5 Details You Need to Know about Unicorn Overlord

While 2023 was the year of the big-name titles, 2024 is going to be a bit of a different journey. Interestingly enough, the JRPG is making a massive comeback and one of the titles that’s going to splash in just couple of weeks is Unicorn Overlord. Luckily, we don’t have to wait that long to get a taste of what it has in store, as a demo is available right now for the Nintendo Switch and PS4/5. Let’s check out what we have in store for us.

What You’re Getting Into

Unicorn Overlord is a strange game. You’ve likely played something similar before, as there as aspects of Fire Emblem and other strategy RPGs throughout, but as a whole, this feels like a new kind of game. You’re going to be guiding Prince Allain and his hearty band of rebels on a mission to overthrow an evil empire, which we’ve heard before, but there are plenty of hints in the demo that not all is what it seems, and if Vanillaware’s past work is any indication, this story should go off the rails sooner than later.

5. It Is Beautiful

The late PS1 era aesthetic has made a comeback in recent years, and Vanillaware is taking it to the next level with Unicorn Overlord. Using a style that it coined with its previous hit, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Vanillaware has created a dreamlike world that brings us back to the heyday of the genre. The visuals pop off the screen regardless of the console you’re playing on, and the animations, both facially and in combat, are among the best you’ll see for a game of this style. Despite Atlus being involved with this one, everything is very minimalistic in its appearance, which is quite welcome in this somewhat traditional, medieval, fantasy world. Overall, it’s one of the most visually striking games of the year and does it mostly in 2D.

4. Combat is Not What It Seems

Upon seeing the trailers for Unicorn Overlord, you might think you’re getting a fusion between a strategy RPG and a traditional JRPG battle system. At least, that’s how I and many others felt. The reality of the combat system isn’t quite this. While you get the overworld strategy side of things, the turn-based nature of the game is an illusion. See, while you have the battles take place in small, traditional JRPG-style battlegrounds, you don’t actually control them in the fight. Instead, you select the behavior of your squads including their loadout, position on the battlefield, and what skills they will use and more specifically, when they’ll use them. This is highly reminiscient of the famous Gambit system from Final Fantasy 12 and it works despite the initial shock of lack of control. These battles are a fierce back-and-forth for a number of turns until one side is declared a winner or loser, but that doesn’t mean one side has fallen; it’s just that they got the better of the skirmish. In addition to this, various factors will affect the battlefield, such as the presence of archer towers and likely other types of units on the battlefield that will affect how the encounters play out. On its hardest difficulty, it’s very tough, and requires careful squad construction and usage of the Gambit type system to come out on top. The initial shock of not being able to control the encounters on a move-by-move basis will be irksome for a handful of players, but push through it, and you’ll find one of the more interesting battle systems out there.

3. Choices Matter

What you might not have been expecting with Unicorn Overlord was the presence of choice and consequence. Similar to another strategy RPG in Triangle Strategy, you will have dominion over a variety of different choices throughout the game. Depending on what you choose to do, characters will live or die, join you or fight against you and likely have consequences for the over arching story line. It’s not too in-depth, but if the demo is any indication, these will be very important and generally take place following a big fight.

2. There Are a lot of Characters

Fans of games like Suikoden will feel at home here knowing there are going to be a ton of characters here, each with unique skills, backstories and a place in the overall plot. Who you choose to join you can have a huge impact on how effective you are in combat and how storylines play out. The consequences of trying to recruit everyone are unknown at this point, but you can be that there will be some twists and turns in this regard. We only get a small preview of the character types we will find in the demo, but seeing as each one is completely different from the last, it will be fascinating to see the supposed 60+ characters Vanillaware has in store for us when the game finally releases on March 8th.

1. The Storytelling is Top Notch

Now, I’m not going to tell you that the plot in the demo is anything we haven’t seen before, but we have to keep in mind this is just the beginning of what appears to be a very long and deep story. I hope you don’t mind sitting back and watching a bit here because you’ll be watching a considerable amount of cutscenes between your party, the enemy, and every side character you encounter throughout. It’s somewhat of a visual novel at times, but luckily, it’s all supported by fantastic voice acting from both the English and Japanese voice casts. I rarely praise an English dub, but Unicorn Overlord’s cast is 10/10 thus far. It’s all delivered powerfully, askewing anime tropes for characters that demand to be taken seriously and while the plot seems a little traditional at least at the start, it’s done as well as it can be. It also doesn’t hurt that the animations supporting everything go a long way in making this fun to watch when you’re not engaging in the action. So far, so good, but we have to play through everything first to see if Vanillaware sticks the landing.

If you’re not already playing through the demo, you will be able to experience all of the above and more when Unicorn Overlord releases on March 8th.