Originally a real-time tactical MMO playable on the cellphone, Yggdra Unison: Beat Out Our Obstacle allowed players to take control of any army from Yggdra Union and engage in competitive battles with opponents all over Japan. Because it was made for the cellphone specifically, the game never left Japan.
Happily for fans the world over, Sting announced that a Nintendo DS remake of the game (entitled Yggdra Unison: Holy Sword Stories) would be released in December of 2009, featuring a new story mode and various unlockable features. The remake no longer features any cooperative or competitive multiplayer modes, though.
In both of its incarnations, Yggdra Unison is a non-canonical Alternate Universe retelling of Yggdra Union similar to such games as Fate/unlimited codes—it retells the story of the war from a number of possible perspectives, asking "What if so-and-so were the main character?" and introducing many changes to the storyline along the way. For the most part, it also happens to run on Rule of Funny. There are twelve playable characters—Yggdra, Milanor, Gulcasa, Emelone, Roswell, Rosary, Ortega, Dort, Juvelon, Gordon, Pamela, and Nessiah.
A drama CD featuring stories about the Royal Army, Milanor's bandits, and part of the Imperial Army was released in March 2010.
See also the pages for Yggdra Union, the main title, and Blaze Union, the prequel following the Imperial Army.
Yggdra Unison provides examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: It's possible to restart any stage at any given time, and if you get a game over, you can do an Easy Retry, much like all the other Dept. Heaven games thus far. Also, once you manage to unlock Nessiah, he stays awake for all subsequent playthroughs, saving you the trouble of having to search the world for his event trigger again.
- Apologetic Attacker: Emilia, when fighting anyone Bronquian. Particularly Gulcasa. "I'm sorry if it hurts...! D-don't think badly of me!"
- Ascended Extra: The game is built around this idea—aside from Yggdra, Milanor, and Gulcasa, the playable armies are all led by rather minor characters.
- Berserk Button: Anyone calling Mistel Oba-san is in for a lot of pain.
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: The general flow of the character interactions in Yggdra and Milanor's chapters of the dramas, although who exactly has each role tends to change in each scene.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Nessiah's ending. The audience never finds out what happened to your forces, but the fact that they were unable to return bodes ill.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Somehow, Pamela manages to be even more insane than she is in the main game.
- Deadpan Snarker: Nessiah, of course, but Zilva has her moments, too.
- Defeat Means Friendship: At least if your opponent doesn't have a personal problem with you to begin with. And even then, they'll probably submit to you if your conquered territory is big enough.
- Dem Bones: Roswell's Servant and the other Skeletons.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Marietta and #367 still don't even get so much as a mention in the game. And in the drama CD, most of the cast that doesn't join the Royal Army in Yggdra Union, along with half of the Imperial Army.
- In an amusing aversion, this is about the only game in the whole of the Episode II part of the franchise where Luciana doesn't get shafted for once. She even gets her own story in the drama CD.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Yggdra betraying and attacking Milanor in the dramas because Milanor and Kylier accidentally activated a card that destroyed all their held items, including a Sweetberry she had wanted. Since Milanor's chapter of the drama proudly casts him in the role of Butt-Monkey, it
Crosses the Line Twice and gets Played for Laughs. And right after that, Roswell changes her class to Skeleton for the duration of the fight. - The Drag-Along: Gulcasa will obey the orders of the other eleven world leaders if he deems them able to use his power, but nobody ever said he had to be happy about it.
- Gender Bender: When Diamond Dust activates, it turns everyone into Undines, your units' gender be damned. This is, of course, spoofed to high heaven and back again in the drama CD, where Milanor and Roswell get into a bragging fest over the bust size of their Undine forms.
- Giggling Villain: Nessiah retains his trademark "fufufu" laugh, and according to the ending text for certain characters, the fact that sometimes he seems to be laughing at his own teammates occasionally makes them wonder whose side he's supposed to be on.
- Guide Dang It!:
- Some of the card effects. Trying to recruit Nessiah and Mistel is a massive pain if you don't know what to look for, too.
- Getting the best items in each search involves fulfilling strict hidden conditions and deploying the right characters. Character recruitment itself actually has pretty complicated mechanics at play, too.
- Some of the requirements for unlocking armies. You have to purposely play as terribly as possible to have twenty-five deserters in one playthrough, for example.
- Heavy Sleeper: Good lord, Nessiah. You'd think he would want to be awake for the events of this war, considering, but...
- Hypocritical Humor: "Dirty old man", says Ortega to Dort.
- Irony: In the other episode II games, Genocide draws power from Gulcasa's teammates to add to his own. In this game, it actually powers him down slightly in order to spread his strength amongst his allies. Yes, it went from running on The Power of Friendship in a Black Mage sense of the phrase to a weaponization of the concept of The Paragon.
- It Amused Me: Why Rosary is trying to set up a Kylier/Milanor/Yggdra Love Triangle in the drama CD.
- Leitmotif: Every army has two themes.
- Lighter and Softer: Still not the most saccharine of games, but the atmosphere is considerably more lighthearted than the original, especially because killing your opponents is optional this time around.
- Mauve Shirt: Milanor's slightly unique flunky, Flunky makes a returning appearance.
- No Sense of Direction: Apparently Nessiah. Rule of Funny?
- Pet the Dog: The way Nessiah treats his soldiers, especially given his usual demeanor.
- Picky Eater: In addition to all of the characters' likes and dislikes from the previous game, here we have Zilva and Emilia's hatred of cheese, among other things.
- Player Mooks: Certain characters have generic units in their armies.
- Puni Plush: Like in Yggdra Union everyone is extremely cutely drawn with huge eyes.
- Retcon: The Imperial Army's likes and dislikes were changed in Blaze Union; many of the characters are willing to eat things in Blaze that they wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole in Unison (for instance, cheese for Emilia, dragon meat for Gulcasa, just about everything for Nessiah). This is also the game that first changed Nessiah's elemental affinity to "dark".
- Running Gag: Several, including Mizer debating his enemies' worth right in front of their faces and Gulcasa's recklessness causing him to be labeled by everyone around him as an airhead.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Milanor re: Yggdra in his chapter of the dramas, vehemently. His allies, of course, tease him mercilessly.
- Shipper on Deck: In Milanor's chapter of the dramas, Rosary actively does everything she can to make Milanor and Yggdra be attracted to each other, although she may just be doing it to pick on Kylier.
- Sinister Minister: Juvelon, Mardym, and their army of Church Militants.
- Slasher Smile: Gulcasa in the key visual
◊. As the key visual features everyone Super-Deformed, the effect is rather humorous. - Small Name, Big Ego: Milanor. He's one of the two statistically proudest characters in the games, and unlike Gulcasa, he's got nothing to show for all that ego.
- The Stinger: Nessiah appears after the credits with a Just As Planned expression if you haven't found him in-game.
- Too Dumb to Live: Flunky. "Hey, it's the curse lady! Let's pick on her!"
- Trademark Favorite Food: Yggdra's love of Sweetberries and Roswell's obsession with Banangos are both still present and gleefully lampooned in the dramas. Gulcasa also seems to really like mushrooms (though that may be because Powershrooms are stated to be good for one's body).
- Unholy Holy Sword: Since it was a big part of the plot in Yggdra Union, this is both a no-brainer and not taken anywhere near as seriously. Having Nessiah show up and ask Yggdra to give it back (when she's never had reason to question her country's Justice Will Prevail ideology) can actually be a large source of Hilarity Ensues.
- Vague Age: Amareus as usual; Nessiah and Pamela are both referred to as "probably older than they look".
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's fully possible to have friends and allies fight each other to the death, if you're enough of a jerk to deploy them against each other. Some characters take this more in stride than others; Gulcasa, for instance, accepts having to cross blades with or even being killed by his loved ones downright heroically, Amareus reveals herself to be a raging yandere, and Kylier will cross the Despair Event Horizon.
- Villain Protagonist: Ortega, Dort, Juvelon and Nessiah. Gulcasa is too noble to count.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Nighttime is Kylier and Emilia's bane, as griffon riders are ridiculously slow then.
- With Friends Like These...: The result of some army setups. In certain routes, this is directly mentioned if you recruit Nessiah.
- Worthy Opponent: Zilva to Amareus in Gulcasa's storyline.
