It took me 99 whole hours, but I'm finally done with Unicorn Overlord. And it was great! I love this game to death, however, I couldn't stop thinking that Vanillaware bit off more than they could chew while I was playing. It's a great game that does almost everything right, but doesn't quite get there.

Let's start at the beginning. Unicorn Overlord is a tactical RPG. It essentially mixes both RPG turn-based combat and autobattlers, and drops this concoction onto an RTS map. It's a really unique mix of gameplay, and while it's technically been attempted before with the Ogre Battle franchise, the fact that there haven't really been any games like it in the past two decades makes it feel completely original and very refreshing. It's very clear that this was the developer's intentions, since they kept talking about making a rebirth for tactical RPGs before the game came out.

Essentially, the game plays out like an RTS, and when you come in contact with an enemy, your units will enter a turn-based battle againt them, which will play automatically in front of you. While you can't control any of your characters during battles, you can edit their tactics beforehand, modifying their AI with simple if-else statements to ensure they prioritize the enemies you want, and avoid wasting their skills by accident. This lack of control completely changes the game's vibe from a generic RPG where you play god, and makes you feel more like the commander of a big army staying behind while all your soldiers fight.

Tactics are definitely the scariest part of the game. Every 5 or so levels your characters will get new abilities, couple that with the fact that half of the weapons and accessories grant your characters additional skills, and you're left with a very complex and daunting system. The game does a great job at introducing these skills gradually though, and even applies a few restrictions by itself with certain skills, easing players into this system as they play. However, it's not a perfect system. The conditions you can add are very limited and they're stored in confusing categories, there's no operators to help you out, and you're restricted to only 8 tactics per character. If you're like me, you'll spend hours in these menus trying to come up with the perfect strategy to optimize your attacks, only to find out it's not possible to do it with the tools the game gives you.

I also have to complain about the number of characters, because it's simultaneously too much, and not enough. You can recruit over 60 units during the main campaign, with a few more showing up after, but even all these units aren't enough for the huge amount of classes in the game, and you'll be left with just one or two characters in most classes. This wouldn't be an issue, however, the game's balanced in such a way where it feels like your units benefit from having friends of the same class attacking together, which you can't do if the story decides to give you only one Sorcerer or one Werewolf. It's like all these cool strategies in the game were made only for your enemies, and they aren't yours to play with. The game does somewhat alleviate this by giving you access to Mercenary units, which you can hire throughout the game to fill up your ranks. But playing with randomly-generated, faceless characters just feels... wrong. Especially in this genre of game.

The story is quite generic, or at least it feels that way when you first start. You play as Alain, the prince of a fallen kingdom recently conquered by the evil Zenoirans. He's been hiding for 10 years, and now it's his duty to come out of hiding, kick their ass, and reclaim your kingdom with the help of your very convenient Magical Ring that just fixes every problem.

However, as you progress in the game, you'll find that it's not the overall story that makes Unicorn Overlord worth it, but rather the little, more personal tales that come up with every new character you recruit or fight. Everyone has their own personality and backstory, and almost all of your units have little conversations you can watch to flesh out their characters even more. It's thanks to these little interactions adding up throughout the course of the game that the world expands and becomes alive, to the point where even the main story got me interested by the end. I mean, Galerius killing everyone in the capital to transfer the souls of the ancient Zenoirans into their corpses? That's just badass, man.

One of my issues with Unicorn Overlord is that, as you keep playing and getting towards the end, the pacing of the game and the content you find starts to feel more... lacking. It's very clear that the game was starting to run out of budget somewhere in the middle, as not only are Bastorias and Albion shorter than the rest of the countries, but they also introduce many undercooked mechanics that show up once and never again. Just like the characters, it feels like Vanillaware wanted the game to be even bigger, but just wasn't able to execute their vision like they wanted it to. Like, who introduces a blacksmith 80% into their game? That's just weird.

The presentation is amazing. I mean, it's Vanillaware, we already know they're the best at this stuff. The character designs are amazing, the music is amazing, the animations are amazing, the menus are amazing, it's simply amazing, as it usually is with this company. Aside from a few weird sprites cough cough werewolf NPC, it's just an absolute treat to see and listen to every step of the way.

I will say, however, that the voice acting is very lacking at times. Most actors do a great job, but a few of them just have no emotion when delivering their lines (at least in the English dub of the game). It wouldn't be a big deal since the cast is so big, but unfortunately the characters with the mediocre acting just so happen to be the ones with the most screentime, turning parts of the game into a slog.

I think the best word to describe this game is Nostalgic. It's a brand new and completely original game, but it feels more like you're greeting an old friend you haven't seen in a while. I don't know if it's because Fire Emblem is a big franchise now, or because most of the mechanics come from Ogre Battle, but something about this game just makes it seem like Unicorn Overlord has always been here. I saw a review where someone said the game felt like a remake of an old and obscure 16-bit game. And you know what? They're right. If the developer's goal was to make a Rebirth of the Strategy RPG genre, I truly believe they achieved it.

Development for Unicorn Overlord started in 2014, and was mostly handled in the background by a small team working on the game's mechanics and design while most of the studio focused on 13 Sentinels, with both teams merging once the latter was released. According to the studio's president, the studio completely ran out of funds not once, but two different times during development and he had to personally fund the game out of his own pocket. The project was really ambitious, and developing it was hard.

And I think that's where all my problems with this game comes from. Because no matter how talented these developers are, how many ideas they come up with, or how hard they work; at the end of the day, Vanillaware is not a big enough company to make a game like this, and it really shows while you're playing: So many corners had to be cut, a lot of ideas were scrapped, and many more show up underdeveloped. Vanillaware flew too close to the sun, and I don't think they were able to make the game they truly wanted.

But they came really damn close to pulling it off.

IN CONCLUSION: Unicorn Overlord is really good. It's an incredible RPG that feels both modern and nostalgic at the same time. While the game might feel overwhelming at first, it's easy to understand all the mechanics if you try, leaving you with an incredibly engaging gameplay loop once you learn it all. The overall story may be a bit generic, but the worldbuilding and characters are great, and all the little details definitely add up make up for it. Yes, every part of the game can be improved upon, but it doesn't ruin the experience. It just makes me sad that this game could've been perfect just with a little more time and money. 9/10

Unicorn Overlord was a fun experience, beat it last night!

Story: There were some parts where I was surprised, but the story starts off with Jeigen, I mean Josef, escaping with our blue-haired protagonist Alain. So I think its typical strategy RPG affair.

Art: Vanillaware, so always pretty. The backgrounds for battles look gorgeous, though I think the world map could have more spectacle.

Character Design: Its Vanillaware so there's plenty of cute and hot people and bobs bouncing. The elf dudes are kawaii. The character and armor design reminds me of FE6 to FE10, so pre-Awakening designs. I also like how alot of who I thought would be throw away boss characters ended up being allies. The shopkeepers and generic units have great designs too.

Characters: When you have such a huge cast (60 recruitable), its hard to give them all time and development. They do this by giving most characters an overarching arc as the plot moves forward. They have support conversations, but they're kind of annoying cause you need to be in specific locations to have them.

Music: Its good, didn't blow me away though.

Combat: A unit can consist of 5 different characters. They will behave differently depending on whether or not you place them in the back or front row. You also edit their combat behavior pre-battle and its interesting lol, combat is an if-then statement essentially. Gives you alot of ways to customize your characters. Plenty of class variety too!

Maps: You have valor points which let you you summon units to the map or use overworld skills. The environment plays a huge role in this, you can use overworld skills, spells, and items. It reminds me of the dragonvein stuff in FE Fates. I think it was done well for the most part, but you can definitely abuse some overworld skills lol.

Campaign: I think I have 55 hours and I did most of the side content, but you probably need to because the optional maps give you the necessary experience. Also the side activities involve exploring the map and puzzles instead of slice-of-life type stuff which I prefer.

Moral System: After finishing up a map, you sometimes you're asked to make a hard decision. But most of these decisions are not hard at all lol. There were only two instances where I had no idea what was the right choice.

Overall I really enjoyed it, I hope Vanillaware does a similar game.

Blown away. I've been waiting for a true successor to Ogre Battle 64 for 25 years and Atlus and Vanillaware have delivered.

I'll get the lame out of the way.

• The title screen. This shows how much I'm nitpicking when I think the intro screen is lame and that's one of the few things I can remember not liking.

• The story is about as bare bones as you can get. Evil emperor, try to reclaim the land. There aren't any really interesting story beats or twists.

• The characters are pretty ho-hum as well. I love the visual design and variety of combat abilities, but most of their personalities are one note. Not offensively bad by any means.

That's about it. Everything else is terrific.

• Graphics are a highlight, I don't think anybody can emulate or surpass Vanillaware in this style. The combat animations are incredible, the backdrops are drop dead gorgeous and the overworld/menu sprites are straight out of a SNES classic.

• Quality of life updates up the wazoo. You can fast travel anywhere, instantaneously (thank you PS5 load times!). You can see which items and weapons towns have from the map menu. You can see the exact locations of every rapport conversation easily. Comparing and equipping new armor and accessories is a cinch and considering you'll have more than 50 units by the end of the game, that's really saying something. Nothing felt inconvenient and everything felt smooth.

• The UI/UX is beyond professional. Every selection has a satisfying "thwack", there are minor animations when you're hovering over characters and coming from Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, this was a breath of fresh air.

• The world itself is a dream. There are hundreds of nooks and crannies to explore, resources to collects, secrets to uncover, side quests to do, towns to liberate, and villages to restore with deliveries. I was equally thrilled to do non-combat activities as I was to engage in giant confrontations.

• Combat is the star of the show. To say it's deep wouldn't be nearly enough. You get up to 10 units with up to 5 characters each. Each character has a weapon slot and 3 other slots for armor and accessories. Then, they have active abilities and passive abilities and you can choose which priority they take, which conditions trigger them AND choose where on the board they want to be. I had such an amazing time composing teams, building synergy and gleefully watching the results of my new experimental Werebear + Mage Owl + Werefox unit. There's just so much here. Each unit has their own field ability which can dramatically alter the tides of the fight, from movement bonuses to experience gains, to heals. To boot, nearly every confrontation takes place on the World Map. There's a huge sense of satisfaction when you're running through an area, only to remember" oh yeah, here's what I launched the catapult at that cavalry unit before my Angel unit moved it and crushed them. I immediately wanted to start a new game on a higher difficulty and I almost never feel that way, particularly after spending 62 hours in 25 days playing.

Cannot believe how much I loved this game.

If you have any interest in Unicorn Overlord, play the demo. I’m serious, stop reading this right now and just do it. The demo takes roughly 5 to 8 hours to complete, gives a thorough tutorial of the mechanics and allows you to transfer the save data to the full game.

I’m assuming anyone still reading this review has already played the demo. The great news (depending on your interest) is that the full game of Unicorn Overlord will be just like the demo, but with more class types, weapon variety and environmental hazards.

Unicorn Overlord is a strategic masterpiece without equal. Some gamers may mention tactical RPG hits like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre or Fire Emblem, but Unicorn Overlord is a uniquely different beast. The game, in its Expert difficulty mode, is a delightful experience that rewards careful preparation and smart team building. Other tactical RPGs routinely fail in their higher difficulty modes, often forcing players to use trial and error strategies (like the more recent Fire Emblems and their time-rewinding gimmicks) and cheesing encounters to maximize experience gain. Other noteworthy plusses are the fantastic Vanillaware art style and music, which remain as timeless as ever.

The story is the Achilles heel to Unicorn Overlord’s rock solid gameplay. The use of mind control is an overplayed trope. It’s a lazy way of setting up an encounter with a foe and having them join your army afterwards. While you eventually learn that the “mind control” is something completely different, it nonetheless is used too often and robs foes of any agency. The few villains like Baltro who are not “mind controlled” are fantastically written and I wish they had more screen time.

The main cast is uninteresting. Alain from beginning to end, remains a generic, bland, cardboard cut-out hero that always does and says the right things. But wait!, you might refute that in the demo Alain can choose to make tough decisions like executing a foe or letting them escape. SPOILER ALERT… these decisions don’t affect the main story and in fact you are always better off letting them go or recruiting them into your party. The rewards you get from the alternative are items or resources that can be obtained later.

The game attempts to remedy its poor character building with Rapport events. Rapport events are akin to the Fire Emblem bonds where characters who fight on the same team or share a meal together gain points, which grants them higher stats when paired together. Unfortunately these Rapport events are generic Anime tropey scenes like a girl who is a terrible cook or a guy who can’t read the room and is oblivious to another’s romantic advances.

There are a handful of mechanics that don’t quite gel with the rest of the game. One way to increase Rapport is by having Alain give gifts to characters stationed in a town. Alain is the only one who can do this and he can give gifts to any character regardless of gender. Each team can consist of a maximum of 5 characters, so after Alain has maxed out his Rapport with the other 4 teammates in his squad, there isn’t much incentive to continue gifting (unless you change Alain’s squad frequently). Another SPOILER ALERT… Alain can give a unique ring to a character he has max Rapport with, whether the bond is romantic or not. So that makes for 5 possible members that Alain should be gifting to; anything more would be for completionist’s sake.

I was also not a fan of the other things outside of combat. Collecting resources is a time sink with little payoff. Liberating towns is fun, but there are too many of them to station them with guards. The way I got around this is to recruit a ton of low-level grunts, but the act of doing so feels like it ruins the suspension of disbelief, e.g,. recruiting a level 1 Soldier to be stationed in front of Drakenhold Castle. There is also a mining mini-game in each region which can reward a total of 5 treasure maps, but the drop rates for these treasure maps are random. I think I spent a total of 3 hours just to get them all. Lastly after each cutscene the game diligently records the events and what happened to each character in the Appendix which is extremely generous of the developers but I barely glanced at it in my ~70 hour playthrough.

If you can look past the mediocre plot and the bland protagonist, Unicorn Overlord is a beautiful strategic experience. From the beginning to the very end, I was constantly learning and experimenting with team compositions and their equipment. Just when I thought I had the perfect team setup, I discover a fatal flaw or something that can be optimized. Players looking for greater challenges can compete in the coliseum which pits your team against other players online. To keep things fresh, the game wisely restricts players from using the same lineup by banning certain classes and items on a regular schedule. Just thinking about the game makes me want to jump back in on its True Zenorian mode (which unlocks on the game’s completion) and experiment with classes that I didn’t heavily use in my first playthrough. Unicorn Overlord is the type of game that will keep the strategic part of your brain churning even after credits roll.

Unicorn Overlord is one of only a handful of new releases I’m really interested in this year and is one of the very few that I am actually interested in buying straight away at full price. The reason for this isn’t just that Unicorn Overlord looks very appealing to me but also because the developer Vanillaware have not missed yet. I am happy to report that after playing Unicorn Overlord Vanilliaware’s reputation is not only intact but now elevated a little higher than it was before. Unicorn Overlord is a game that has breadth and depth. It is a tactical RPG that delivers both quantity and quality but it is not flawless.

The story is simplistic and might not quite be what some people wanted after 13 Sentinels but it is grand and enjoyable and of course picks up right around the end. It is carried by the many smaller stories I liked getting lost in along the way and by an enormous cast of characters I wanted to get to know and build rapport with. I like this world and there is plenty of history and lore to discover. I think the main character and the main objective of liberating Fevrith from evil being plain and generic allows for everything else to take centre stage, which is what Unicorn Overlord is actually about. It is about the people and places of this world and the journey. Vanilliaware also made things pretty tricky for themselves by giving players some freedom in the order of completing things. The main issues I have are that it’s slow to start and is also a bit overwhelming.

The gameplay is similar in that it is slow to start and overwhelming but that’s the price that needs to be paid for a game like this. Thankfully Unicorn Overlord provides comprehensive archive and game tips sections in the options to help keep you up. On top of this it does have tutorials, a slow, accessible way of introducing things and you can test units in mock battles. It has so many options, unit combinations, classes, equipment and items. I loved diving into this and never tired of messing around with my units and changing up my characters. I was always looking forward to gaining new team members and seeing how they could be used. The game allows quite a lot of freedom and diversity in your approach. You are rewarded for your thought and experimentation by finding ways to do better in the addictive battles. I do wish with so many characters available, plus you can hire more, that I could have more units created at once. The game could have then restricted this by only allowing use of a certain number of them per battle. The Battles may feel repetitive after 10s of hours put in but they are still always enjoyable; rewarding planning, using the optimal units, watchtowers, items and the terrain.

It has satisfying progression and an addictive loop. You have a battle. Then you can restore and use the local places to expand unit sizes, hire or promote characters, buy equipment and items or have a meal at the tavern. Then explore the local area for supplies, items, treasures and side quests. Then get your units and characters ready for the next battle. Then repeat. It is really enjoyable and I constantly wanted to keep going. Although this does start to feel worn out towards the end and would have benefited from a slightly tighter run time, to be fair though I was doing everything along the way. I think if the Cornia, Elheim and Drakenhold areas were a bit smaller they would have nailed it. There are some other side things to do, which can help break things up, like the coliseum, which has an online component. There is a mining mini game and rapport conversations too. The bigger problem though is difficulty. It is a bit too easy. You’ll find yourself bumping the game up to tactical difficulty before leaving the first area. Then later on if you’ve been doing most of the stuff along the way you will probably find yourself overpowered often and might look at putting it up to the hardest difficulty. Even then this might not be enough for serious tactical fans craving more challenge. It does get harder right at the end and after finishing the game an even higher difficulty does unlock. A few more large scale battles and a few less small ones would have been awesome too.

When it comes to presentation it’s a Vanillaware game so of course it does not disappoint. Unicorn Overlord is beautiful with a wonderful variety of character designs, backgrounds and objects. I love this detailed, layered art that pulls you into each scene. There’s obviously been so much love poured into how this game looks, even the menus look good to me. Despite everything going on and lots of info being displayed I always found the screen clear to view and everything easy to read. It sounds great too with a polished and fitting soundtrack and quality effects and voice acting. The only thing to nitpick here is that not everything is fully voiced. On top of all this it works perfectly on PS5 and feels very complete.

Unicorn Overlord is the type of game that makes me wish I didn’t have any responsibilities for a while so I could just sink an unhealthy amount of hours into it every day until I was done. Its flaws mostly come from how long and ambitious it is. They don’t detract too much from the experience though and I loved it anyway. It was an engrossing delight not to just play through but to get the Platinum Trophy as well. It is my game of the year so far and even if I play every single new release I have even a slight interest in this year I doubt this would change. Vanillaware have put out another fantastic game and I have another game to highly recommend.

8.8/10

I gushed about my time with the demo of this game and the full game didn't disappoint. The main gameplay loop keeps adding new classes to encounter deep into the final half of the game and all of the side mechanics and content don't feel tacked on but instead offer a little variety while feeding back into the main loop of experimenting with your army and doing battle stages to free more and more regions of the map. The art style is charming, and the soundtrack is solid with some definite stand out tracks.

The biggest critique I've seen across reviews was the story being relatively straight forward with rather simple characters and some very common tropes befitting the JRPG genre and fantasy setting. While there are some slight twists and turns that I enjoyed, the main story arcs could have benefitted from a greater amount of complexity and intrigue to give players that extra layer of motivation to see what's next in each region.

And yet, there is still something to be said about about the enjoyability of a safe and standard story that feels polished and executed well. Not everything needs to be wholly original to be a good time. Unicorn Overlord still has some cool moments, with some of my favorite being very common genre tropes that I probably should have seen coming in retrospect.

The other critique I saw around release was that the localization is problematic, and this one baffles me. Yes, writing can certainly be subjective but the examples I've seen compare what is very basic and direct google translations of the original Japanese dialogue to what the localizers provided: more substantive prose fitting to add dimension to the setting and characters. It just seems the localizers did their job and did it well outside of one typo I noticed, and perhaps a little awkward phrasing on a side quest or two.

If I had to nitpick about anything I'd say that navigating your inventory and changing up equipment can feel tedious at times. Additionally, the game feels too easy at times, but then there'd be some random difficult spikes. This can probably be attributed to the broad nature of player strategic choices and army compositions that are possible. You have so many builds and options at your disposal that it's more likely that you aren't trying everything available to you rather than facing an unfair obstacle.

Lastly, I would have liked to see more of the unique scenario challenges used more than once. It seemed like a lot of the gimmick battles such as the sand traps in the desert mission were one and done encounters when they had would have been fun to encounter again in a new setup. It also would have been interesting to face battles against a greater variety of combatant combinations (such as units with a mix of bestrals and elves, and/or angels, etc).

Otherworld:

The otherworld while seemingly underwhelming at first is acrutally a very relaxing affair. I completed every town request. It gave me a similar vibe to runescape or Minecraft. The integration with the combat allowing for min-maxing really starts to shine in the later parts of the game.

Combat:

The combat didn't really engage me until I swapped to the highest difficulty. That made it so each of my Teams needed to have a purpose and strength. There are three stages: 1. My teams are equal to my opponents, so i need to travel in groups. 2. My teams are strong into anything but counters. 3. I have extremely well thought out combat parties that can crush anyone.

While seemingly complex. The combat system is actually quite elegant. And has considerable depth.

This game is frugal in the way it re-uses assets. The unique characters have the same bodies as the default classes. I was a little disappointed there wasn't some mild physical or movement differences.

Class change:

I was also a little disappointed the class change system was under developed visually. The class change and evolution mechanic is always so important as a incentive in these types of games. So it was further disappointment when the second half of the game makes the mechanic redundant.

Art:

This game looks amazing. It is why I started playing and it made the experience. The sound design is on point as well so everything just feels great.

This is the best tactics RPG I have ever played outside of the Fire Emblem series. It's approach to the genre is taken from Tactics Ogre which I have never played, so it's completely fresh to me while delivering the same satisfaction any great strategy game brings. Level, class, unit building, positioning, equipment, and tactics all matter greatly on the battlefield. It feels so good to make several small alterations right before the start of a battle to turn the fight in my favor. It does go a bit too far in this though. There are way too many classes and equipment to keep track of. I would often forget what class is good for what leading me to regularly reread descriptions, and for equipment, I just started using the optimize button. I didn't want to be bothered. It makes me appreciate how streamlined Fire Emblem is in comparison while still delivering the same level of satisfaction as a strategy game. I even started skipping battles because they were taking too long. 5 vs. 5 battles just were just too time consuming with all the active and passive animations as each character would get several in one battle once everyone is promoted.

The overworld map had its hooks in me. I did everything there was to do: restored all the towns, fought all the optional battles, discovered all the secrets, gathered all the resources. I couldn't move on to the next battle until I scoured every area the game allowed me to go. It played a much larger role in this game than I've seen in other tactics RPGs.

The story did absolutely nothing for me. I didn't even get into the characters. The art looked fantastic, but there wasn't enough personality in the writing to keep me interested. I also didn't like how party member conversations had to happen in specific places on the map. I would build the bond between two characters I get early in the game, and I couldn't see their conversation until I reached an area I wouldn't get to until the second half of the game.

Tactical Rpgs have had a coevolution splitting off tactics ogre into final fantasy tactics, fire emblem, and the odd independent one off game. This is the latter. What the other three have in common is deep and memorable story crafting and dialogue. and though this game is not at all badly written, and I want to emphasize that very firmly, it IS well written indeed, it does not have the charm of it's cousins and that is because it takes no risks. This is for good and ill. More on this in a moment.

What is typical of Vanillaware is an art style that is second to none and masterfully fills out every corner of the game. This is on display here with lovingly crafted character designs that steal the show, in spite of the two dimensional characters that inhabit them. But maybe that's the charm. This plot will not bring you to tears but it is, almost with surgical precision, exactly good enough to motivate you to play the game. The story is very standard and unsurprising with no twists or turns or shocking moments, just a good forward push that makes you care just enough. This is essential. This game would still be fun and beautiful without it, but what really ensures it's a complete lure is the framework the story adds. You won't remember it. but you won't stop playing.

where we step away from the other tactics games and what really flips the dopamine switch over and over, is the robustness of the gameplay loop. Where in Fire emblem or the like, you would be moving along to stages of battle with some dialogue and side bits between, here the battles populate a world that you will steadily uncover and rebuild, as you succeed in battle you will farm resources and complete challenges to restore the world you fight for and collect members of your liberation army. Three houses had a lot of down time activity but it didn't have this seamless blend of the world with the battle. this really feeds the hunger for completion. It does this like nothing else.

Honestly this game is just about perfect. it's obviously made with great care and love and it delivers a high quality experience. The only thing that holds it back is that it just doesn't tell a very interesting story. In the end it's a game with a game story, and it's very very good at being that. But forgettable for all it succeeds.

This game is worth your time, if you enjoy tactical rpgs at all. It won't consume your life with it's cast and writing as fire emblem or FF ;tactics might, but it will leave you satisfied, it will fill your hours. and that is what we ask of our games.

Let me be clear here I do not hate this game just because I gave it a 2/5

Unicron Overlord is a Real Time Strategy game, reminiscent of "Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen 1993". Similar to Ogre Battle, here you create units with your recruits starting from the size 2 and later through upgrades size of 5, You can have 10 of these units running around the maps. Each has its stats and advanced class to upgrade into. You can have a unit full of cavalry soldiers, A team of archers or assassins, or BOTH, a balanced team of strong frontline, squishy guys in the middle and range units in the back. What a unit is made of all depends on how you want to build that unit. It allows tons of freedom for the player. For the actual game play, however, the game just boils down to moving through the map clearing enemies, and eventually beating the enemy commander to win. Very few times has it changed from that formula.r

I'll start with the positives:

Setting up units with different recruit compositions, weapons, and abilities is the most fun in the game. Each unit has its purpose and its way of doing things, some better for protecting the back line, some better suited for healing raw health, and some a bit of both. As a player, your job is to find these synergies and put them to use. Furthermore, there is a good bunch of hidden layers of these synergies through the equipment. Equipping certain weapons or items with skills can completely change how a certain unit functions. Units can become pseudo-healers, add an extra oomph to their attacks, get new ways to debuff enemies and unlock new strategies. This game has a TON of combinations to experiment with. Here are some of the unit combinations I have tried that carried me through the game.

I don't have to mention this but it is worth doing so, this game has one of the best 2d art styles I have seen. Vanillaware is known for its excellent 2d artwork and this game really nails that point across.

Now for the not-so-good: Unicorn Overlord is lacking when it comes to everything that isn't the combat. If you ever feel like you like the game's other avenues, features, or gameplay alternatives. There isn't any. The game is either you do combat in Main/Side missions, or rebuild town via deliveries (essentially fetch quests).

Another issue is that the game at the start, throws so many recuits at you at once, but because of the unit size limit, you can't use or test each of the unit synergies so the early game can feel restrictive and a tad bit boring. Later when you get unit sizes, there are so they give a few recruits of certain classes that you, have to choose who to give your only named mage. It isn't an issue but it is very annoying. It can be solved via the mercenary system but it is better to invest in named recruits instead unless you need that class.

There eventually comes a point in the game where it becomes too easy. I was playing on the Tactical Difficulty, one difficulty above the starting default difficulty. Even in this difficulty, the game suffered from a snowball effect. Thanks to my focusing on unit composition and synergy (not levels, you can get away when them even if you have a 5-level difference), I experienced a snowball effect, where my units would decimate through the enemy lines and granting me the win without much use of any strategy besides the usual "move unit, attack enemy, take garrison". (This is from the final battle, don't worry, no spoilers here. This was the only enemy unit that didn't die in a single battle)

And here lies my biggest issue with this game, Its story, and world-building: This game has been padded out for a 50-hour campaign through multiple continents and factions and the story has so little to show for it. The story is the most basic. It's like they wrote one paragraph and decided it was done. You are Alain, the last survivor royal of Cornia, leading the liberation army to take back what is rightfully yours and save the world. That it, there was some semblance of a story or at least a teaser for it but it was never brought up again until about 15/25 hours in (if you follow the intended path) but even that is stretching it. As much as I have praised this game's combat and unit variety. Thanks to its difficulty curve and especially the story, it can only carry the game so far. There are other games out there there that have great gameplay mechanics with very little in terms of story, games as Monster Hunter, Just Cause, Dragons Dogma, Fcking Tetris*.

To me, the game feels like it overstayed its welcome. This could have been a fine 20, maybe even 30-hour strategy game but it averages to 50 to 60 hours instead when it shouldn't. It has the setup for a great story and even has the characters too, but Unicorn Overlord fails to fully utilize it and instead turns that game into a very subpar experience past the mid-game. Even games like modern Fire Emblem games made sure to add downtime in the game and even focus on the game's story to help engage the player and incentivize them to continue. Sad to say for what it's worth, Unicorn Overlord fails at making me appreciate their premise and instead makes me slog through the game. It's why I gave this game a 2/5. It is not the worst experience but it was not an experience that was worth the 60+ plus hours I put in. The saddest thing is, that they can write good stories, just look at 13 Sentinels but they didn't bother enough Unicorn Overlord.

(Proof of me playing and beating the game)

So my question to you is. Are you willing to play a 50+ hours game for its novelty mechanics and very abysmal story? I did, and to me, it was not worth it.