Unicorn Overlord review:
Vanillaware i thank you for the meal. They once again did not miss. An excellently crafted SRPG with fun characters, good music, and of course, fantastic visuals. All of this formed to create a game that asked a very bold question: what if Genealogy of the Holy War was good?
Honestly despite the format obviously being different, that's not a joke. This game very much feels like FE4 in some ways and given the devs' obvious love for Fire Emblem (Alain is literally Marth), it makes sense for there to be some interesting similarities. The battles all take place on the overworld itself. The terrain that you see, the areas, that's what you're fighting on. The goal each time is to capture the enemy's main command post while defending your own and capturing outposts in between. It manages to convey that epic warfare feeling and actually gives weight to the whole "liberating" thing. I found myself looking to each battle and i legit started getting a bit disappointed when i knew i was running out of fights. Because it's just so good. The sheer flexibility that's on display here really allows this game to be replayed an endless amount of ways i think.
What i really like about the combat is that the battle forecast tells you exactly what will happen in that instance. It makes sense, given the sheer variety of factors that go into determining an outcome. Because the stages are real time, there's more that goes into the strategy than simply just parking your gigachad unit in a good spot and having enemies suicide on them. While there's normally no permadeath, the game still discourages suicide tactics since stamina limits how many times a squad can attack. Squads with zero stamina can't move, which isn't something you want happen to you in a real-time game. The enemy also plays by these rules though. Honestly, that goes for pretty much the entire game. Save for specific bosses, i don't think there's anything the enemy has that you don't.
Continuing on the gameplay, the classes all rock. Well almost all of them. But even the worst ones still fill their niches quite well and certainly have more versatility than Fire Emblem classes. For example, Armor Knights can actually do things. And the thing that helps all this versatility is that each class has both skills for in and out of combat (that is, map effects). For example, Armor Knights can negate damage taken from out of battle effects. Archers can make arrows rain down for AoE, bypassing enemy defenses because it's on the map. Witches can teleport the whole squad. There's quite a lot.
This write-up honestly doesn't cover all of it. Play the demo to get an idea.
When it comes to writing, there is a bit of a divide here. Is the writing as good as 13 Sentinels? lol no. 13 Sentinels' is still Vanillaware's magnum opus when it comes to storytelling. That said, there's a lot of elements to like here. The cast of characters is great and memorable and i like the game's take on Fire Emblem's Support system more than how Fire Emblem does it. I think Fire Emblem could learn something here, as Unicorn Overlord doesn't force it's Supports to completely stretch each conversation into the full CBA chain. I haven't gone through all the convos yet but i don't think there's a single character i dislike here. I also think the director is incredibly based for allowing every recruitable character to be recruited in one run. The game is inspired by Ogre Battle but not it's cryptic as hell character recruitment methods.
The game also has pretty good worldbuilding. You can get that through the convos, the Side Quests or just reading up the logs. Basically every location, however big or small, gets an entry and it does a good job at making the world feel alive. On the visual aspect, each country is very distinct from each other. I believe that visuals itself can serve as a form of worldbuilding, just look at Xenoblade. All of these elements, in my opinion, help support the main plot. The main plot itself is pretty basic but this is one of those games where you really don't get the full experience if you only stick to the main plot.
I really don't have anything really negative to say about this game. I do have a few minor nitpicks however. The Tactics system, as robust as it is, could've had a bit more specificity to it. And for how much control over things you have, a Path of Radiance-style "commands" system that you can give to AI controlled units would've helped. I also think it's kinda noticeable that the game ran out of money towards the end. In an interview they explained how they kept adding more and more recruitable characters which i feel kinda explains why a lot of the recruits are frontloaded into Cornia and Drakenhold. The Albion arc in particular is very short. Ironically, it's maps are probably the longest.
Vanillaware cooked, just like how they cooked all that delicious food in their games, good God, it's all gorgeous. I'd ask for a sequel to like, iron some stuff out but Vanillaware doesn't even do spiritual sequels so honestly, i'm ok with how this turned out. They spent 10 years on this game, ran out of money in the process, but it's ok because they put out an absolute banger. Want an FE4 remake? Just play this instead.
There is another way
That's actually pretty amazing. It just worked out.
