Gloria Union

 is a tactical role-playing game for the PlayStation Portable, developed by Sting Entertainment and published by Atlus. It is a spinoff to ', and including "Yggdra Unison" and ' is the fourth installment in the Union subseries to "Dept. Heaven". It was unveiled in Famitsu magazine in late March 2011 and released in June. A remastered version for mobile platforms and the Nintendo Switch is scheduled for release in March 2021 in Japan.
Gloria Union does not take place in the world of Ancardia, and so its story connections to the other Union games and the "Dept. Heaven" series itself are unknown.
Story.
Thousands of years ago, a great kingdom called Euforia flourished making use of a power source known as "Will".
Through the centuries, Euforia developed many customs based on the use of Will, but when one day they realized that their civilization would soon come to an end, they poured all their Will into crystals in order to leave a record of their culture behind. After this, Euforia sank to the bottom of the ocean.
In the present day, with the ocean now taking up over half of the world, the seas became populated with many pirates. Those pirates, hearing the legend of the crystals, began to search the ocean for clues to their whereabouts.
Among those pirates was one young boy dreaming of greatness.
Gameplay.
Like before it, Gloria Union inherits the same card system, turn-based movement, and real-time union combat used in ; it also keeps the Ax Battler class which debuted in .
However, Gloria Union also introduces a number of new cards and classes, as well as new system functions.
Problems with 's battle display (such as character statistics being hidden behind speech bubbles during Skill usage) have also been rectified, with Skill-relevant statistics now being displayed at the top of the screen during use.
According to the newly released PV, there will be 48 Tactics Cards, including several cards newly created for this game. Comparatively, featured 37 cards, while had 39.
In certain game maps, the Gloria pirate ship itself is available as a mobile cannon battery and piece of crossable terrain.
Gloria Union also contains a hidden feature in certain battlefields which allows the player to swap the formation style of units from male to female and vice versa regardless of their actual gender. A special item is required to do so. Intergendered character Kyra's personal formation overlays the male and female formations, creating a Union radius of 16 squares rather than the usual 8.
Weather.
In addition to the day/evening/night time system, Gloria Union also features three types of weather: Sunny, Rainy, and Foggy. Sunny conditions are the default, whereas rainy weather decreases the power of units aligned to fire and gun-using classes. Fog decreases visibility, which results in the Union matrix being smaller, enemy units' manpower becoming indiscernible in battle, and a high chance of units going into Panic when hit with an enemy charge.
New Generic Classes.
In Gloria Union, the bow-using classes "Hunter" and "Assassin" are replaced by gun-wielding classes "Sniper" and "Gunner" respectively. Previously Assassin-only card "Bloody Claw" has been reassigned with the male Sniper units accordingly.
Additionally, the "Bandit" class has been replaced with "Pirates", and the "Fencer" class replaced by "Chaser". Like the female-exclusive "Ax Battler" class that debuted in , a new male-only sword-using class called "Paladin" and a male-only spear class called "Sailor" have been added as well.
New Cards.
Fifteen new cards were created for Gloria Union, fourteen of which have been revealed on the official website
To make room for the new cards, all character-exclusive cards used in the previous games are unused except for Coma Karma, Judgment Zero, and Insanity.
Development.
Gloria Union shares its producer and many other team members with , although Radiant Historia's Hiroshi Konishi and Dokapon Kingdom's Eiko Tameshige are handling the character art for this release rather than Rui Kousaki or Satoko Kiyuduki.
Much like before it, Gloria's development was kept secret until its unveiling, unlike Gungnir, which JaJa discussed in its early stages on his blog. 2011 is the third year in which two Sting games have been released in directly consecutive months; 2009 saw the release of Hexyz Force in November and Yggdra Unison in December, and in 2010 the PSP version of Knights in the Nightmare (April) was followed by that May.
A remastered version of the game featuring various graphical and gameplay adjustments titled "Gloria Union: Twin Fates in Blue Ocean FHD Edition" is planned for a March 18, 2021 digital-only release for iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch platforms in Japan.
Merchandise.
Preorders of Gloria Union at certain vendors (Fammys, Softmap, Messe Sanoh, Imagine, Gamers, and Medialand) include phone cards with illustrations of Kyra and some of the game's female characters (Pinger, Elisha, Ruru, Ruru, Kyra, and Melanie respectively). In addition to this, preorders at Messe Sanoh's women-oriented vendor include a full set of bromide cards featuring the male cast, a first for the Union series as well as the Dept. Heaven series as a whole.
The game's single-disc soundtrack was released under the SMD itaku label one week after the game's release. Its official strategy guide was printed by Softbank Creative and released on August 3.