4.5/5 ★ – DarkDrawer's review of Unicorn Overlord.

I have a lot of thoughts surrounding this game. The combat is an obvious highlight, the story is pretty alright, but nothing too special, and the presentation of this game is pretty much an entire conversation. The combat system of this game is pretty unique in being able to control up to 5 characters at once and then in real time, having the character travel to the enemies. There's armor, weapons, and skills that can be customized. Even beyond that, the configurations between the existing classes and different positionings among the 6 spaces available among one team are pretty vast. There's plenty to be explored in simply building one party. With that being said, the best part of this combat system is how its built up. You start with only being able to put 2 people into a team and then for a light cost, you upgrade to 3. You also only have about 3 parties available and so those have a cost as well. Valor is this cost with both upgrading parties and expanding parties, so choosing which to do can be an interesting problem. Valor is not easily gained outside of battles, so it can easily be a problem that'll span multiple hours of the game until everything is maxed out. Even by the end of the game, I lacked every party being maxed out in party members available and I had done pretty much every battle available. This problem of cautiously growing your team and deciding where to put people you recruit was the main appeal of the game along with the excellent stages in the first half of the game. For long stretches of the game, there's stages that will introduce a new class unit and the stage will suit the character. This does the job of wishing to have that class which is quickly rectified. This interest also works in being able to motivate the player in trying out different party configurations if they want to. As the parties are being filled out, characters are a necessary existence in filling out these empty spots. But, as most interesting aspects in this game, they either overstay their welcome in some areas or become an issue later on. Later on, if you have unlocked everyone available, some characters will have to be left out of parties. This makes them increasingly hard to keep raised up in terms of levels and will slowly not be used at all. Additionally, the unique characters given tend to be a weird combination of classes with some repeats being an eyebrow raise in terms of why certain characters were added. Although classes will continue to be exciting (and sometimes NECCESSARY to use in some maps), there's many classes I wasn't able to see the vision with and found boring, specifically a lot of debuff builds along with archers. But that's not the biggest problems with characters in my opinion. That is the Rapport system among characters and majorly the cast. The vastness in what characters can conversate with who, while interesting, could be presented better in a unique way from the other parts of the game. It looks like every other cutscene in the game and is mostly an exercise in reading. This would be a minute point as the cutscenes having dialogue would make one think itd be more special if the majority of interactions in this game even outside of rapport weren't similar in presentation. Additionally, it should've had its own menu to easily navigate and unlock each menu once rapport was built up. As it is in the game, if a character is in the same party as another (or maybe supports a class as a party leader with their skill?), they will gain rapport with their party as they fight. This isn't the fastest way to build rapport, but its the most passive in how it works. For Alain, the main character, a lot of characters will build rapport specifically with him through overworld interactions. This system is both fine and not fine at the same time. Personally, due to the number of different configurations available, I think unlocking interactions among other characters should be easier. This and being able to do it through a menu would be less hassle than traveling around the map and getting an interaction with the surrounding area that 90% of the time doesn't matter. In this way, while I love some of the characters shown for design reasons or character backstory, I really wish I could've fallen in love with more interactions of their character. In this way, I think the story could've been more linear in how it plays. The player DOES NOT HAVE to finish a lot of the maps. Because this is the method of how to unlock a majority of the characters, a lot of interactions among a lot of those characters are locked away majorly behind Rapport. You don't see a lot of characters having interactions in main game story. Although this gives the player some freedom in how they wanna play the game, it doesn't make sense due to optimal experience involving fighting stronger opponents and battles in surrounding areas mostly being similar in level. I would give up some of that freedom in being able to explore some areas if it meant more characters were given moments throughout the story. Speaking of the story, it's a classic hero fantasy tale. While nothing really unique, it was interesting to see in this day and age in how straight forward it is. I wish the races among the world weren't just Elves, Angels, and Beastman )the first two you see or hear about pretty early on). It just seemed as if there could've been more surprises in the design of the world. The story is localized as if its an old fantasy tale as in it utilizes old English a lot. Whether I love it or hate it, I don't really care, but from what I hear, some interpretations of characters were lost in the shuffle, so I'd rather that not be a thing. Suffice it to say though, I don't think the story beyond that was really modified much in the grand scheme of things. An aspect of the game I find to be a real win is the overworld. Unlocking things fuels the completionist in me and helps with being able to fast travel which can save some time. Unlocking some materials that are spaced around the map can also go towards other aspects that I'll mention later. Not liberating areas does mean the player will have to face enemy units in a way. I find this to be an interesting way to gatekeep the player out of areas. Filling out the map is one of the more satisfying things to accomplish in the game. Keeps/liberated areas have a place that needs to be repaired after the battle. This is done through materials collected. Upon being repaired, some new options for the area are unlocked depending on the location of the keep (in particular when its on the shore). The majority of places will only unlock the ability to place your unit to "guard" the keep (but they stay in your team). They will passively gain materials over time. Materials are just a nice thing to have at the bottom of your pocket. Although I like this system, I feel it could be explored more and improved on. Some areas required more repairing (as in spending materials multiple times). This seemingly was done for more special keeps, but as far as I can tell not very many benefits are given for doing this. You do get valor for repairing keeps or doing the auxiliary "trades" where you continue to spend your materials, but there's only so much fun that is. Repairing every keep on a continent I feel could've been a main draw, but ended up being a niche side activity if convenient. Speaking of continents, they start really strong with either Drakenhold or Elheim with both the characters introduced in these continents and the areas you battle in. I find them simply more interesting and fun to play against. Especially compared to the third intended continent, Bastorias which has the snowy blizzard be more of an obstacle than it needs to be. The last continent was surprisingly more normal than one would think, but was majorly focused in wrapping up the struggle against the Zenoiran Empire. I think the latter 2 continents could've been handled better. Now, I could go on and on about this game for many paragraphs about certain characters or certain areas in the game, but I'll keep this part brief. Despite my struggles with the tactics system (which I didn't interact with, not really feeling the need to) and in doing so struggles with the final boss which requires some tinkering with said field, I can't deny liking this game. Despite the ways I think this game can easily be improved on, it simply is charming. The character designs feel like classic fantasy and the battles are just too fun to ignore. And the ending, although somewhat inconsequential in terms of final decision-making with the ring of the maiden, ends on a triumphant solemn note. PS: I really wish the whole Ring of the Unicorn and Ring of the Maiden bit was slightly more selective on who could receive it and involved more consequences. It's even less consequential than who you romance in fire Emblem :P. But I digress.