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.
Blaze Union serves as the prequel to Yggdra Union, and shares the same systems with a few minor changes to gameplay. The most notable change is the addition of a mission selection system during two points of the game, which leads up to separate story branches much like a visual novel.
A Remastered version of the game is set to release in April 2023. Mobile versions of the game was also announced and it was set to release for IOS and Android.
Story
Blaze Union takes place three years before Yggdra Union, in the year 1487 M.D., an era that was considered a golden age to the rest of the continent but was a dark age for the empire of Bronquia. Thortie, the current Emperor, was an incompetent ruler who taxed the people heavily to support the army he was attempting to build; the majority of the nobility was corrupt, and bandits plagued the land, preying on the weak and innocent.
In the trade city of Tiera, the youth Garlot had grown up being crushed under the heel of various forms of oppression, from the unfairness of the rich and the nobility to his own father's brutal abuse; he and his friends Siskier and Jenon decided to do what they could to change the ugly reality surrounding them and formed a band of noble thieves in order to protect their fellow poor.
The game begins as Garlot and his band close in on a noble named Norn and the mercenaries he has hired, defeat him with the help of the traveler Medoute, and catch the eye of Landgrave Velleman. The landgrave asks for their help in creating order in Bronquia so that it can be stabilized before it destroys itself, and they join forces; Velleman renames their force Gram Blaze.
From this point on, the story focuses on Gram Blaze's progress in restoring public order, gathering new allies, and gaining notoriety in Bronquia as the protectors of the people. As much as the plot is a medieval fantasy and adventure tale, it is also a slice of life story chronicling the strengthening of the bonds between Gram Blaze's members and providing a portrait of Garlot, the people surrounding him, and the world they live in.
Depending on the choices of the player, the plot can progress in one of three directions, with four possible conclusions. Important themes include comradeship, racism, revenge, and mental-emotional stress and trauma.
Characters
Allies
The protagonist of the main story and the leader of Gram Blaze. Garlot is a seventeen-year-old young man born and raised in the slums of Tiera. He desires to become stronger because he has lived all his life faced with everyday injustices resulting from the Emperor's poor government. Garlot was abused by his father when he was a young boy and abandoned by his mother, and he still suffers from the emotional and mental aftereffects. He is notoriously bad-tempered, to the point of forgetting his objectives once angered, but despite this he has a gentle and caring personality that makes him popular amongst his allies. Garlot is extremely protective of his friends and flies into a rage if they are threatened or hurt, particularly Siskier.
Although he himself is not aware of it, "Garlot" is not his real name; it is a false name that his mother gave him in order to seal his demon blood. Over the course of the A path, it is revealed that Garlot is the first pureblooded descendant of the demon god Brongaa to be born in centuries, and his birth name is . In this route of the game, he works to unseal his blood after Siskier's death, and overthrows the government to become the new Emperor, leading to the events of Yggdra Union.
Garlot is 174 cm tall and likes grilled fish. He refuses to eat dairy products, and is also depicted as having trouble eating particularly sweet things, such as strawberries. His allies often call him . Two of the game's possible endings result in his suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.