Few studios handle to hook my consideration fairly like Vanillaware does. Every of Vanillaware’s video games is singular and distinctive in its personal means, however nonetheless carries the identifiable hallmarks of its builders’ artwork, considering, and method. So with Vanillaware returning to ways in Unicorn Overlord, I knew I needed to see the way it fared.

Unicorn Overlord feels prefer it’s reaching into the previous, however in a distinct method than most. Slightly than drawing on the tiles and turn-based ways of Ways Ogre, the inspiration of its sibling Ogre Battle is obvious as day. It’s obvious all through the tense real-time technique, the fastidiously laid-out overworld map, and the tiny squads of items operating headlong into one another earlier than zooming all the way down to the melee, resolving fight, and swooping again out overhead.

But there’s additionally the Ultimate Fantasy XII Gambit-style system of ways, a meta-layer of useful resource assortment and allocation, and Vanillaware’s unmistakable type. As a lot as Unicorn Overlord captures nostalgia for an period of technique RPGs lengthy passed by, it additionally brims with new concepts and recent takes on what you’d usually count on.

Basically, should you’re on the lookout for a recent and vibrant tackle directing tiny little items round in strategic battles, Unicorn Overlord is it.

Unicorn Overlord (Swap [reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox Collection X|S)
Developer: Vanillaware
Writer: Sega/Atlus
Launched: March 8, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

Setting the stage for Unicorn Overlord’s story doesn’t take too lengthy. The participant takes on the function of Alain, an exiled prince of Cornia, within the lands of Fevrith. A decade prior, Alain and the knight Josef fled the capital after one among Cornia’s generals staged a coup and overthrew the dominion, donning the title Galerius and the banner of Zenoira. Leap ahead to the current, and Zenoira has spent the higher a part of ten years conquering the recognized world. A run-in with some Zenoiran scouts kick-starts the rebel efforts, and the older Alain, skilled in warfare below Josef’s tutelage, is able to set off and reclaim his throne. 

The Liberation Military, because it’s dubbed, begins out small with simply Alain, Josef, and the prince’s childhood pals. Predictably, the group grows as Alain and firm reclaim land throughout Fevrith. Touchdown in Cornia, then spreading out to nations just like the arid Drakenhold, verdant Elheim, frigid Bastorias, and the serene non secular hideaway of Albion.

Right here’s the place the uppermost layer of Unicorn Overlord takes place. On its overworld map, massive nations are divided into smaller regional chunks, populated with NPCs to speak to, assets to vacuum up, and forts and cities ready for liberation. After successful a battle within the area, you free it from Zenoiran management, and might then spend collected assets to rebuild cities, returning them to their former glory.

After all, in these circumstances, the Liberation Military will be seen as an invading drive in its personal proper, and I used to be blissful to see Vanillaware interact with the concept Alain’s quest to reclaim his throne doesn’t at all times come off as benevolent. Granted, Alain remains to be the great man, and Zenoira is at all times evil sufficient on the finish of the day to offset any ethical grays in a victory. A few of my favourite aspect quests a minimum of broach these matters although, and encourage the participant to grapple with the repercussions as they storm their means throughout fields and forests in the direction of the following metropolis.

New character recruits additionally emerge from these quests, both on the aspect or as a part of the principle story, and plenty of of them are extremely memorable. Most of their characterization occurs of their private quests or Rapport conversations. Hearth Emblem followers can be aware of how items can construct relationships by preventing collectively in a single unit, opening up transient vignettes of the pair bonding. 

Although they’re voiceless and pretty brief, the Rapport conversations include a few of my favourite little character moments, whether or not it’s the lancer Chloe and half-elf archer Ridiel sharing a enjoyable dialog, or Clive and one other cavalier discussing what it means to be knight. The writing shines right here, too; whereas it’s stable all through, the crafted barbs and lofty musings shine brightest in character-specific missions, the place the artwork and story mix to craft memorable additions to Alain’s forces. The dark-elf resistance fighter Rosalinde, swamp witch Yahna, radiant knight Monica, and ponderous hammer-swinging Mordon had been amongst a few of my many, many favourite fighters to get to know.

The loop of conquering new territory and buying new items, then rebuilding cities and reinforcing unit relationships, and at last gearing up for the following struggle creates a whirring, buzzing engine on the core of Unicorn Overlord. It’s so, really easy to suppose you’ll hop again on simply to assemble some assets and liberate a city. Then you definitely’re nonetheless awake, hours later, deep into the following leg of the Liberation’s advance.

As for the principle story of Alain reclaiming the throne and taking down Galerius, it’s not a stumble, nevertheless it does tread a number of acquainted territory for fantasy followers. The prince and his childhood pal Scarlett each include stunning, magical energy, they usually should harness it to undo Zenoira’s maintain on Fevrith. A whole lot of lore will get dumped on the eleventh hour, and although there are some twists, the extra affecting revelations occur between fighters in your military than on a broad scale. I’ve received story qualms, however a number of them fall away as soon as the battle music kicks in.

Swapping from the peaceable overworld layer into the precise fight, Unicorn Overlord performs like a real-time technique sport. Deploy items from your private home base utilizing Valor, and direct them across the discipline to battle others, preventing for floor and territory main all the way in which to the enemy’s command put up. It’s straight-forward, on the outset.

Because the marketing campaign goes on, Unicorn Overlord begins to introduce all of the wrinkles of this technique layer. Items, made up of anyplace from a single character to a squad of 5, act as a single entity on the board. Their motion and traits are decided by the “chief” of the squad; a flying unit can soar over obstacles, whereas an archer-led unit can rain down hearth to help one other unit in battle.

Items have stamina, figuring out what number of fights they will interact in earlier than needing to relaxation. Terrain sorts, like a forest, can gradual items but in addition supply cowl. The day-and-night cycle even begins to play an element, because the animalistic bestral warriors get stronger when the moon’s out.

Then, incorporate Valor strikes. You possibly can spend Valor accrued from successful fights and seizing management factors to deploy extra items, or you possibly can spend it to enact particular talents. Warriors can smash the bottom, cavalry can lead a thundering cost by enemy ranks, elven archers name down a transferring cloud of therapeutic rain, and extra. That’s not even stepping into battlefield instruments, like catapults, ballistae, barricades, mines, and extra.

What stunned me most about Unicorn Overlord’s battles had been the map designs. The advanced tactical bouts – we’ll discuss them quickly, don’t fear – had been one thing I already anticipated to actually take pleasure in tinkering round in. However the number of aims and attention-grabbing conditions the marketing campaign positioned me in actually stunned me. Vanillaware designs some memorable, devious battlefields to beat.

In a single, I needed to maintain a line of defense with barricades and ballistae towards an advancing entrance, then pierce into enemy territory to rescue a unit. In one other, my advance alongside a coastal area was beset by warships that might name in reinforcements, so I dispatched my fliers to chop them off. Even on smaller maps, conquerable in below a minute, there are intelligent set-ups and concepts to mess around with.

After which we’ve the precise preventing itself, which has in all probability drawn in a wealth of ways followers and FFXII die-hards alike. When a unit enters battle, their squad squares off with one other, and the 2 duke it out. You don’t have any management over what occurs as soon as the struggle begins; items routinely spend their Motion Factors (AP) and Passive Factors (PP) to strike, heal, counter, buff, and do no matter they will to emerge victorious.

Their actions are decided by a logical checklist of if-then statements you arrange beforehand. And let me inform you, this display screen is the place you possibly can spend a lot of time in Unicorn Overlord. Talents are gained by leveling up, promotion, and thru items of apparatus, and most of them have some form of qualifier. A spear thrust would possibly do extra injury if the unit is at max well being, or a particular sword strike would possibly recoup the AP spent or heal the unit if it kills its goal. So naturally, you’d wish to set logic for this: “use solely when well being is at 100% or greater” for the previous, and “prioritize targets with lower than 25% well being” for the latter.

You possibly can set a sure variety of these logical steps for every character, inside every unit. And as your military grows, so too grows the variety of ways you’re tinkering with throughout battles. It may appear overwhelming, and it’s, however in a extremely great way. The place this method may’ve so simply been arduous, Vanillaware makes the ways display screen really feel like fine-tuning a high-end automotive earlier than the massive race. I’d hit a wall of fight, a match-up I assumed my unit would lose, however after a couple of minutes spent optimizing my positional structure and ways, I’d as an alternative emerge victorious. It feels extremely rewarding to see a unit storm their means throughout the sphere, annihilating any foes alongside the way in which, and know its success is the fruit of all of your labors.

Slowly mastering all these programs and utilizing them in live performance to attain victory on the battlefield feels extremely good. I’d have moments the place items fashioned a united entrance, shoving again an invading drive or cleverly skirting enemy strains. In a single area, I unfold all my items out, focusing them on kind match-ups that favored them – archers choosing off fliers, gryphon knights sweeping by cavalry, and many others. – after which introduced all of them down on a fortified boss. It got here collectively prefer it was written that means. My prince and his band of items stormed the gates, backed up by a hail of arrows and rain of magical hearth, with healers within the again protecting everybody alive.

These moments are the place Unicorn Overlord shines, and it delivers them most of the time. It speaks volumes to this sport’s fight that I’m itching for a New Sport Plus possibility, to even additional advance this military and face better challenges. There are greater issue ranges, however that does result in one wrinkle I’ve: should you’re aware of ways video games, you would possibly discover the usual issue a bit too straightforward as time goes on. On one hand, it makes Unicorn Overlord extremely approachable; on the opposite, I used to be capable of lazily coast by some smaller battles on the default setting.

Battles are additionally the place Vanillaware’s artwork actually shines. The story scenes will really feel acquainted to anybody who’s performed one thing like 13 Sentinels, Odin Sphere, or the like. And naturally, the meals seems to be nice. However battles actually shine. Unit animations are beautiful, and all of the strikes have their very own taste and variations between completely different weapons and sorts of assault. Throughout one battle in a rainstorm, I watched on the slowest velocity I may due to how beautiful it was when lightning cracked throughout the sky, cloaking my military in stark shadows. It was, fairly merely, hanging.

The place Unicorn Overlord actually stumbles for me is the repetition. There’s a number of it, over the 50 or so hours I put into seeing the marketing campaign by to its conclusion. A few of it’s a minimum of pretty gratifying; choosing up assets isn’t probably the most gripping exercise within the sport, however seeing all that lumber and stone flip into renewed life for cities I had simply liberated was at all times nice.

Every area has units of aspect quests that repeat although, like discovering a selected door, or greeting stone carvings in a sure order, or finding cemeteries, they usually drag on after some time. These are elective, fortunately. Others, like rebuilding bridges, aren’t so elective if you wish to liberate each city, and also you’ll must play the dreaded quarry mini-game to get a bunch of stone for these bridges. I used to be pretty accomplished with the quarry sport after my third go at it, and after I realized that’s how I must uncover all of the treasure maps for extra elective treasure, I made a decision I  simply wouldn’t chase any extra maps.

Repetition strikes once more in battles the place, for as beautiful and rewarding as they’re, I began fast-forwarding and finally smashing the skip button on a number of them. For sure match-ups or story-crucial battles, I’d zoom in and watch the struggle unfold; however after I’m 25 hours in and my degree 25 squad is about to roll over a degree 19 unit of random faceless infantry, I don’t want to observe all of it play out. I’m glad the choice is there to skip, as a result of in any other case, a few of the longer fights on this sport would’ve felt means too arduous.

Menus and navigation had been additionally a supply of frustration for me. It was tough to kind by all of the items I’d collected, sure data I wished wasn’t straightforward to floor, and Unicorn Overlord throws a number of every little thing at you, on a regular basis. Discovering the place my experience-granting army treatises had been, so I may degree up a personality that was lagging behind others, was at all times a bit extra irritating than I felt it ought to have been. I badly crave a strategy to see which fighters weren’t already assigned to a unit. Even transferring ways round and altering them can get fairly finicky at instances. High quality-of-life options would go a good distance in the direction of assuaging a few of the little annoyances, as you do spend a number of time within the menus.

For all these moments and extra, although, I simply can’t assist however love Unicorn Overlord. As an avid RPG follower, it’s been straightforward to see the pattern of nostalgia-driven releases, from remasters and remakes, to religious successors, to video games clearly impressed by the golden ages. However each time we elevate the giants, I fear that their shadow looms bigger over smaller, extra fringe features of style historical past.

Ogre Battle is certainly not small, however it’s a aspect of the ways and technique RPG style we merely don’t see as a lot of in comparison with Ways Ogre, whose blueprint can be foundational for the tile-laden turn-based ways of the longer term. To see Vanillaware have a good time this period, this age of technique video games, is already compelling in and of itself.

In Unicorn Overlord, Vanillaware captures that type, paints over it with its signature artstyle and music, and infuses it with new life by its battlefield methods and logical auto-battles. It’s a formidable combine of latest and outdated that defines its personal identification and place within the style’s historical past.

For any wrinkles I bumped into, Unicorn Overlord bowled them over with sheer imaginative and prescient and ambition to be itself, and principally nailing it. After I was enjoying Unicorn Overlord late at night time on my OLED Swap, it felt unimaginable to place down. I used to be at all times longing for yet another battle, to push only a bit additional, to proceed optimizing and enhancing and constructing this dream military. To see it roll out towards insurmountable odds and nonetheless handle to emerge victorious.

Unicorn Overlord is Vanillaware’s custom-built system for capturing the guts of anybody who’s cherished watching tiny items bash towards one another on a map. It places a number of love into every of these items, from what they do and how one can handle them, to their artwork and route, down to creating every new addition really feel impactful. It’s a marketing campaign stuffed with technique goodness, and I can forgive some quality-of-life nitpicks and repetition when the top result’s simply this rattling good.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

9

Very good

A trademark of excellence. There could also be flaws, however they’re negligible and will not trigger huge injury.

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