen to be in a Union with the enemy being attacked. In theory, this means you can literally have up to 6 squads of units engaging in heated combat with 6 enemy squads, all in one turn. Of course, there's some strategy to this, as units in a Union will attack in order of how they are placed. This means that by positioning your units correctly, you can set them up to fight units that are at a disadvantage towards yours. Of course, the enemy can do that, and they will do it often. Expect Assassins to be ripping your Necromancers apart, or their Heavy Calvary to come in and run your Archers through with their lances. But through some extra thinking and strategy, you can expect to make some spectacular victories.
Of course, Yggdra Union is not without its faults. The main one in question being the use of items. Items can only be found, not bought, thus, they must be used sparingly. Even worse, the same items you use to boost your units' stats and abilities, are also the same that heal them. Units have Moral instead of health, and Morale damage carries over to each battle, meaning that if you won your last battle with only 50 Morale left, expect fo face a huge uphill battle next as that unit will most likely not survive the battle. This forces you to choose which weapons to use to heal, and which to modify. All units have a certain "affinity" with certain items when it comes to healing, so while a flaming lance won't do much for Princess Yggdra, it'll do wonders for her loyal knight.
Another problem is that the pace is extremely slow, especially in the begnning, before you get access to Unions. Expect even simple skirmishes of just 5 or 6 units to take half an hour, just because you can only fight once, and your movement is horribly limited. Also, there are a few levels where all you do is move from one end of a map to the other, attempting to avoid "detection" by the enemy even though this is so easy, that you're really just wasting your time.
Also, while usually at a good pace, the difficulty ramps up a huge amount close to the end, but then slacks off and becomes pathetically easy in the end. While it'll be near impossible to fight a bloodthirsty king possessed by a demonic entity, you'll find it almost too easy to kill his innocent little sister, a race of peaceful, but decieved (and pissed) mermaids, some (barely) armed citizens, and more(another thing about Yggdra Union, it's got a story that makes you question your so called "good-natured" motives). Not going to say anything, but let's just say the ending is a bit...anticlamactic. Hell, you actually PLAY the ending.
Despite that, Yggdra Union has far more good points than bad to make this the perfect game for any TBS fan with a GBA or DS. Its new and different system, while a double-edged sword, adds a lot of depth and strategy to the TBS genre and any fan of the genre will find this game to be very entertaining. It just requires a bit of patience to fully enjoy it.