Unicorn Overlord Review: Beautiful in its complexity

It's hard to write a review Lord of Unicorns: The game is big and after over 30 hours I've covered just over half of its map, traversing grasslands, desert, winding mountain paths and a magical forest as I conquer my prince to liberate the fantasy land of Fevrith and reclaim his throne. It's hard because a lot of the games I've seen people have compared Lord of Unicorns To – Ogre tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics – they were fired before I was born. I was worried it wouldn't getting it, not connecting to the supposed fun of spending hours on menus, while the tactical games I played most when I was growing up on the DS gained wider popularity thanks to other systems like romance. And it's hard for me to write a review Lord of Unicorns because I would have to stop playing long enough to be able to write.

Lord of UnicornsThe Fevrith map is an open world of five kingdoms that sprites explore from above. The presentation is similar to Square Enix's use of HD-2D, but features more painterly environmental graphics. It's here Lord of Unicorns breaks with convention to the greatest extent, abandoning the traditional level-based structure. When battles take place, they take place on this map at this scale, only with shadowy borders in the area and new UI elements. When battles begin, sprites are placed in forts and cities; siege weapons and barricades were placed; and forests, roads, rivers and mountains become part of the strategic puzzle.

Characters do not fight alone, but in units. Each consists of characters, either unique to the story or customizable mercenaries for hire, on a 2×3 grid. As they collide, the scale shrinks from a sprite on a large map to a character in each unit to focus on tactical mechanics. Each character in the unit uses a mix of active and passive abilities unique to their class to deal damage, support allies, and debuff enemies. With many, many variations of fantasy combat archetypes, from hoplite to witch to griffin rider to elven archer to angelic knight, there is no easy way to stop a fight. There are advantages in types, but the composition of units creates complications, such as a hoplite defending a lancer against a griffin knight. Even more important may be the placement of units on the grid. There are basic strategies such as keeping the more tanky classes at the front, but some classes can take advantage of this by using skills designed to penetrate the back row.

Image: vanilla

The menu lists equipment as well as customizable “tactics” that allow you to prioritize and use cases for each character's abilities, allowing players to tailor their move sets to each unique unit combination. While placement is ultimately up to the player and can change the tide of any battle, you can also simply press a button in the menu to optimize your loadout and tactics. And on the battle preview screen (à la In the Breach), you can see the predicted damage dealt and received in battle and adjust your unit placement to influence the outcome. There's also a whole “relationship” system that empowers characters with a strong relationship gained through fighting together and sharing gifts or food in the tavern. Many of the characters have dialogue that you can unlock with each other along the way, very similar to Fire Emblem.

This large scale, combining strategic gameplay with 2D RPG, gives the impression of an army moving and progressing in a campaign. As numerous characters join the game from the regions and cities you fight for every inch of, these battles give the world a sense of place and expansiveness. Instead of a home base like a castle or school where you can interact with the characters, they can be found all over the world that you fight for and have homes and family there.

With exploration quests, smaller skirmishes, side quests that unlock new characters, a relationship system, and progression in the main story, Lord of Unicorns I think his pace is too good. I find myself jumping to all its component parts, wasting a rainy Saturday playing the game in handheld mode on the Switch on my partner's couch: one more battle; I just need to remove these question marks on the map; well, all these new relationship conversations are available; let me just equip my army with all this new equipment; well, I could go to the tavern while I was at the castle.

Image: vanilla

Image: vanilla

Image: vanilla

There's a lot going on, but it doesn't seem bothersome. The game finds the right balance between the amount of detail it gives you and the control it's willing to optionally take away for simplicity. Playing on normal difficulty, I faced challenges, but I overcame them. I even started digging around in the tactics submenu to fine-tune my unit combos, something I never thought I'd want to do. It's approachable for someone who doesn't come Fire Emblem Or The Valkyrie Chronicles for challenging, challenging gameplay that includes childhood memories of tactical skills.

When you're not all over the world or in the logistics menu, there's a stage. These are sets rather than levels, places to fight and talk. These stages are where Lord of Unicorns comes down to a human scale, and fights are animated in real time so you can see how your tactics actually work. But these scenes show something more: in Fevrith, the wind blows through the grass fields and kicks up dust. The flames flicker, the waterwheels turn. Waves crash, boats rock as birds soar. In one battle, the fairy forest turns into a fiery furnace, and as my elven archers use magical rain to extinguish the flames, battles take place beneath smoke rising through the ash and wood. Whether it's a battle or a conversation, the characters in these scenes are animated and expressed in a vivid way. It brings drama to the genre and investment in archetypes.

The main plot is a fairly generic fantasy story about a prince's quest to liberate his kingdom, reclaim his throne, and unite the people of Fevrith through kindness and rebuilding efforts. I have few feelings about the monarchy's fight to maintain the previous status quo, but the shojo is made of a pretty, orphaned prince driven by an unshakable sense of nobility. While there's no pats on the head here and relationship conversations aren't the entirety of a dating sim, Lord of Unicorns tries to evoke similar emotions. Personality and emotion lie behind the inflection, tone and humor when the characters fight or talk, and in addition to strong performances and thoughtful translation, the voice acting of the dub cast is excellent. And how much attention is paid to animating, well, character into each character, with individual body and facial movements during fighting and speech.

Image: vanilla

This even carries over to animated character portraits in soundless dialogue boxes. Illustrated character portraits are a craft that doesn't lend themselves well to 3D printing, but Vanillaware's distinctive painting style works well at conveying even subtle expressions. There are lots of little animations in the game's interface, and there are baroque elements on the victory and save screens. It's impressive how the game does all this without slowing down or drawing attention to itself. (Except the food. The food is simply spectacular.)

After the first 10 hours Lord of Unicorns, I left the tutorial area excited and discouraged by the sight before me. Things overlapped mechanically and narratively, and I wanted more, but more can mean different things. For the next 20 hours, nothing radically changed. It was not more the way Vanillaware and Atlus' recent outing, 13 Guardians, he became. But what it did do was provide new locations, units, and story arcs that pushed the gameplay and exploration forward. Each new area required some rework due to topographical constraints (such as the narrow mountain passes in Drakenhold) or new units that completely shuffled my army. Lord of Unicorns managed to sustain for the last 20 hours, and there is at least that much left to do. It's a different kind of development, but early game fans will hear it as praise. It should scare them a little too.

Lord of Unicorns was released on March 8 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a pre-download code provided by Vanillaware. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon's ethics policy can be found here.