Platform(s): PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Tactical RPG, Strategy

Vanillaware is perhaps best known for 2007’s Odin Sphere on the PS2 and most recently, 2019’s 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim. With their latest game, the Japanese developer delves into the tactical RPG genre in a fantasy setting that evokes the vibes and tone of games like the Fire Emblem franchise.

Did they hit it out of the proverbial ballpark just like they did with 13 Sentinels? Let’s find out!

House Of The Unicorn

In Unicorn Overlord, players can explore the overworld, which is also where fantasy battles will take place. All the characters, locations and sprites are displayed using lush, vibrant and striking 2D art, which is arguably the best thing about the game. The highlight of the game is seeing the beautiful art and animations. Of course, Vanillaware has been famous for this reason for many years now, and they deliver on that aspect with Unicorn Overlord as well.

During combat, players will move units (players start with a maximum of two characters in a single unit, which can then be upgraded to a maximum of five later in the game) across the overworld map, and combat will begin when a unit collides with an enemy unit. It’s important to note that battles in Unicorn Overlord all play out automatically once you’re in combat with an enemy unit. All you can do to influence how the battle plays out or change strategy is BEFORE combat; including changing equipment, the formation and placement of your characters, and even using items.

That’s right: during actual combat, you can’t actually do anything at all except let it play out. There’s no direct input or active participation from you, the player, when combat happens. The developers know how repetitive this can be so they allow players to ‘skip’ battles (complete them instantly instead of having to watch it all play out) with the press of a button. Sure, the ‘tactical strategy’ part comes from how you build your units with whichever character and other factors, but during combat, there’s nothing you can do.

This becomes a problem later in the game as it gets harder and harder to balance the level of your units. Seeing as this is still a JRPG, the levels of your characters are still arguably the most important aspect to consider in combat and the only way to increase the levels of your characters is by using them in battle. With over 60 characters, it’s very easy for many of them to be under-levelled and this makes the game feel very unbalanced. So much so, that you’ll have to grind and for sure, the endgame of Unicorn Overlord is super grindy. The developers definitely know this because there are items in the game you can use to make your characters level up without using them in battle. Where’s the point in this being a “tactical RPG” or “strategy” when grinding your levels is what’s most important? If that’s the case, it becomes just another JRPG with the skin of being a “tactical RPG”.

The only amount of depth you truly get from the combat in Unicorn Overlord is the Tactics system, which allows you to make simple rules for characters to follow in combat à la the gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. This is sort of where you can feels strategic. For example, you can make it so that a character only uses certain attacks when it’s most advantageous, like a healing skill only when their unit members are under a certain threshold of health, or to use powerful skills only in specific situations such as buffs at the start of battle and powerful attacks early before AP (action points) run out. That being said, you can actually just ignore this mechanic if you want, because, as I previously mentioned, levels are what’s more important in this game.

Yes, the gameplay can still be fun, which is what still sustained me for my 40+ hour playthrough. The fun is in experimenting with the different characters with different formations and seeing them use flashy attacks with impeccable animations during battles. Being able to skip battles or fast-forward during battles is a nice quality-of-life feature but that doesn’t make the grind feel less grindy. You just waste less time since you don’t have to watch the battles unfold automatically.

After 40 hours and watching thousands of auto battles unfold, you just want it all to end. Unfortunately, the developers decide to introduce gimmicks for the final bosses of the game when, for the last 40 hours, all enemies in the game have been straightforward battles. Suddenly, the final bosses require a specific ‘gimmick’ to defeat them. The best strategy games are those that make you feel smart or satisfied when you manage to overcome your enemies.

For me, it wasn’t fun when I was throwing all my units at the final boss and the final boss didn’t die until I equipped a specific item that the game didn’t tell me about or even hinted at. How was I supposed to know that I had to equip that item when all previous bosses in the game didn’t have any such gimmicks? It’s frustrating as hell.

Still, credit should be given where credit is due. The only reason why the game can sustain its repetitive nature is due to the sheer number of characters and classes available. While many of the characters often share classes (looking at you, cavalry class), they do each have their own respective roles in combat, though usually it’s not that complicated in terms of unit formations.

Oh, your class comes with a big-ass shield or offensive weapon, you’re in front. Oh, you’re an archer/healer/magic user, you’re in the back. Some of these classes can even be upgraded to stronger ones. The only thing that made Unicorn Overlord’s gameplay addictive enough for me to play for hours is when I’m discovering new characters to recruit, not when I’m forced to find resources to fix a bridge or some other random stuff.

Also, while Unicorn Overlord may tout itself as “non-linear”, that’s not really the case. Yes, you can choose to do any of the side quests or even some selected main quests in any order you want, but they’re all level-gated so you’re still funnelled towards doing the quests a certain way. Oh, and what order you complete them in doesn’t matter as well. There is also a major mechanic in the game where you can build relationships between characters by accumulating Rapport points either through fighting in the same unit together or eating at the tavern together.

This is nowhere near the level of other games with dating sim elements like Persona or Fire Emblem. Firstly, none of the Rapport conversations are voiced and they’re usually not that worth unlocking. However, most importantly, they don’t affect combat at all. It doesn’t matter how much Rapport your characters have with each other; there are no buffs, stat increases or extra skills. It feels like the developers only added the Rapport mechanic in Unicorn Overlord because there are many potential hot waifus in the game and the story has one instance where you can get ‘married’ to another character. The only other thing you get from Rapport are Honor, which is a resource that you already get so much more of from battles.

As for the story? Well, you lead a rebel army simply known as the Liberation Army (full marks for creativity there). You are the leader named Prince Alain, whose kingdom of Cornia was invaded and conquered by the evil Zenoiran Empire. What follows is mostly conventional genre tropes, where you have to travel the world and recruit characters to your cause. You’ve heard the story a thousand times and it’s dull, as it throws a bunch of names and factions that players couldn’t care less about.

True, there are around 60 or more characters to recruit but some of them look so similar to each other and there’s not much variety; I swear almost half of them are cavalry units (characters on horseback). The story is simplistic, so the narrative isn’t anything to shout about. Oh, and what about choices that affect the narrative? You’ll get simplistic for every single recruitable character; whether to let them join you or to kill them. That’s all the ‘depth’ there is to the choices in this game.

To put it simply, the highlight of Unicorn Overlord is its vibrant visual art style and lush animations. Everything else is just middling or meh. What you do in the first few hours of the game is pretty much rinse and repeat and grind until the end of the game more than 40 hours in.

For Pete’s sake, some things feel so repetitive that there are not one, but three or more side quests involving the same act of running around and collecting chickens on the overworld map. Oh, what captivating gameplay that is. Sure, there are some very attractive characters and potential waifus in the game if you’re into that sort of thing, but besides that and the visuals, Unicorn Overlord might as well be a mobile game.

Nothing But Waifus

Ultimately, Unicorn Overlord excels in its graphics and art style. However, the gameplay is mostly just fun for a few hours before it devolves to becoming stale due to repetitiveness and a lot of insignificant mechanics (dating sim-like Rapport, etc.) that don’t affect the gameplay. On the surface, it looks pretty excellent, but the final 40+ hour experience from start to finish makes you feel like playing a mobile game.

PROS

• Lush and vibrant art style and animations.
• Huge number of recruitable characters from a range of different classes.

CONS

• The gameplay gets repetitive and extremely grindy near the end of the game.
• Generic story with simplistic binary choices that doesn’t really change anything.

FINAL SCORE: 60/100

Review copy provided by SEGA. Played on PS5.