Unchained Blades Hits PSN Today, Is it the PSP RPG for You?

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Unchained Blades Hits PSN Today, Is it the PSP RPG for You?

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a guy with unusually long hair falling out of the sky and crashing head-first into a temple. Oops. This is how you’ll be introduced to everyone’s favorite Dragon. In short, Emperor Fang is an arrogant jerk who goes to a heavenly temple in the skies and demands that the creator of the world, Goddess Clunea, find him the strongest guy in the world so he can kick more ass and take more names. She basically laughs in his face and smacks him down to earth in a weakened state. Now that he’s a ‘fledgling’, a child-beast in the form of a humanoid teen, he’s forced to go through living temples called Titans to find the Goddess again and get his revenge.

Unchained Blades for PSP

After 300+ hours of time spent with the game, I feel I might have the qualifications to give it a score of badass/10. Which means 11. Maybe 11.5. But since I can’t actually score games I’ve worked on (some people might call that cheating), just remember the part where I started yelling at the screen because my favorite character, who is a Golem, started crushing on a loli Mandrake (this is actually a lot less creepy in context… okay, it’s kind of creepy in context too).

As someone who isn’t normally into dungeon crawlers, I wasn’t sure what to expect when playing Unchained Blades. I like fighting and I like dungeons, sure, but being a JRPG fan I love having my fully developed cast of characters and an engaging story even more. I’ve just never felt close to the “create your own character” thing. Or maybe I’m just lazy and don’t feel like picking out my mage’s hair color.

Unchained Blades for PSPUnchained Blades for PSP

Luckily, this game gave me the best of both worlds. I had the pleasure of playing with an intimate, animated cast with their own goals, personalities, and relationships. When Tiana, a princess of the Phoenix Clan, proclaimed she wanted to turn into a ‘big, spiky dragon’, I wanted to slap her silly and ask what the hell kind of fantasies she was having involving dragons in the middle of the night. When Demon Clan Sylvie awkwardly avoided conversations concerning her mysterious brother Lucius, I wanted to know what thoughts were hiding in the back of her mind. I wasn’t travelling with faces and stats of my own creation; I was travelling with people who had stories to tell, and I was the one meant to discover them.

Unchained Blades for PSPUnchained Blades for PSP

I was also worried that the combat would get repetitive, since, you know, it’s not a dungeon crawler if you’re not going through endlessly large dungeons and fighting difficult battles. Unchained Blades takes care of this as well by giving you various types of combat to play with. The first type includes traditional turn-based battles, in which you fight using up to four members of your party by blasting enemies with a series of fast, flashy and furious spells and skills. Along with that, you can charm the pants off of your enemies and bring them to your side so they become Followers, ready to either back you up in a fight (in fact, sixteen of these guys can be brought into battle at a time) or take damage in your place. Another type includes battles where your party is kicked to the curb and your Followers take the stage, fighting in battles presented by pressing a series of buttons on queue. Think DDR, only you’re dancing with your fingers and you might be a lizard instead.

The fully-fledged (get it? Because kids in the game are called fledglings hah) title Unchained Blades hits PSN today for a mere $29.99. Don’t complain, I got like 80 hours out of this game my first time around, not including side quests and a certain epilogue involving a 100-floor tower. Let’s see if you’re strong enough to meet with the Goddess and have a wish or two granted at the end. I bet you’re not. Go on. Prove me wrong.

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93 Comments

14 Author Replies

  • Quick teasing us and drop the update already!

  • I’m going to stop trolling now about all the articles that come out detailing everything that comes this week and THEN THE STORE UPDATES!

    Instead, OMG STOP WITH PSP games. PSP is hurting Vita quite frankly. Like when will SONUY just tell devs to stop and make there PSP games Vita games. Especially in Japan.

  • Nice! Question will it be also playable on the Vita?

    • Regarding UCB on Vita, it’s up to SCEA when they confirm a PSP title is Vita-compatible and post it to the store for purchase. We’re not involved at all with that, sadly!

  • @Above people
    Well I guess they are good at hyping the store updates lol!

  • Im sure this game will sell well in Japan. But here lets face it. Sales would be higher if it were a Vita game. PSP games r overshadowing Vita games in Japan, when will SONY tell Japanese devs its enough.

  • Vita Support?

    • Just wrote a more formal reply above, but it’s totally up to SCEA whether or not a title will be Vita-compatible.

  • Awesome as always! Can’t wait.
    <3 XSeed

  • Does this work on the Vita? Still waiting on Gungir, so I’m going with “no”.

    Another $30 sitting on my HDD waiting for Sony’s software engineers to approve my purchase.

    • It’s completely up to SCEA when they confirm a PSP title is Vita-compatible. We’ve got no control over that at all, sadly!

  • I love XSeed.
    And like Destiny99 asked: Vita compatible?

    • With UCB on Vita, that is completely up to SCEA . We have no control over whether or not a PSP title will be Vita-compatible, sadly!

  • I throw money to the digital winds because I <3 XSEED of course. And I believe in their power to work miracles (like herding Sony's software engineers into doing something useful).

    • It’s completely up to SCEA when they confirm a PSP title is Vita-compatible. We’ve got no control over that at all, unfortunately!

  • I’m pretty sure it won’t be guys (playable). Its up to Sony to do the Vita certification process, and so far they’ve only done it once since launch (when that second wave of games was announced). I’m buying it anyway, so I’ll repost my results here. Worst case scenario, at least Gungir will have a friend to wait with in Purgatory.

  • I hate to admit this, but I’m so spoiled as a Plus member that when something comes out and it doesn’t have a special discount for Plus members, I’m always very disappointed and often don’t buy it, opting to wait for the sale (30% off, 50% for Plus members, for example) that may or may not happen in six months.

  • Looks nice; artwork alone is worth a look.

    And though it has been asked, it bears repeating: is this Vita compatible?

    • It’s up to SCEA whether they confirm a PSP title is Vita-compatible. We’ve got no control over that at all, sadly!

  • It is as if Sony is trolling us. Most people here already has a PSVITA, and wants to play PSP new releases on the VITA, and yet the games are not compatible RE LOL

    :(

  • @ Heavenly, yeah. Lets think for a moment about how dead – and pirated – the PSP is in North America for a moment. Immensely dead and just a pirated.

    So why make a digital product (and .iso) DIRECTLY available to PSP owners – who will just be d/ling it off Pirate Bay – and not the legit consumers who have a device incapable of playing pirated software? Don’t have much of an answer for that other than stupidity. Or gross oversight, or both.

  • you’d think that with the 2 month drought ahead of us vita owners scea would prioritize vita compatibility on a new psp release; something to hold us over, something to get us excited, i’m sure it would make more money, etc. etc. i know you guys at the ps blog often don’t know more than us, but why can’t there just be a little more clarity on this kind of stuff? over 75% of the comments so far are asking about vita compatibility, it seems like a drastic oversight not to get some reassurance and more hype about this kind of stuff.

  • @XSEED

    I’m so excited for this title, you guys are awesome! I love all your titles you put out and this is a Day 1 for me, please keep releasing these great titles.Ragnarok Odyessy, Way of the Samurai 4 and Orgarythm are my next must haves. This has been an great XSEED year so far!

  • This should’ve been released for vita with support for trophies. No wonder why it’s not selling as it should.

  • well, the only thing that hinders me from buying this game is its price.30 bucks for a downloadable game for me is not a go.the game looks fun and kind of pervy (there’s a character that has androphobia aka fear of men)but again i might wait for a price drop or for reviews to really see if the game is really awesome as advertised.all in all, i might get it but not at this point in time.nevertheless,thank you xseed for bringing cool japanese games for NA!

  • @Brittany Avery: Is there any word if Sony has spoken on the Vita compatibility issue?

  • Damn, this is severely enticing. I will most definitely pick it up as soon as Vita can play it. I don’t game on my regular PSP anymore unless I’m using UMD, but I’d opt to go digital if it means getting to use the OLED screen.

  • I’ll wait for it on Vita…but really, 30.00 for a PSP game is just too much these days.
    I’m sure it’s good and all but I hope you guys are working on bring more Vita stuff over.

  • Oh, and I know you have been working on a lot of good stuff, please do not think I’m being rude, I do love you!

  • Cool a dungeon crawler! Hope you still keep releasing psp games XSEED :)

  • @Brittany Avery: Then waiting for the 3DS version it is…

  • Downloading it right now. Looks awesome. Thanks for keeping the PSP alive outside Japan, XSEED!

  • @Brittany Avery
    TY for the Reply

    @SCEA
    I think you guys may want to get on the ball for PSP on Vita. I’ll try to push through my PS3 and hope it works.

  • Doesn’t xfer off the PS3 HDD, confirmed.

    Oh and btw XSEED Sony seems to be passing the buck on this one, I’m pretty sure Atlus staff had to actually contact SCEA and nag them about the approval process. There is some sort of dialog going on between the two teams to speed up the Vita certification process. You guys might want to do the same or we won’t see this on Vita’s till 2013.
    Atlus’ forums have a thread about this that you should probably give a gander to.

  • Well that sucks. As much as i was hyped for this game, not really planning to pay full retail when i get forced to wait to be able to play it due to the developers failure to communicate.

    Had the 30$ waiting to buy this game too, second time us Vita users get screwed in the past month. (First with Gungir, now this). Even the dang Japanese version worked on Vita, what the heck happened?

  • Wow Sony it seems kind of sad that a developer has to answer a question over and over again due to your crazy process to support a brand new piece of hardware that people are itching to play more of. Respectfully Sony needs to get their act together and start supporting the Vita better. If there is going to be continued support for a previous generation of hardware than the new generation of hardware needs to be included with no questions asked. Thank you XSeed for not hiding behind a curtain and actually giving a definitive answer when someone asks a simple question. I just wish you didn’t have to answer it at all.

  • I could care less about Vita certification for a PSP game. I’d rather you guys just make a Vita version from the floor up. I’d pay $29.99 for that. Pfft, if it’s good, I’d pay $39.99… just saying…

  • This is unacceptable Sony. All PSP titles in the pipeline should have automatically been put in the certification process for the Vita. I want to hear from a Sony rep on this one, what’s the ETA on approval? Are they doing anyting to mitigate loss of sale on XSEED’s part from their delay?

  • It’s pretty fail on Sony’s part that new PSP games aren’t available day 1 on the PS Vita’s store. It’s rather ridiculous.

    As for this game, lol. If it were $20 then it would be more tempting, but at the same price as Atlus and Aksys’ retail PSP releases, no thank you.

  • Sony just drop the psp already! You came out with the Vita now support it, I haven’t touched my vita in over a month because no vita games other than u:ga have caught my eye

  • And don’t care about the level of content. I would have been happy with paying $60 for Journey or Flower.

    If I’m paying retail price, I want it at retail. Otherwise, I’ll just laugh at the situation and put my money into another publisher’s pockets.

  • It’s really starting to boggle my mind, Sony and this Vita approval process thing. I almost wish I hadn’t gotten the Vita at all and just gotten a new PSP. Then at least I would be able to play the games I actually want.

  • So is there any estimated date on when it might be working? Or is it basically just a “Whenever Sony feels like it”

    Because if its the latter, i’ll likely just give up all hope on this game

  • Adding on to my last comment. Another thing that maybe Sony does not realize is that a lot of us traded in our PSP for the Vita… because its supposed to be the same BUT BETTER. I am glad that I am not alone on this because Unchained Blades looks amazing but I can’t play it.

  • I have to say, these comments are good for XSEED, in that they display just how much their fans would love Unchained Blades on Vita. If only SCEA could get on the ball and make this happen, I think a ton of people would be happy. Maybe this is the push for universal PSP support, and maybe it will begin in this post. :)

    And, to XSEED – please do everything in your power to make this happen, otherwise this game may become greatly overlooked. And by the looks of it, it doesn’t deserve that.

    Sony really needs to just start being in touch with their consumers instead of sticking to the game plan. Some comments on here are strictly moronic, but a lot of them have great points and features that should have been implemented forever ago.

  • Definitely not pay $30 for this when physical releases are $30. There’s no excuse for DD only to not be less expensive.

  • Thank You Xseed! (:
    PD: When can see all Ys series in Mexican PSN? D:

  • It’s a really good thing I kept my PSP due to the memories I had with it when I bought my VITA. Gungnir is one reason, this another. So I’m fine, but I truly prefer to buy and play this on my VITA.

    12

  • A must purchase for me, but it will have to wait until it is Vita compatible. Is there somewhere to sign up to be notified when it becomes available?

    • When we have more news on it, we’ll definitely be posting to Twitter! twitter.com/xseedgames

  • it would be nice if i could buy this awesome PSP game on my Playstation Vita since it plays digital PSP games, and is the system i chose. what logic is there in creating artificial roadblocks that hinder release-period sales, and limits the value of the Vita’s library?

  • and that question is for SCEA, not xseed :P

  • Okay so can the people who don’t own a VITA quit the moaning? If you have a downloaded Psp game you can play it on the Vita by transfering it from your PS3 to the Vita. IT WILL WORK.

    Just because it’s not showing on the Vita PSN store doesn’t mean you can’t play it on your VITA.

    So Far all of my downloaded PSP games are playing on my VITA and i’ve got about 30 or so now.
    Games like Valkyria chronicles 2 works on the Vita but is not in the store, Little big Planet, MOD nation Racers.
    It will litterally play 95% of the whole cataloge the only thing that it might not let you do is map the right Stick,
    It won’t let me re-map the right stick in valkyria chronicles but it will in monster hunter.

    Im kinda pleased with all the PSP Games. I know It’s not a new VITA game but DAM! these are some great PSP titles that are coming out! Legend of Heroes: Trails in the sky was off the CHAIN! and Persona these are games that we weren’t getting but are getting.

    PSP, VITA…. WHO CARES!! just as long as were getting some great games to play.
    If you want a game to keep you busy get Disgaea 3 it’s awesome, has all the DLC included and looks great. You’ll not mind waiting for a new game if your fingers are busy.

    ^_^

  • Hey , whoevers in charge. Can you read this? See what the people say? Make this work. Make them all work. Now.

  • @Brittany Avery
    You guys shouldn’t advertise these games in your previews as being for the PSP and Vita when you have no idea when (or if) they will be Vita compatible. This is the same thing Atlus did with Gungnir, and it is really dishonest to advertise games this way.

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