Draw from sufficient distinctive inspirations, and ultimately, a sport begins to really feel completely novel. That’s the feeling that emerges as you play Unicorn Overlord, Vanillaware’s huge fantasy journey of techniques, technique, and storytelling. I used to be persistently reminded of different methods and mechanics from prior style releases, however the ensuing mixture felt persistently unique and entertaining, even after many hours of battle and exploration.
Gamers management a younger, exiled prince in a excessive fantasy world as he steadily gathers a military to take down an omnipotent empire. There’s a big give attention to story and character improvement from starting to finish. The truth that the plentiful “thees and thous” body an particularly trope-heavy and acquainted plot doesn’t diminish the enjoyment. As an alternative, I used to be delighted by the assured and well-written dialogue and its willingness to embrace the enjoyable of numerous long-lost siblings, figures in disguise, and redemptive character arcs. By the top, some attention-grabbing decisions allow you to form the sport’s end result, however this isn’t a sport of daring narrative surprises – merely well-told comfort-food fantasy antics.
Unicorn Overlord is awash in methods that govern your military’s development and enchancment. Whether or not it’s tools, honor, renown, gold, or character stage, the first objective is rising your military, selling your combatants, increasing the potential measurement of every unit, and establishing a workforce that may triumph within the area. All the pieces works collectively admirably, and it’s nice enjoyable to tweak every small squad unit to create unstoppable combos of harm, protection, and therapeutic.
Battles are an intriguing mixture of real-time troop motion and small unit-to-unit skirmishes. By adjusting every character’s formation placement and tactical decision-making earlier than a melee, you set them up for fulfillment. Nonetheless, as soon as an trade begins, your function as commander is within the again seat; you may’t have an effect on the end result anymore – solely watch because it performs out. As such, a lot of the gameplay is about intelligent unit placement, motion, use of things, and pre-battle powers. I loved overseeing a big and numerous military of knights, witches, gryphon riders, and elven archers as they strode right into a righteous revolt.
Vanillaware’s consideration to element and excessive manufacturing worth are on full show. The huge top-down overworld is stacked with element and vibrant, illustrated backdrops. The rating is grand and dramatic, accompanied by an amazing bounty of memorable voice performing. Most notably, each story moments and unit battles unfold that includes the studio’s placing trademark artwork and animation type, which leverages exaggerated deformation of every part from weapons to character curves and musculature to intensify the fantasy setting and tone.
Whereas I persistently loved my dozens of hours with Unicorn Overlord, the latter half of the sport begins to point out some cracks within the enjoyable. As a result of you may preview the end result of every battle (which is nice), many gamers will ultimately do what I did, and start to skip the bombastic visuals of a given skirmish to get on with the bigger battle. The fun of these lavishly illustrated scenes sadly begins to lean towards tedium.
Likewise, the plentiful unit sorts you each recruit and face in battle are initially intriguing however ultimately change into extraordinarily difficult to maintain straight. Think about a sport of “Rock, Paper, Scissors” the place you may throw any considered one of dozens of distinct hand indicators, and you may see the dilemma. Tactical complexity is nice, however I in the end discovered maintaining all of the distinctions straight slowed down the pacing and sense of mastery somewhat than enhancing an already wealthy tactical simulation. Mix these two issues, and late-game battles can really feel repetitive and muddled.
Even acknowledging these frustrations, I really like the number of encounters Unicorn Overlord presents and the seamless approach so many interlocking sport methods contribute to an overarching saga of magic and warfare. From starting to finish, the sport feels crafted, balanced, and deep, with out sacrificing approachability. Put aside preconceptions from the weird title, and also you’ll discover an epic nicely price exploring.