Unicorn Overlord

Happy 2025 everyone! (I am posting this super late because I started writing this on January 23rd and literally the next day I had a death in the family. So whoops, it's march and I'm finally getting around to finish writing this) I know I neglected to use the my Blogger account to continue to document my first impressions of a game I finished over the course of last year after having done so with Tales of Arise. That was the best game I had finished in 2024 and had a lot to say about it. Aside from playing Mass Effect for the first time which I ended up having so much to say that I hit a writers block. Thankfully, the media I consumed last year was extremely well documented with the help of my wife and if you have seen our 2024 recap video you know I was able to finish more games out of my backlog than I had in years and remembered quite a bit about each one for discussion in that very very long video. 

But here we are in 2025 and much like how I got obsessed with Tales of Arise in 2024 and binged it to completion in a short period of time, I did the same thing with Unicorn Overlord. One of the first times in years I finished a new JRPG within a year of it's initial release (Soul Hackers 2 was like a year and a half after it's release that I finished it) Starting on New Years Day I picked the game back up and found myself completely addicted to it and finished it on the evening of January 23rd. So what did I think of it? Honestly it is probably my new favorite Vanillaware game at current time of writing and it ranks very highly among some of my other favorite Strategy RPGs, such as Fire Emblem Blazing Sword, Final Fantasy Tactics and Valkyria Chronicles. Like most Strategy RPGs the game takes place in a fantasy setting. The Kingdom of Cornia lays in the center of the continent of Fevrith. In the prologue we see the Queen of Cornia struck down by the evil Galerius as one of her loyal knights rushes her infant child to safety. Years pass and that child grows up to be our protagonist, Alain. Whose mission is to avenge his mother against the odds and reclaim the land of Fevrith from the clutches of King Galerius and his Empire of Zenoira. 

Visuals:

To break down each element of the game starting with the visuals, it's no surprise that this game is absolutely drop dead gorgeous. I am a huge fan of Vanillaware, particularly Odin Sphere and Muramasa, I've had a hard time getting into Dragon's crown and I own Grimgrimoire and 13 Sentinels but haven't played much of either yet, so when I heard that Vanillaware's next game was going to be a strategy RPG to me it was a match made in heaven. Vanillaware's visual style uses this 2D hand drawn style that is very appealing and the aesthetic motifs of their games always resemble this sort of story book style. Like you're being told an old legend being told back to you or that you're reading about in a history book. A common narrative framing for strategy RPGs honestly. So either old history books, myths and legends or fairy tales seem to be the visual and narrative style for all of their games. Their games also take on the characteristics of a stage play with the forced side scroller perspective you're always facing the characters from the same side and when you factor in the almost painting like backgrounds and the stylish dialogue, it's definitely reminiscent of a stage play. The battle animations are so well done that they're borderline addicting to watch. Even down to the menus, there are so many tiny animations that play out during every menu action, even the save screen. It's just so packed with detail and visual style and it looks like no other game out there even aside from Vanillaware's previous works. 

Gameplay

The gameplay is actually extremely difficult to summarize as I feel like I could be talking for hours about it and still barely scratch the surface of all of this game's mechanics. It plays unlike any other strategy RPG that you've ever played before. It's simultaneously very approachable and yet extremely mechanically complex. The game drip feeds mechanics to you a few at a time as to not get overwhelming and does a good job with it's tutorials making for a first play through on easy or normal that is pretty accessible and not overly punishing. But if you were ever interested in peeling back the layers and giving yourself a more challenging experience, You're in for potentially an extremely rich experience on hard mode that heavily rewards mastery of the game's mechanics. For instance, a unit is not just a single character, a unit is a group of characters moving and fighting together. The game starts you out with only two characters per unit and as you level up and expand you can gradually increase your unit size from 2 to 3, then 4 then 5. So the complexity of battles at the beginning of the game where battles are only 2 on 2 is much less than when it's 5 on 5. Not to mention the massive variety of character classes, all of their unique and passive abilities all firing at once in succession. Battles can get really dense and if you were to do what the prologue does and show someone an encounter from the end of the game before they are introduced to any of the mechanics, it would look incomprehensible. The slow drip feed of mechanics really helps here. Unit formation is one of the most important things in combat, the game encourages varied setups where different character classes support each other to be most effective in battle and different combinations of units work better than others. You could make a unit entirely of cavalry if you REALLY wanted to, but if you encounter an enemy and don't have a character that covers your weaknesses, you're going to have a hard time. On easy and normal modes you can easily play around with different combinations of units until you have a setup that you like and strategically deploy those units against enemies they are effective against. However, if you're a maniac and playing the game on hard mode, there is nothing stopping you from entering a battle, looking at the enemy unit composition, back out of the battle to the overworld (for no penalty at all) and readjust your units for every single battle for complete optimization. The differences in strategies between playing the game on easy vs playing it on hard in terms of what is necessary and what the game expects out of you might as well make it two completely different games. It's perfect for the hardcore old school Fire Emblem fan who is obsessed with challenge, optimization and min maxing. Also, items just feel extremely busted in this game. Being able to use items over and over again without much of a penalty is extremely strong especially when an item has a party wide effect. Using the Hollowed Corne Ash to give myself extra valor points felt extremely overpowered especially considering how easy it is to get large quantities of that item. Unlike classic Fire Emblem and other strategy RPGs like Valkyria Chronicles this game actually has plenty of opportunities outside of main story chapters to grind and gather resources. So inherently, the ability to prepare yourself is a quality of life decision that helps this game a lot. I think overall this game's design is a very cool microcosm of difficulty in games and something that I really want to expound upon in a future video.   

Story

As far as the story goes, I did enjoy the story quite a bit, but it didn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat with any kinds of crazy twists and turns or anything like that. It was very enjoyable at best and unremarkable at worst. Without going into spoilers, I initially took issue with the way in which you recruit the characters you defeat, like, my suspension of disbelief can only take me so far in convincing me that someone can all of a sudden abandon their cause and fight for their enemy because they were supposedly brain washed. There is a lot more to it than that though and regardless, I was pleasantly surprised in the ways in which the story circumvents this expectation in the later parts of the game. The boss of the map you just cleared is not always recruitable after beating them either because they have their own personal convictions they're trying to adhere to or they're having an existential crisis due to the realization of the atrocities they've committed under Zenoiran control. Another thing I appreciate about the story is that since this game does not have permanent unit death, lots of your characters actually continue to have an active role in the story in the later parts of the game, something that isn't easily possible in other strategy RPGs where permanent death is a thing. It's very refreshing to have a character you recruited in hour 4 of the game be able to comment on the events of the story during hour 40. 

Conclusion:

That about sums up my thoughts on Unicorn Overlord, in short, I highly recommend it. I'm extremely relieved to see that games like this are still being made in this day and age where graphical fidelity and online features dominate the industry. This is a game tailor made for my tastes and I couldn't be more grateful that it exists.