When I saw the trailer for Unicorn Overlord in September 2023, I knew it was a Vanillaware game. You see, it’s food; the studio behind the brilliant Aegis Ring has a special eye for food – Ghibli-esque in detail – once a meal fit for an army hits the screen on it, I can see Vanillaware’s fingerprint on it.
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The studio’s obsession with food can be traced back to its first high-profile game, Dragon’s Crown, which may be remembered for its other… properties (in case you didn’t know I’m here) Say anything, just Google “Witches of Dragon’s Crown”). It will become very obvious, very quickly). Food in Fantasy Brawl doesn’t look as good as it does now, even if it’s glossed over.
But a love of the culinary arts may be the only real thread between Vanillaware’s recent games. Dragon’s Crown, Thirteen Sentinels, and Unicorn Overlord are worlds apart. Yes, they’re both side-scrolling 2D games with beautiful art, but how they actually play varies from game to game. Unicorn Overlord is not a beat ’em up game like Dragon’s Crown, nor is it a visual novel-cum-real-time strategy game like 13 Sentinels (one of the best games of the last generation). It’s more like an SRPG, a sort of love child between Final Fantasy 12’s Gambit system and Fire Emblem’s skirmishes, albeit with squads of soldiers rather than individual units.
The game unabashedly borrows from classic tactical role-playing games that were popular in the 1990s (such as Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Langrisser, Shining Force). But Vanillaware, like its past works, doesn’t rely too heavily on its inspirations. Unicorn Overlord feels very much its own thing; not a hodgepodge of elements stolen from other things just to see ’90s kids laughing.
The result was a game that blew me away. Unicorn Overlord is fast – combat is over before it even begins, and if you just want to get into the heart of the game, you can independently fast-forward the overworld and combat speed, which really helps. You assemble units of characters that join your cause (you’re a fledgling prince trying to retake a lost empire – standard stuff) and deploy those units to the map.
It’s not grid-based (Fire Emblem), but 2.5D: ground units stick to the path, while air units are more flexible. You need to consider which units are strong or weak against which units. Initially, this is a standard tactical triangle, but soon you start to realize that it’s actually more like a dodecahedron than a triangle – sure, archers can take down air units, but patrols can take down soldiers, and cavalry Troops can fight thieves. etc.
Although the courses are varied and intensive, it all makes sense… Partly because of the rich illustrations that make everything readable and easy to understand at first glance, and partly because of how well you’re guided through every aspect of the game. Yes, there’s a lot of text, and some of the voice acting is terrible. But that’s what you’re here for, right? A cheesy fantasy story about revenge and the power of friendship. If you want to get to the bottom of the math behind this thing, you have to take all this seriously.
I think this is where Unicorn Overlord shines most. I’m only about four hours into the game, but even then the game’s combat system and tactical depth are starting to blossom. By the end of my course, I could command five different squads of approximately three units each, and the synergy and synchronicity displayed was amazing. I can’t imagine what Vanillaware’s development flow chart looked like when they perfected this system.
Each unit automatically attacks, so you need to choose the skills it uses in battle. Will your mage automatically heal at the end of the turn, or buff your soldiers so they take less damage? Do you want your cavalry to try to knock down the enemy before they have a chance to attack, or to respond with a brutal counterattack after taking some damage? Will you deploy your archers near another skirmish, raining down arrows from above, or have them focus on a group of unicorn riders that could weaken your vanguard?
It’s a strategy game that really feels like the perfect compromise between the strategic depth of Tactics Ogre and the ease of play of Fire Emblem. The fact that it all looked so gorgeous and sounded so good was a bonus, but it was this core gameplay loop that planted the seed in my brain. You can recruit up to 60 – 60 people! – Immediate unit. I can only imagine the scale of the final battle, the interplay of units, and the chaos of abilities as we move toward the game’s inevitable climactic ending. It’s already as deep and rich as your favorite role-playing games from the ’90s.
In this job, you do a lot of previews—some fun, some not so much. I’m rarely reluctant to end the game I’m playing and move on to something else. I’ll be completely honest: I’ve been thinking about Unicorn Overlord every day since I previewed it. every day. I can’t wait to get my hands on the full version and start digging into its weird religious history lore. I can’t wait to start writing half-finished scraps of math to figure out how to minimize my emerging units. I can’t wait to take back the Empire in the name of my brave hero and his ragtag group of weirdo friends.
Unicorn Overlord looks to be one of the must-play RPGs of 2024, and it faces stiff competition. For anyone with even a passing interest in tactical games or fantasy themes, you can’t miss this game.
Unicorn Overlord will launch on March 4, 2024 on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
