Unicorn Overlord

[MeteorPhoenix]

2 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Lex climbs towers, Chloe scouts ruins.

 

Anyway, who's everyone's favorites? Mine are Aramis, Travis, Rosalinde, Melisandre, Jeromy, and Ithilion.

Virginia, Melisandre, Chloe so far.

[Etrurian emperor]

3 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Anyway, who's everyone's favorites? Mine are Aramis, Travis, Rosalinde, Melisandre, Jeromy, and Ithilion.

I'm a simple man. I hear DC Douglas and I like someone. 

Aside from him its Berengaria, Travis, Lex, Ochette, Rosalinde and Aramis. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 3/17/2024 at 5:57 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I guess it was unavoidable but the open world part of Unicorn Overlord is mostly an illusion. In the demo you were mostly free to go any direction you wanted, but in the game proper its made clear you're not really supposed to. There's a pretty clearly preferred route through the countries and strict level gate ensure its not really feasible to switch this up.

I suppose its possible to go to Elfheim before Drakenhold, but the other countries will quickly kick you to the curb if you try to visit them early on. 

To be frank, I wish the route through the countries was even more locked-in than it is. I'm doing Elheim and it's pretty weird honestly how Virginia has just completely disappeared from the plot, but I guess it's in service to the fact that you can do it first? And if this continues then the new characters gained in Elheim will similarly drop out of the plot later. It's awkward, and I don't see the point of it. Being able to do the nations in different orders would only be interesting if it had a meaningful effect on the story.

 

[MeteorPhoenix]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To be frank, I wish the route through the countries was even more locked-in than it is. I'm doing Elheim and it's pretty weird honestly how Virginia has just completely disappeared from the plot, but I guess it's in service to the fact that you can do it first? And if this continues then the new characters gained in Elheim will similarly drop out of the plot later. It's awkward, and I don't see the point of it. Being able to do the nations in different orders would only be interesting if it had a meaningful effect on the story.

 

I really liked being able to go back and forth. Sometimes I got bored of the Drakenga-- I mean hold deserts, and would do some Elheim liberation battles, get some elves into my army. Likewise, I procrastinatied doing the last battle of Bastorias, so I would go to Albion to get some angels.

I think I would've enjoyed it less if I was locked it like that.

[Fabulously Olivier]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'm a simple man. I hear DC Douglas and I like someone. 

Aside from him its Berengaria, Travis, Lex, Ochette, Rosalinde and Aramis. 

Uh, Ochette? It's not Octopath 2.

[Etrurian emperor]

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To be frank, I wish the route through the countries was even more locked-in than it is. I'm doing Elheim and it's pretty weird honestly how Virginia has just completely disappeared from the plot, but I guess it's in service to the fact that you can do it first? And if this continues then the new characters gained in Elheim will similarly drop out of the plot later. It's awkward, and I don't see the point of it. Being able to do the nations in different orders would only be interesting if it had a meaningful effect on the story.

 

I'd have preferred some cross region interaction too. I guess it could be to avoid bloating scenes with characters and to ensure you can do each realm in every order. 

So far the set up seems to be that each country as a representative from your starting party attached to it, and then two main characters from within that realm. Travis being your party representative for Drakenguard and Virginia and Gilbert being the main characters. Or the Witch girl being your parties representatives for elfheim and the twins being the main characters for that region.

Odd duck out is Bestoria where no one from your starting party gets much focus aside from Lex a teensy tiny bit in the beginning. 

Edited March 21 by Etrurian emperor

[Lynsanity]

Has the state of character and unit guides improved much since launch? Looking early on, I mostly found SEO scamming gaming sites and wikis that were primarily ad space. Really made me appreciate what Serenes Forest provides for Fire Emblem.

[MeteorPhoenix]

42 minutes ago, Lynsanity said:

Has the state of character and unit guides improved much since launch? Looking early on, I mostly found SEO scamming gaming sites and wikis that were primarily ad space. Really made me appreciate what Serenes Forest provides for Fire Emblem.

Last I googled, it was still awful. Still no GameFAQs guides or anything either.

The UO discord is probably the best place for these questions right now.

[Etrurian emperor]

Does anyone know how to get goat milk? You need it to restore several towns in Albion but you can't seem to just collect it in the overworld. There are goats you can interact with and Alain says they're hungry, but so far I've not got any items to feed them with. My guess is that a certain mystery item will make the goats give you milk.

Speaking of goats. The game made a big mistake by not having goat bestrals playable. There are goat bestrals, just not in playable form. Worst game ever 0/10.

Edited March 23 by Etrurian emperor

[MeteorPhoenix]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Does anyone know how to get goat milk? You need it to restore several towns in Albion but you can't seem to just collect it in the overworld. There are goats you can interact with and Alain says they're hungry, but so far I've not got any items to feed them with. My guess is that a certain mystery item will make the goats give you milk.

Speaking of goats. The game made a big mistake by not having goat bestrals playable. There are goat bestrals, just not in playable form. Worst game ever 0/10.

A bunch of towns in Albion have an infinite supply of goat biscuits, sold by the provisioner or whatever the not armorer is called. Cheap too. Buy like 24 and you shouldn't need it for a while.

Edited March 24 by MeteorPhoenix

[Sire]

Finished my Expert run in about 88 hours. I did nearly everything except the final mining area in Albion.
-- Gave the Ring of the Maiden to Scarlett, as it seems to be the "canon" choice. Yes, it is rather vanilla, but I did enjoy it a lot. There were other interesting options for me (Virginia, Ren, Rosalinde, Yahna), but as I started getting deeper into the game and looking up some of the conversations/epilogues, I feel like simply giving it to Josef instead for my "True Playthrough." I love the father/son dynamic between Josef and Alain, and one can always headcannon Alain gets Scarlett (or whoever) anyways.
=== Small side note, as I went for the Maiden Ring as fast as possible after maxing out Scarlet, the only other option I had available was Lex. I thought it was pretty funny.
=== Virginia was originally going be my next choice, but...

Spoiler

...it just feels wrong not having her end up with Gilbert, and it affects Leah's epilogue as well.
-- The whole Cousin thing didn't matter to much for me since its just a game. I believe Alain would probably choose Scarlett anyways, Virginia was just my personal choice (and I'm not related, Alain is).

Also, she only has one Accessory slot, and she really wants the +1 PP/AP Pendant, whether that be Amethyst or the Hero's Medallion. 

Overall, I absolutely loved the game, especially since Ogre Battle 64 is one of my most favorite games of all time. I do wish there was a proper NG+ and a postgame, and I'm holding out hope that there may be a later patch that adds this in (some of Vanillaware's other titles apparently did this, like Dragon's Crown).

* * * * *

As for favorite characters...
-- Gammel grew on me. I originally started out jailing him, then I restarted my save to let him go. When I finally ended up recruiting him, his team ends up being one of my MVPs as I had him run the "Arrow Rain" build composition. It also helps he is just a fun character.
-- Aramis was also a surprise. I was having a rough time making Swordfighters work (having a Cleric with Parting Resurrection helps a ton), but he and Leah worked really well. I also loved his story beats whenever he appeared, and Aramis is way cooler than Gilbert.
-- Melisandre was also fun, especially since she ended up sneaking onto my Alain childhood team (Alain, Lex, Chloe, Scarlett) since I only really planned out unit compositions of four instead of five.
-- Rosalinde I was indifferent about before release (just another "elf waifu" bait), but seeing her in action inside the game changed my opinion rather quickly. She plays well, and I enjoy her personality and voicework. Elemental Roar is such an amazing ability.
-- Josef is MVP, and I don't care what anyone says. The "Gaze upon the face of your demise" has the same energy of Frederick's "Pick a god and pray." While it is true his stats are deliberately crap due to his pre-promote status, he does seem to have his full stats once he is max level at 50.

Special shoutouts to Rolf, Nina, Ochlys, and Sharon. I liked them a lot as well.

Edited March 24 by Sire

[MeteorPhoenix]

6 hours ago, Sire said:

Finished my Expert run in about 88 hours. I did nearly everything except the final mining area in Albion.
-- Gave the Ring of the Maiden to Scarlett, as it seems to be the "canon" choice. Yes, it is rather vanilla, but I did enjoy it a lot. There were other interesting options for me (Virginia, Ren, Rosalinde, Yahna), but as I started getting deeper into the game and looking up some of the conversations/epilogues, I feel like simply giving it to Josef instead for my "True Playthrough." I love the father/son dynamic between Josef and Alain, and one can always headcannon Alain gets Scarlett (or whoever) anyways.
=== Small side note, as I went for the Maiden Ring as fast as possible after maxing out Scarlet, the only other option I had available was Lex. I thought it was pretty funny.
=== Virginia was originally going be my next choice, but...

  Reveal hidden contents

...it just feels wrong not having her end up with Gilbert, and it affects Leah's epilogue as well.
-- The whole Cousin thing didn't matter to much for me since its just a game. I believe Alain would probably choose Scarlett anyways, Virginia was just my personal choice (and I'm not related, Alain is).

Also, she only has one Accessory slot, and she really wants the +1 PP/AP Pendant, whether that be Amethyst or the Hero's Medallion. 

Overall, I absolutely loved the game, especially since Ogre Battle 64 is one of my most favorite games of all time. I do wish there was a proper NG+ and a postgame, and I'm holding out hope that there may be a later patch that adds this in (some of Vanillaware's other titles apparently did this, like Dragon's Crown).

* * * * *

As for favorite characters...
-- Gammel grew on me. I originally started out jailing him, then I restarted my save to let him go. When I finally ended up recruiting him, his team ends up being one of my MVPs as I had him run the "Arrow Rain" build composition. It also helps he is just a fun character.
-- Aramis was also a surprise. I was having a rough time making Swordfighters work (having a Cleric with Parting Resurrection helps a ton), but he and Leah worked really well. I also loved his story beats whenever he appeared, and Aramis is way cooler than Gilbert.
-- Melisandre was also fun, especially since she ended up sneaking onto my Alain childhood team (Alain, Lex, Chloe, Scarlett) since I only really planned out unit compositions of four instead of five.
-- Rosalinde I was indifferent about before release (just another "elf waifu" bait), but seeing her in action inside the game changed my opinion rather quickly. She plays well, and I enjoy her personality and voicework. Elemental Roar is such an amazing ability.
-- Josef is MVP, and I don't care what anyone says. The "Gaze upon the face of your demise" has the same energy of Frederick's "Pick a god and pray." While it is true his stats are deliberately crap due to his pre-promote status, he does seem to have his full stats once he is max level at 50.

Special shoutouts to Rolf, Nina, Ochlys, and Sharon. I liked them a lot as well.

Excellent maiden choices, though I would insist on Virginia being best girl.

How'd you find the difficulty on expert? I played on tactical, but I'm a FE hard player, not lunatic/maddening. How did it treat you?

[ciphertul]

11 minutes ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Excellent maiden choices, though I would insist on Virginia being best girl.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t like Virginia much at all. She is just too aggressive for me.

[Sire]

59 minutes ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Excellent maiden choices, though I would insist on Virginia being best girl.

How'd you find the difficulty on expert? I played on tactical, but I'm a FE hard player, not lunatic/maddening. How did it treat you?

I also tend to play FE on Hard (been playing since Blazing Sword, although I haven't gotten Engage yet). However, for Unicorn Overlord I also had experience playing the classic Ogre Battle games, so I just went in for the hardest option at the start.
-- That said, I do also mess around with Lunatic/Maddening difficulties on repeat playthroughs, so please keep that in mind.

Honestly, it felt somewhat easy, with only one or two chapters in the entire game giving me some pause (having to use up all 10 item uses and wishing I had more, as Expert limits them). Most of the initial difficulty comes from transitioning to a new area and facing off against the new enemies. However, once one learns their tactics, the rest flows rather smoothly.

For example, in Albion...

Spoiler

Blindness from the Featherbows and Magic Reflection from the Feathershields are the greatest threats.
-- I simply put on a Blindness Immune accessory on my Arrow Rain archer, avoided using magic against Feathershields, and just continued annihilating all in my path.

As for my teams, I mostly had a core of five...

Spoiler

-- Alain, Lex, Chloe, Scarlett, Melisandre (All-Rounder, not optimized, suffers against armors despite Scarlett being present. // Lex sadly remained the weakest link throughout the game, even with the Fighter/Vanguard's "defensive versatility")
-- Josef, Clive, Adel, Hodrick, Monica (Cavalry Team, annihilates almost everything it touches // Josef played support and had a Rune Sword to handle armors, Adel had an Anti-Cavalry Buff lance, and Clive had that Unwavering Spear to handle Thieves/Fliers.)
-- Ren, Travis, Bruno, Selvie, Gloucester (Debuff DPS, annihilates almost everything it touches // Shoutout to Bruno, as once he's promoted and has some accessories on him, can become a potent DPS/Off-Tank, in contrast to him underperforming when one originally recruits him. Also, originally Ren's team, until I realized having Gloucester, a Cavalry, as lead helps a ton with map mobility.)
-- Gammel, Mandrin, Celeste, Witch, Shaman (Arrow Rain, effective against Fliers and low DEF targets // Requires proper setup, but performs really well. This team was MVP, especially in Albion. Also, Celeste becomes leader in case I needed them to fly somewhere, Gammel is the default for the movement speed.)
-- Ochlys, Sharon, Renault, Featherbow, Berenice (Flying Team. and they performed really well! It was somewhat surprising considering I mostly just threw it together without any real plan in mind.)

My other teams...

Spoiler

-- Yahna, Auch, Knight, Gryphon Rider, Feathershield (Trinity Rain, although I didn't optimize it that well. Still, it was effective when it worked!)
-- Rolf, Hilda, Tatiana, Archer, Yunifi (Anti-Flier team, although Gammel basically had that role. So, Rolf was more an auxiliary team and was more support.)
-- Virginia, Leah, Aramis, Primm, Gilbert (All-Rounder, and they did generally perform well. However, Virginia's map speed is so slow and would often miss battles, especially by teams led by a Cavalry unit. This led to me realizing having different leaders can be important, even if the unit composition remains the same. I find that Cavalry Leads, Thief Leaders, and Flier Leads are the best, which is a shame since one won't really be hearing the other unit voicelines as leaders...)
-- Fran, Miriam, Kitra, Mordon, Amalia (Rose Knight team, and while they had their moments, they fell off rather quickly. It was a shame that I couldn't use Amalia properly...)
-- Rosalinde's Elves (Elf Team. It was more of a theming thing. While Elves definitely have their niche, they were carried hard by Elemental Roar of the two uniques. Sadly, they got regulated as a support role.)

 

[Etrurian emperor]

9 hours ago, ciphertul said:

I’ll be honest, I didn’t like Virginia much at all. She is just too aggressive for me.

I'm a bit in the middle. She's bratty and rude enough to be unlikable but in that sweet spot I find her more amusing than annoying about it. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Virginia is my favourite, probably (even if all her battle quotes about royalty-being-awesome are cringe-inducing). Good design, fun and confident personality, has meaningful relationships with numerous characters (particularly Alain, Josef, Leah... the Knights of Rose to a lesser extent), actually involved in the story (for a while anyway), good unit.

But overall the characters don't really grab me that much which is a shame because their designs are, on average, so good.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Difficulty is subjective. And while I certainly think the game could benefit from an additional setting or two, personally, I'm playing on Tactical and it feels right. I'm not frustrated, but I am engaged, which is exactly what I want from all of my games. I certainly don't personally need more than that, and probably an Expert replay later.

[MeteorPhoenix]

Yeah, difficulty is perfect for me. But I'm a Hard player, so it makes sense.

[Etrurian emperor]

The comparisons between Alain and Marth have often been made, but I think that perhaps Genealogy is the more fitting comparison. After all the main premise of the game is that the good guy nation suffers a coup and that after a timeskip they became an evil empire that has already conquered the whole world. 

[MeteorPhoenix]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The comparisons between Alain and Marth have often been made, but I think that perhaps Genealogy is the more fitting comparison. After all the main premise of the game is that the good guy nation suffers a coup and that after a timeskip they became an evil empire that has already conquered the whole world. 

It's difficult to compare Alain to anyone because he really doesn't have much a personality, beyond the traditional heroic traits.

[Fabulously Olivier]

2 minutes ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

It's difficult to compare Alain to anyone because he really doesn't have much a personality, beyond the traditional heroic traits.

Exactly like Marth, you mean.

[Etrurian emperor]

Its always a bit too easy to ask for just a little more if you've just finished an already long game, but that's the situation I find myself in. Its unfortunate that after Albion there's only one stage left to go since it means that you can spend very little time with the angel classes. Albion itself is already on the short side so its unlikely you've used Feather Bow or Feather staff more than a handful of times. It also somewhat undercuts a certain characters character development if his redemption can only be achieved through a single stage.

Part of the problem stems from Cornia being retaken in the demo. If you had to fight your way to the capitol there'd have been more endgame content. Galerius retaking Cornia from you at some point might have been interesting. The Cornia stages were mostly short and small so they could have easily been fused together for late game stages. 

 

[Shrimpica]

There is one post game stage a well, but yeah that's it

[MeteorPhoenix]

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Its always a bit too easy to ask for just a little more if you've just finished an already long game, but that's the situation I find myself in. Its unfortunate that after Albion there's only one stage left to go since it means that you can spend very little time with the angel classes. Albion itself is already on the short side so its unlikely you've used Feather Bow or Feather staff more than a handful of times. It also somewhat undercuts a certain characters character development if his redemption can only be achieved through a single stage.

Part of the problem stems from Cornia being retaken in the demo. If you had to fight your way to the capitol there'd have been more endgame content. Galerius retaking Cornia from you at some point might have been interesting. The Cornia stages were mostly short and small so they could have easily been fused together for late game stages. 

 

Yeah, honestly, I wish Cornia was last. It also doesn't make any sense. Galerius just let's you liberate the entire kingdom aside from the capital? Yeah, he's doing dark ritual things, but when the bulk of your army is stuck in western Elheim... really, not a single counterattack from the level 40 army?

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, MeteorPhoenix said:

Yeah, honestly, I wish Cornia was last. It also doesn't make any sense. Galerius just let's you liberate the entire kingdom aside from the capital? Yeah, he's doing dark ritual things, but when the bulk of your army is stuck in western Elheim... really, not a single counterattack from the level 40 army?

Definitely. I think the structure of the game makes your enemies look beyond incompetent.

Broadly speaking I think there are two structures for games which are war stories.

-One, you do the scripted JRPG style (Suikoden is probably the best example, many Fire Emblems work too); the player takes the fight where the game says they do. In this case, the enemy is allowed to do counterattacks (and in some cases, gain territory) which makes them appear competent and competitive. In these cases, when the final battle aganst the enemy ruler occurs, the enemy usually still has a significant amount of key territory of their own instead of you controlling 90% of their nation (at which point the war should really be already won).

-Two, you do a big open world thing but give the enemy similar tactics as the player; they can also take your territory so you have to watch for them on many fronts (Civilization, Brigandine, etc.).

Unicorn Overlord kinda wants the open world structure without the things that make it work narratively.

Very fun game, I'm enjoying it, but the story is pretty incompetently written IMO.

On 3/26/2024 at 6:41 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

Difficulty is subjective. And while I certainly think the game could benefit from an additional setting or two, personally, I'm playing on Tactical and it feels right. I'm not frustrated, but I am engaged, which is exactly what I want from all of my games. I certainly don't personally need more than that, and probably an Expert replay later.

Yeah, the game is engaging and has multiple difficulty settings. I don't think it's super challenging but I think it really rewards you engaging with it; if you just throw a few random units together on a squad and throw them at random enemies you'll have a bad time, but the more attention you pay to both squad building and who you send where, the easier you'll find things, and that's important. Makes me feel like my decisions matter, while still having many, many ways to do things.