JFBacklogHell
This review contains spoilers
It was certainly a shock seeing this game finally getting remade, but was a great time seeing it and the older Paper Mario formula be given a chance. I never got a chance to play the original, only watched stuff online for it, so it was an exciting time to finally get to play it.
For the gameplay, it's a the classic turn based system with action commands where proper timing of moves and blocks are key to winning. It's pretty simple, but very much effective. Learning and slowly mastering action commands makes combat feel so much fun. They just give so much extra oomph to your actions to help you you engaged with the game.
What also really helps the combat are the partners as they were re-worked compared to Paper Mario 64 as they're now more proper party members with their own HP bars and able to use item just like Mario. On paper this seems like a minor change, but it adds so much more depth to the combat and resolves one of my biggest issues with 64's handling with Partners (in that game, if Partners got hurt, they'd be knocked out for a few turns, which in some boss battles got really annoying).
However, what makes the combat work so well are the level up and badge systems. Once you hit 100 EXP, you get to choose between HP to improve longevity, FP (your MP), or most importantly, BP or badge points, which lets you equip more badges. Badges themselves are one of the coolest aspect of Paper Mario as you can equip them to gain new attacks, let you gain special effects, and so much more. While I still think BP is very overpowered as a level up choice (especially since there are badges to boost the other two stats AND the BP limit has been vastly increased from 64), it still creates one of the most interesting level up systems as you weigh on what stats you need more at the moment. Plus the Badge system leads to a higher level of creativity and customization during your run.
That said, while I enjoy these systems, I do have one major critique for it when it comes to this game. I'm not sure why, but I feel like the "flow" of badges doesn't feel quite as nicely back in 64. By that, I mean the order of how you get them doesn't feel as natural and the feeling of finding major upgrades via new badges isn't as satisfying. While there are some great ones you can find early, including the all important Quick Change (switching party members without eating a turn) far sooner compared to 64, I feel like it takes longer to get a consistent flow of badges you actually want to equip and make room for. And some badges that were REALLY nice to have early, such as Spike Shield and Feeling Fine, take so long to get. The latter is especially egregious as there's A LOT of places you want to have it for to stop status effects, but it doesn't come until the second to last chapter of the game. It feels like you have to go more out of your way to find the more worthwhile badges, but not in a good way. This flaw alone is why I can't give this game a full five stars and why I was tempted to give to give it only four at first when I factor in later issues too but decided against that.
For another flaw I have with combat is how you can't see more detailed information on enemy resistances. I fully admit this one is just me being spoiled by the Super Mario RPG Remake and how Thought Peak made specific note of status effect resistances and weaknesses. And to be fair to this game, Goombella (your party member who analyzes your foes), is really good at making note of certain elements not working on foes and warning you about if enemies have status effects they can use too. However, it would have been REALLY nice being able to see status effect resistances in this game too. I felt like, outside of Burn and Stop, I feel like I hardly made use of status effects in this game compared to 64. What makes this more of a shame is how unlike in Super Mario RPG's remake, you can pull up your tattle log mid-battle for the enemies your facing and get their information again. That would have been the perfect place to include such information. On the note of Status effects, again I really dislike how Feeling Fine comes in so late as there's no specific badges to protect you from each Status Effects early on, making some fights annoying. Namely Atomic Boo since you messing up one guard could mean you getting hit by the very dangerous Stop status effect.
For final combat nitpicks... Despite how much more was added to the game's systems to 64, it feels too easy for what was added. Yes, this is supposed to be a more "general" game where newcomers to RPGs can settle into as well. That's perfectly fine. However, given the praise for this game and how much this game really expands things, I feel like not enough was done with the difficulty to make as engaging it should be (save for something we'll mention later). Also, while most party members are perfectly viable and offer their own roles, I feel like the best of them REALLY break this game and the worst one really sucks too much to use them regularly. I also dislike how the game's cooking system feels a lot less impactful compared to 64's as well.
For other aspects of the gameplay, it's mainly the world and level design. For the world design, now that I've experienced it, I do think there's a lot more "straight line" design places in the world. I wouldn't say it's nearly as bad as what I like to call the "Straight Hallway Problem" in other RPGs that I've played, but it does get a bit more grating and feels like a downgrade from 64. That said, I still feel like the dungeon design of this game is still on point and offers a lot more variety. Plus in addition to your hammer and boot upgrades to improve exploration and combat, you also find new field abilities Mario can use to help more the world that adds its own flair for exploration and puzzle solving.
Now onto story and characters. The overall plot is quite simple as it's a maguffin hunt, but what makes it so good are the characters and writing. The Mario RPGs offer some of the most charming and funny character writing you can find in games. It just makes so many characters have such fun personalities and lets you have a nice laugh on a consistent basis. And yet in spite of its more humorous moments, the game knows how to properly build up stakes, how to hype up big battles, and when to be more serious and emotional. You still can get quite invested into this game's story and world like one can for more classical tells. All thanks to this game's excellent and witty writing. There's a reason why so many of its characters are beloved and why many clamored for this type of writing again.
There only two noticeable gripes I have with the writing. The first is how a lot of Party Members fall into the "no longer relevant when their arc is over" trope. While I don't need every party member to be relevant every single moment, some more moments for them would have been great. However that's not enough to really dent my positive opinion of the overall writing. Plus, each Party Member has lines for every scene you have them out for, so you still get to hear them remark and have some new lines to find later on in repeat lines depending on who's out at the moment.
The second issue on the other hand is a bit more annoying however. Early on, the game feels "inconsistent" with what it's allowed to show. When it was revealed the game would be using the original JP version, I was intrigued on seeing the stuff we didn't get before. However, not included was the one body outline you can find in Rougeport. I find this weird since the game was still fine having the Gallows in Town Square for an E Rated Title in 2024 (something Yo Kai Watch 3 had to censor with its own set despite its higher age rating). Then also early on is how some enemies have their lines change for what I assume for what wouldn't be appropriate for a younger audience... To only then include a new line later on after the first chapter boss that plays into a fetish joke that feels grosser to the previous mentioned lines that got changed. Thankfully however, it's only really like the first few hours of the game where this inconsistency feels prominent and if there are any other similar changes, you probably have to squint to find them. So in spite of those flaws, the writing still feels praiseworthy for the most part.
Another thing worthy of praise is the OST. I think TTYD has a pretty enjoyable and great soundtrack. What makes it even better is how the Remake adds in A LOT more new songs from more character/boss battle themes and gives most chapters/areas their own battle theme, which is great. One thing I'm iffy on is how some songs from the OG are more so side grades than rather full on upgrades; They're great at offering their own spin without steering into the issue Demon Souls had with its remake, but there were some songs I wish that got to be "upgraded" rather than getting a different take. That said, still not enough for me to stop enjoying this game's OST.
The last major area I'll cover is what specifically the remake adds and their impact. Besides the improved graphics that really help to improve the visuals of the game, this remake offers a lot. First is the Battle Master, who is not only great for helping players who need to practice action commands, but also provides more in depth tips, including explaining less talked about aspects, like how the audience works and what can cause stage hazards in battle. Another major improvement, probably THE most important change, is this game's improvement for fixing backtracking. While I do think the backtracking complaints were sometimes exaggerated, it's great seeing the game address this flaw. Not only do we sometimes get slight changes in level design to reduce backtracking (like new short cuts or new merchant spots to help you restock without running back to Rougeport), but they created an entirely new room that updates over time that acts as a fast travel room to all previous major areas of the game. That alone is a major help to many players and reduces a great deal of tedium (especially for Chapter 7, which was the most infamous for that). Another addition I love to this remake is how it takes a page out of the Mario & Luigi games and gives each character their own voice. Not voice acting, but different sound effects for when each character speaks. I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it, but trust me when I say this change to how character speaks is an amazing addition for injecting even more personality into an already colorful cast of characters. Finally, I really enjoy the inclusion of both a sound test AND concept art that you can unlock. Just really nice when games include stuff like this for the player to enjoy. Overall, most of these new additions are great.
[Notice: If you played the OG, BUT have not done everything in the remake yet, DO NOT read beyond this point if you already disregarded the general spoiler warning.]
While the remake adds many new things that I adore, there is one thing I'm kind of mixed on. Or rather, two optional, but VERY noteworthy things to be more precise. While the game is still quite easy to get through, when it comes to 100%ing, the game decided to throw in two new challenges to give one last hurray before you're truly done. While I love these two new challenges for how natural and fitting they are for the game, I have issues with execution. For the first new one, for the most part it's great and works as it should... Until you hit the second phase where Super Guarding, an optional and very hard to pull off mechanic, suddenly becomes required. If you know of a certain annoying Post Game Fight from Super Mario RPG, this fight falls victim to the "too much perfection" issue too. That said, not nearly to the same degree as there's A LOT more counterplea this time, including ways to cheese the fight to end it before the second phase happens. But if you play it straight without super guarding up to until that point, it'll be rough. The second challenge also has a super guarding issue, but only if you're reckless until the need for it sometimes pops up. But it's not that bad in that regard. What it does have issues is how if you're not prepared for this second fight or need to get stuff to do it properly after failing it, you're gonna have to leave and redo the Pit of 100 Trails to have another whack at them (and maybe the whole thing if they don't have the 300 coins to skip the first half). And were I not spoiled on this challenge, that would have been the very frustrating fate that would have befallen onto me too. Even in spite of all of that, I still feel most fine with these inclusions. Plus, the rest of everything else the remake adds in is great and really helps to improve the experience.
Overall, despite how much I may have complained, the TTYD Remake is a fun and great time. Again, it's such a charming and wonderful experience to go through with so many offerings to both new and old players. It's amazing to have seen this game not only remade, but remade well for the most part. It's another game I will recommend to people and I hope this remake means more Mario RPGs like this.
For the gameplay, it's a the classic turn based system with action commands where proper timing of moves and blocks are key to winning. It's pretty simple, but very much effective. Learning and slowly mastering action commands makes combat feel so much fun. They just give so much extra oomph to your actions to help you you engaged with the game.
What also really helps the combat are the partners as they were re-worked compared to Paper Mario 64 as they're now more proper party members with their own HP bars and able to use item just like Mario. On paper this seems like a minor change, but it adds so much more depth to the combat and resolves one of my biggest issues with 64's handling with Partners (in that game, if Partners got hurt, they'd be knocked out for a few turns, which in some boss battles got really annoying).
However, what makes the combat work so well are the level up and badge systems. Once you hit 100 EXP, you get to choose between HP to improve longevity, FP (your MP), or most importantly, BP or badge points, which lets you equip more badges. Badges themselves are one of the coolest aspect of Paper Mario as you can equip them to gain new attacks, let you gain special effects, and so much more. While I still think BP is very overpowered as a level up choice (especially since there are badges to boost the other two stats AND the BP limit has been vastly increased from 64), it still creates one of the most interesting level up systems as you weigh on what stats you need more at the moment. Plus the Badge system leads to a higher level of creativity and customization during your run.
That said, while I enjoy these systems, I do have one major critique for it when it comes to this game. I'm not sure why, but I feel like the "flow" of badges doesn't feel quite as nicely back in 64. By that, I mean the order of how you get them doesn't feel as natural and the feeling of finding major upgrades via new badges isn't as satisfying. While there are some great ones you can find early, including the all important Quick Change (switching party members without eating a turn) far sooner compared to 64, I feel like it takes longer to get a consistent flow of badges you actually want to equip and make room for. And some badges that were REALLY nice to have early, such as Spike Shield and Feeling Fine, take so long to get. The latter is especially egregious as there's A LOT of places you want to have it for to stop status effects, but it doesn't come until the second to last chapter of the game. It feels like you have to go more out of your way to find the more worthwhile badges, but not in a good way. This flaw alone is why I can't give this game a full five stars and why I was tempted to give to give it only four at first when I factor in later issues too but decided against that.
For another flaw I have with combat is how you can't see more detailed information on enemy resistances. I fully admit this one is just me being spoiled by the Super Mario RPG Remake and how Thought Peak made specific note of status effect resistances and weaknesses. And to be fair to this game, Goombella (your party member who analyzes your foes), is really good at making note of certain elements not working on foes and warning you about if enemies have status effects they can use too. However, it would have been REALLY nice being able to see status effect resistances in this game too. I felt like, outside of Burn and Stop, I feel like I hardly made use of status effects in this game compared to 64. What makes this more of a shame is how unlike in Super Mario RPG's remake, you can pull up your tattle log mid-battle for the enemies your facing and get their information again. That would have been the perfect place to include such information. On the note of Status effects, again I really dislike how Feeling Fine comes in so late as there's no specific badges to protect you from each Status Effects early on, making some fights annoying. Namely Atomic Boo since you messing up one guard could mean you getting hit by the very dangerous Stop status effect.
For final combat nitpicks... Despite how much more was added to the game's systems to 64, it feels too easy for what was added. Yes, this is supposed to be a more "general" game where newcomers to RPGs can settle into as well. That's perfectly fine. However, given the praise for this game and how much this game really expands things, I feel like not enough was done with the difficulty to make as engaging it should be (save for something we'll mention later). Also, while most party members are perfectly viable and offer their own roles, I feel like the best of them REALLY break this game and the worst one really sucks too much to use them regularly. I also dislike how the game's cooking system feels a lot less impactful compared to 64's as well.
For other aspects of the gameplay, it's mainly the world and level design. For the world design, now that I've experienced it, I do think there's a lot more "straight line" design places in the world. I wouldn't say it's nearly as bad as what I like to call the "Straight Hallway Problem" in other RPGs that I've played, but it does get a bit more grating and feels like a downgrade from 64. That said, I still feel like the dungeon design of this game is still on point and offers a lot more variety. Plus in addition to your hammer and boot upgrades to improve exploration and combat, you also find new field abilities Mario can use to help more the world that adds its own flair for exploration and puzzle solving.
Now onto story and characters. The overall plot is quite simple as it's a maguffin hunt, but what makes it so good are the characters and writing. The Mario RPGs offer some of the most charming and funny character writing you can find in games. It just makes so many characters have such fun personalities and lets you have a nice laugh on a consistent basis. And yet in spite of its more humorous moments, the game knows how to properly build up stakes, how to hype up big battles, and when to be more serious and emotional. You still can get quite invested into this game's story and world like one can for more classical tells. All thanks to this game's excellent and witty writing. There's a reason why so many of its characters are beloved and why many clamored for this type of writing again.
There only two noticeable gripes I have with the writing. The first is how a lot of Party Members fall into the "no longer relevant when their arc is over" trope. While I don't need every party member to be relevant every single moment, some more moments for them would have been great. However that's not enough to really dent my positive opinion of the overall writing. Plus, each Party Member has lines for every scene you have them out for, so you still get to hear them remark and have some new lines to find later on in repeat lines depending on who's out at the moment.
The second issue on the other hand is a bit more annoying however. Early on, the game feels "inconsistent" with what it's allowed to show. When it was revealed the game would be using the original JP version, I was intrigued on seeing the stuff we didn't get before. However, not included was the one body outline you can find in Rougeport. I find this weird since the game was still fine having the Gallows in Town Square for an E Rated Title in 2024 (something Yo Kai Watch 3 had to censor with its own set despite its higher age rating). Then also early on is how some enemies have their lines change for what I assume for what wouldn't be appropriate for a younger audience... To only then include a new line later on after the first chapter boss that plays into a fetish joke that feels grosser to the previous mentioned lines that got changed. Thankfully however, it's only really like the first few hours of the game where this inconsistency feels prominent and if there are any other similar changes, you probably have to squint to find them. So in spite of those flaws, the writing still feels praiseworthy for the most part.
Another thing worthy of praise is the OST. I think TTYD has a pretty enjoyable and great soundtrack. What makes it even better is how the Remake adds in A LOT more new songs from more character/boss battle themes and gives most chapters/areas their own battle theme, which is great. One thing I'm iffy on is how some songs from the OG are more so side grades than rather full on upgrades; They're great at offering their own spin without steering into the issue Demon Souls had with its remake, but there were some songs I wish that got to be "upgraded" rather than getting a different take. That said, still not enough for me to stop enjoying this game's OST.
The last major area I'll cover is what specifically the remake adds and their impact. Besides the improved graphics that really help to improve the visuals of the game, this remake offers a lot. First is the Battle Master, who is not only great for helping players who need to practice action commands, but also provides more in depth tips, including explaining less talked about aspects, like how the audience works and what can cause stage hazards in battle. Another major improvement, probably THE most important change, is this game's improvement for fixing backtracking. While I do think the backtracking complaints were sometimes exaggerated, it's great seeing the game address this flaw. Not only do we sometimes get slight changes in level design to reduce backtracking (like new short cuts or new merchant spots to help you restock without running back to Rougeport), but they created an entirely new room that updates over time that acts as a fast travel room to all previous major areas of the game. That alone is a major help to many players and reduces a great deal of tedium (especially for Chapter 7, which was the most infamous for that). Another addition I love to this remake is how it takes a page out of the Mario & Luigi games and gives each character their own voice. Not voice acting, but different sound effects for when each character speaks. I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it, but trust me when I say this change to how character speaks is an amazing addition for injecting even more personality into an already colorful cast of characters. Finally, I really enjoy the inclusion of both a sound test AND concept art that you can unlock. Just really nice when games include stuff like this for the player to enjoy. Overall, most of these new additions are great.
[Notice: If you played the OG, BUT have not done everything in the remake yet, DO NOT read beyond this point if you already disregarded the general spoiler warning.]
While the remake adds many new things that I adore, there is one thing I'm kind of mixed on. Or rather, two optional, but VERY noteworthy things to be more precise. While the game is still quite easy to get through, when it comes to 100%ing, the game decided to throw in two new challenges to give one last hurray before you're truly done. While I love these two new challenges for how natural and fitting they are for the game, I have issues with execution. For the first new one, for the most part it's great and works as it should... Until you hit the second phase where Super Guarding, an optional and very hard to pull off mechanic, suddenly becomes required. If you know of a certain annoying Post Game Fight from Super Mario RPG, this fight falls victim to the "too much perfection" issue too. That said, not nearly to the same degree as there's A LOT more counterplea this time, including ways to cheese the fight to end it before the second phase happens. But if you play it straight without super guarding up to until that point, it'll be rough. The second challenge also has a super guarding issue, but only if you're reckless until the need for it sometimes pops up. But it's not that bad in that regard. What it does have issues is how if you're not prepared for this second fight or need to get stuff to do it properly after failing it, you're gonna have to leave and redo the Pit of 100 Trails to have another whack at them (and maybe the whole thing if they don't have the 300 coins to skip the first half). And were I not spoiled on this challenge, that would have been the very frustrating fate that would have befallen onto me too. Even in spite of all of that, I still feel most fine with these inclusions. Plus, the rest of everything else the remake adds in is great and really helps to improve the experience.
Overall, despite how much I may have complained, the TTYD Remake is a fun and great time. Again, it's such a charming and wonderful experience to go through with so many offerings to both new and old players. It's amazing to have seen this game not only remade, but remade well for the most part. It's another game I will recommend to people and I hope this remake means more Mario RPGs like this.
2020
Returned for my third run of the game recently, so time to explain why this is one of my favorite games of all time. For those unaware, Monster Sanctuary is a Monster Taming game in the setting of a Metroidvania. The main focus of the game is to acquire monsters, using them both for exploration and in 3v3 battles, in order to keep the titular Monster Sanctuary safe from the trouble that arises during the plot. A pretty simple premise and the story is quite simple, but this game offers a great deal of depth.
For where the depth comes from, the first aspect of that comes in the combat. Most fights are a 3v3 situation where in order to do well, you want to optimize your team's actions to build up the combo meter for your first two moves before your third monster releases their strongest move that's being buffed by the built up combo meter. What makes this combo system is how, excluding switching in monsters and skipping moves, EVERYTHING contributes to the build up of the combo meter. Attacks, healing, shielding, buffing, and even items help to contribute to the combo meter. This gives pretty much every action weight and makes you think about all the moves you make in order to optimize each of your turns.
The combat is great, but what makes the gameplay truly shine is the monster roster and how their uniqueness creates near-limitless possibilities. With 111 monsters in the game the roster is a bit small compared to other Monster Taming Games, but that is easily mended by by their sheer quality. Each monster has their own skill tree to invest points into and offers a great deal of customizability. There isn't enough points to get everything, so you have to pick and choose what each monster gets and effectively what their role will be. Not only that, but the more you look into the skill trees, the more you see how you can mix and match teams of monsters as many abilities and passives enable certain strategies. Some monsters enable stronger strategies for one kind of debuff or to spam as many of them out at once, others are designed around getting certain buffs and want more ways to get said buffs from teams, and some late game passives offer bonuses for specific types of monsters that bring together many in ways you didn't think would happen at first. And that's not even factoring in a certain mechanic that gets introduced roughly the mid game for most people that also drastically impacts each monster. Also for this team building, while you can can only have three monsters out at once, your entire team holds six monsters, furthering the amount of planning you can do. Honestly, I'm not sure just talking about this aspect here is doing justice as there is so much you can do with the team building that to fully appreciate it you have to play the game yourself. Admittedly this aspect can be a bit overwhelming, especially for newcomers, but once you learn the core team building principles of how to maximize synergies between monsters, you'll have a great deal of the game unlocked to you.
What makes the combat and team building so rewarding is that there's plenty of cases to use them well. Besides the wild monsters encounter, you also have Champion Battles and Keeper Duels to put you through the test. Champions are unnaturally stronger versions of monsters where they're usually 3v1s, but they also get multiple actions per turn, making them fairly tough opponents. Beating them is doable, but if you manage to get five stars in your ranking (more on that later), you'll also get their egg, encouraging you to improve if you want that monster on your team. Don't worry about getting five stars on the spot as there is a rematch mechanic for them (just be mindful they scale). And then there's the Keeper Duels, the battles against other Monster Keepers (and the battle rule set for PvP). Unlike Wild Monsters fights (Champs included) where it's just 3 monsters and losing all of them (unless you throw in new ones) ends the fight, you're not stopping in Duels until one's team of six is completely defeated. Fights play out the same except the first turn player only gets two of their three normal actions on turn one and if enough time passes, a "sudden death" mechanic kicks in with infinity stacks constantly being applied each turn that ramps up the damage each monster does. Keeper Duels are a lot harder as the enemy AI here is a lot smarter, has better optimized teams, and has certain strategies in mind that you'll need to learn to overcome. Both of these fights can be daunting at times, but they are incredibly rewarding to overcome and help to bring this game's amazing combat and team building systems to their fullest. Just be warned that this can sometimes be a hard game at times on the default difficulty (you can lower it if need be).
And if that wasn't enough, once you beat this game the first, A LOT of new stuff opens up for future runs to add a lot more replayability (and given how this game is already replayable given the nature of Monster Taming games, it really does open up A TON to do).
Before moving onto the exploration side of the gameplay, I do have one complaint with the combat system of the game; The Ranking system, or rather what comes out of it. So for wild monster fights, you get ranked on various categories, like how much HP you have left, how quickly you finished the fight, etc, to tally up to a final score with a ranking of 1-5 stars attached to it. At first, I disliked the ranking system at first as other games with rankings (namely FE7 and Valkyria Chronicles's ranking system) make me feel like I'm playing the game wrong. Monster Sanctuary's was that at first too, but then I've come to realize how it's not really that mean as it helps to teach you how to improve. Not only that, unlike some of those games, Monster Sanctuary's team building means there's countless ways to get excellent ranks for each fight. That's not the issue. The issue is the loot tied to the rankings. Not for Champions as their loot is guaranteed drops so long as you hit certain ranks for the first time (ex. get 4 stars or more for their unique piece of gear), but for wild encounters. Sometimes, even when you do well and have a high rare loot chance, sometimes you don't get what you want. What makes this problematic is that Monster Eggs, your main way of getting new monsters, are also item drops and sometimes, especially early on, it can be a pain to get new eggs and thus new monsters that you may want for your team or need for exploration. This becomes less pressing once you're in mid/late game, but it can sometimes be an obnoxious thorn in an otherwise perfect rose for the combat and team building.
With that all said and done, time for the Metroidvania aspect of this game. For the most part, it's pretty solid. Now if you're a more dedicated Metroidvania fan, Monster Sanctuary is a bit lighter on its elements. Namely how there's less crazy skills and abilities you'll get compared to the typical Metroidvania and how the player character themself gets two main upgrades. That I can see being a bit of a turn off for some, but to say Monster Sanctuary is completely without what makes those games fun would be a lie. While the player character themself gets little upgrades for exploration, you still get many tools to help you explore the Sanctuary via the monsters themselves. Some can break down certain walls hiding loot, others can active elemental orbs to open up new paths, and there are those that enhance the mobility of the player with things like letting them fly for a bit, the ability to swim through water, or just being a mount for faster movement. Things like that and much more offers the player a lot of depth in exploration and how to interact with the world. Plus, it's an incredible way to still encourage the Monster Taming aspect of the game since the more monsters you get, the more opens up for your exploration and what you can find.
In addition to this, like other Metroidvanias, Monster Sanctuary can be quite open. Yes, the game does have an intended order for you and there are a decent number of places you need to finish first before accessing, if you know what you're doing, you can go off the typical path and access a good number of places early. And with the game's level scaling system, you can go to these later areas without being punished for doing so (though as a small tip, if you ever do get out-leveled by 3-5 levels, I'd recommend to drop your current task, level grind a bit, and then continue until you're on par again, resuming constant fights if the enemy starts being ahead by one level). Not only does that offer the Metroidvania fan their exploration itch, but the ability to go to different areas instead of one path also means more ways you can team build by finding certain monsters quicker. Also added in a later update is the ability to mark your map, which helps out with exploration a lot and shows map completion for each area, which is a godsend for those wanting 100% map completion.
Now onto the game's story. For the most part, it's an excuse plot for the gameplay. It's a fairly simple story to follow with maybe only two or three weird or rushed things to happen in it. However, it's a serviceable story and there's nothing really awful or bad dragging it down per say. At worst however, rather than having anything bad, there's just a lot of stuff that could have been greatly expanded on for some of the characters as you either see some elements where they could be improved upon or some stuff we don't get to see happen on screen. If you play the game, you'll know what I mean there.
While the main story's plot is pretty simple, one thing I will give the writing a lot of credit is the lore. When you look into it, either by what NPCs tell you or read up in the Monster Journal, this game has some very interesting lore about this game's world, from the backgrounds of each monster, how the Monster Keepers got some monsters into the Sanctuary to keep them protected from the Old World (outside of the Sanctuary), and various other world building details that make this game's world feel a bit more alive, but also "whimsical" that we don't get from many games nowadays. Would have preferred if more of this stuff was tied into the plot, but it's not a deal breaker and the actually interesting parts of the plot also often have ties to the lore you can learn about.
As for other aspects of this game, the music is great. The OST does start off a bit more tame, going for a more relaxed feel, but the further you get into the game, the more you start finding the game's best songs. Amongst these are more atmospherical feeling to each location, some very intense battle themes, and more. Easily helps elevate the game in a lot of places and moments that really needed it.
On the topic of sounds, I think the game's sound design, namely for combat noises, are really good. They really stick in your head, especially when you either get in a lot of hits, when the enemy takes a lot of passive debuff damage, and especially the sound effect for monsters being defeated are quite rememberable. Although I do think the succeed a bit too well for the missed sound effect and the agony it induces whenever that happens. Outside of the fights, the menuing and item obtained sound effects are also quite impactful as well.
Last thing I'll make note of are the visuals. This game looks great. Each of the game's main areas are well designed and all stand out on their own. All of the Monsters look quite nice and their sprites and art in the Monster Journal generally looks really great as well. It's a very visually pleasing game that helps to continue the endless charm of 2D sprites/pixelwork.
Overall, Monster Sanctuary is a fantastic game. Been almost four years since its release and this is still the best Monster Taming game that I have ever played and has so much to offer for many more years. It may not be perfect given its more simplistic story, but the utterly amazing game design, especially for its Monsters and 3v3 battles, makes up for many of the game's few short comings. If you love the Monster Taming genre, this game is one of the best ones that you can find. And you can even often find this game for cheap with it often getting discounted, making it quite the steal too. Again, Monster Sanctuary is an amazing game and gets one of my highest recommendations for people to play.
For where the depth comes from, the first aspect of that comes in the combat. Most fights are a 3v3 situation where in order to do well, you want to optimize your team's actions to build up the combo meter for your first two moves before your third monster releases their strongest move that's being buffed by the built up combo meter. What makes this combo system is how, excluding switching in monsters and skipping moves, EVERYTHING contributes to the build up of the combo meter. Attacks, healing, shielding, buffing, and even items help to contribute to the combo meter. This gives pretty much every action weight and makes you think about all the moves you make in order to optimize each of your turns.
The combat is great, but what makes the gameplay truly shine is the monster roster and how their uniqueness creates near-limitless possibilities. With 111 monsters in the game the roster is a bit small compared to other Monster Taming Games, but that is easily mended by by their sheer quality. Each monster has their own skill tree to invest points into and offers a great deal of customizability. There isn't enough points to get everything, so you have to pick and choose what each monster gets and effectively what their role will be. Not only that, but the more you look into the skill trees, the more you see how you can mix and match teams of monsters as many abilities and passives enable certain strategies. Some monsters enable stronger strategies for one kind of debuff or to spam as many of them out at once, others are designed around getting certain buffs and want more ways to get said buffs from teams, and some late game passives offer bonuses for specific types of monsters that bring together many in ways you didn't think would happen at first. And that's not even factoring in a certain mechanic that gets introduced roughly the mid game for most people that also drastically impacts each monster. Also for this team building, while you can can only have three monsters out at once, your entire team holds six monsters, furthering the amount of planning you can do. Honestly, I'm not sure just talking about this aspect here is doing justice as there is so much you can do with the team building that to fully appreciate it you have to play the game yourself. Admittedly this aspect can be a bit overwhelming, especially for newcomers, but once you learn the core team building principles of how to maximize synergies between monsters, you'll have a great deal of the game unlocked to you.
What makes the combat and team building so rewarding is that there's plenty of cases to use them well. Besides the wild monsters encounter, you also have Champion Battles and Keeper Duels to put you through the test. Champions are unnaturally stronger versions of monsters where they're usually 3v1s, but they also get multiple actions per turn, making them fairly tough opponents. Beating them is doable, but if you manage to get five stars in your ranking (more on that later), you'll also get their egg, encouraging you to improve if you want that monster on your team. Don't worry about getting five stars on the spot as there is a rematch mechanic for them (just be mindful they scale). And then there's the Keeper Duels, the battles against other Monster Keepers (and the battle rule set for PvP). Unlike Wild Monsters fights (Champs included) where it's just 3 monsters and losing all of them (unless you throw in new ones) ends the fight, you're not stopping in Duels until one's team of six is completely defeated. Fights play out the same except the first turn player only gets two of their three normal actions on turn one and if enough time passes, a "sudden death" mechanic kicks in with infinity stacks constantly being applied each turn that ramps up the damage each monster does. Keeper Duels are a lot harder as the enemy AI here is a lot smarter, has better optimized teams, and has certain strategies in mind that you'll need to learn to overcome. Both of these fights can be daunting at times, but they are incredibly rewarding to overcome and help to bring this game's amazing combat and team building systems to their fullest. Just be warned that this can sometimes be a hard game at times on the default difficulty (you can lower it if need be).
And if that wasn't enough, once you beat this game the first, A LOT of new stuff opens up for future runs to add a lot more replayability (and given how this game is already replayable given the nature of Monster Taming games, it really does open up A TON to do).
Before moving onto the exploration side of the gameplay, I do have one complaint with the combat system of the game; The Ranking system, or rather what comes out of it. So for wild monster fights, you get ranked on various categories, like how much HP you have left, how quickly you finished the fight, etc, to tally up to a final score with a ranking of 1-5 stars attached to it. At first, I disliked the ranking system at first as other games with rankings (namely FE7 and Valkyria Chronicles's ranking system) make me feel like I'm playing the game wrong. Monster Sanctuary's was that at first too, but then I've come to realize how it's not really that mean as it helps to teach you how to improve. Not only that, unlike some of those games, Monster Sanctuary's team building means there's countless ways to get excellent ranks for each fight. That's not the issue. The issue is the loot tied to the rankings. Not for Champions as their loot is guaranteed drops so long as you hit certain ranks for the first time (ex. get 4 stars or more for their unique piece of gear), but for wild encounters. Sometimes, even when you do well and have a high rare loot chance, sometimes you don't get what you want. What makes this problematic is that Monster Eggs, your main way of getting new monsters, are also item drops and sometimes, especially early on, it can be a pain to get new eggs and thus new monsters that you may want for your team or need for exploration. This becomes less pressing once you're in mid/late game, but it can sometimes be an obnoxious thorn in an otherwise perfect rose for the combat and team building.
With that all said and done, time for the Metroidvania aspect of this game. For the most part, it's pretty solid. Now if you're a more dedicated Metroidvania fan, Monster Sanctuary is a bit lighter on its elements. Namely how there's less crazy skills and abilities you'll get compared to the typical Metroidvania and how the player character themself gets two main upgrades. That I can see being a bit of a turn off for some, but to say Monster Sanctuary is completely without what makes those games fun would be a lie. While the player character themself gets little upgrades for exploration, you still get many tools to help you explore the Sanctuary via the monsters themselves. Some can break down certain walls hiding loot, others can active elemental orbs to open up new paths, and there are those that enhance the mobility of the player with things like letting them fly for a bit, the ability to swim through water, or just being a mount for faster movement. Things like that and much more offers the player a lot of depth in exploration and how to interact with the world. Plus, it's an incredible way to still encourage the Monster Taming aspect of the game since the more monsters you get, the more opens up for your exploration and what you can find.
In addition to this, like other Metroidvanias, Monster Sanctuary can be quite open. Yes, the game does have an intended order for you and there are a decent number of places you need to finish first before accessing, if you know what you're doing, you can go off the typical path and access a good number of places early. And with the game's level scaling system, you can go to these later areas without being punished for doing so (though as a small tip, if you ever do get out-leveled by 3-5 levels, I'd recommend to drop your current task, level grind a bit, and then continue until you're on par again, resuming constant fights if the enemy starts being ahead by one level). Not only does that offer the Metroidvania fan their exploration itch, but the ability to go to different areas instead of one path also means more ways you can team build by finding certain monsters quicker. Also added in a later update is the ability to mark your map, which helps out with exploration a lot and shows map completion for each area, which is a godsend for those wanting 100% map completion.
Now onto the game's story. For the most part, it's an excuse plot for the gameplay. It's a fairly simple story to follow with maybe only two or three weird or rushed things to happen in it. However, it's a serviceable story and there's nothing really awful or bad dragging it down per say. At worst however, rather than having anything bad, there's just a lot of stuff that could have been greatly expanded on for some of the characters as you either see some elements where they could be improved upon or some stuff we don't get to see happen on screen. If you play the game, you'll know what I mean there.
While the main story's plot is pretty simple, one thing I will give the writing a lot of credit is the lore. When you look into it, either by what NPCs tell you or read up in the Monster Journal, this game has some very interesting lore about this game's world, from the backgrounds of each monster, how the Monster Keepers got some monsters into the Sanctuary to keep them protected from the Old World (outside of the Sanctuary), and various other world building details that make this game's world feel a bit more alive, but also "whimsical" that we don't get from many games nowadays. Would have preferred if more of this stuff was tied into the plot, but it's not a deal breaker and the actually interesting parts of the plot also often have ties to the lore you can learn about.
As for other aspects of this game, the music is great. The OST does start off a bit more tame, going for a more relaxed feel, but the further you get into the game, the more you start finding the game's best songs. Amongst these are more atmospherical feeling to each location, some very intense battle themes, and more. Easily helps elevate the game in a lot of places and moments that really needed it.
On the topic of sounds, I think the game's sound design, namely for combat noises, are really good. They really stick in your head, especially when you either get in a lot of hits, when the enemy takes a lot of passive debuff damage, and especially the sound effect for monsters being defeated are quite rememberable. Although I do think the succeed a bit too well for the missed sound effect and the agony it induces whenever that happens. Outside of the fights, the menuing and item obtained sound effects are also quite impactful as well.
Last thing I'll make note of are the visuals. This game looks great. Each of the game's main areas are well designed and all stand out on their own. All of the Monsters look quite nice and their sprites and art in the Monster Journal generally looks really great as well. It's a very visually pleasing game that helps to continue the endless charm of 2D sprites/pixelwork.
Overall, Monster Sanctuary is a fantastic game. Been almost four years since its release and this is still the best Monster Taming game that I have ever played and has so much to offer for many more years. It may not be perfect given its more simplistic story, but the utterly amazing game design, especially for its Monsters and 3v3 battles, makes up for many of the game's few short comings. If you love the Monster Taming genre, this game is one of the best ones that you can find. And you can even often find this game for cheap with it often getting discounted, making it quite the steal too. Again, Monster Sanctuary is an amazing game and gets one of my highest recommendations for people to play.
2024
This review contains spoilers
Didn't think we would get a spiritual successor to Ogre Battle, but you won't hear me complaining after I played this game and ended loving this game greatly. Came in high hopes and came out with pretty much most either achieved or surpassed with only some minor nitpicks.
To start off with the best of what makes UO so great is the gameplay. As stated before, this game is pretty much a spiritual successor to the Ogre Battle games in how it plays; I.e a RTS with RPG elements where you make squads of units that fight in auto battles and is more so about positing these squads in the right fights to win each battle rather than commanding each unit's exact action. And for the most part, UO makes MANY improvements to the combat and unit variety. In Ogre Battle 64, while I had a bunch of different units, it felt like I was usually just trying to optimize each team to be their own little death ball to carve through the map in most cases (with maybe one or two specialized teams for very specific enemies). In this game however, while some overpowered teams that decimate through everything can exist, there's so many more ways to build each team now. You can factor in stuff like passive effects/actions, buffs, debuffs, status effects, special moves, and other fun stuff to screw around with. Each character doesn't feel like a replaceable cog in a death ball machine, but rather a specific piece for a team to function that still has many ways to be utilized in. There's a great deal of synergy to be found with many different units in this game. I'm still learning about funny team combinations or learning how to better utilize certain characters/unit that I overlooked. Even if you're not the most apt team builder, I'm willing to bet there's still some fun and enjoyable team set ups that you can make. While the goal of each team is still defeat the foes before you, how to do so feels more varied and inspired compared to the fights in Ogre Battle.
That alone would make the combat and team building aspect of this game amazing, however, we haven't mentioned the Tactics system yet. For those who played FF12 ZA, this is basically the gambit system (i.e control how each character's AI works), which feels so natural with the auto-battle aspect of the game. If you know how to program your unit's actions correctly, it enables a lot of creativity and creates a great deal of fun through fine-tuning each team before they're sent off to battle. Now admittedly, this aspect of the game can be overwhelming, it certainly took me a bit to properly learn and how to make efficient teams (hell, even still have a lot to learn still now), but for some, that too is part of the fun for this game through trial and error before you find your favorite team set ups. Then once you see those set ups in action and see them work splendidly, it creates a nice rewarding feeling that never gets old.
Making this better is the game having plenty of great battles/maps to release these teams onto. In general, a lot of the map design for Unicorn Overlord is quite fun. Sure there's some stinkers I'll rant about if you give me the chance to if asked, but in general, the map design for this game is great. There's many rememberable battles in this one with some fun twists, cool stage gimmicks, and includes one of my new favorite maps in the form of "The Two Princes" in ANY SRPG. In addition to the teams you can deploy, there are Valor skills you can use tied to each class that opens up MANY ways to engage with each fight. Some are kind of broken and utterly cheese some maps, but it's fun figuring out how best to use the Valor skills to your advantage. Like-wise with the items you can use mid-battle as this game greatly encourages using your items rather than hoarding them away, which helps to open up another avenue of strategy for you (though they are kind of broken if you're playing below Expert as you don't have an item limit there). All of this, plus the unit variety, flexible team building, AND tactics system make for one hell of an amazing gameplay loop.
That said, there's another aspect of the loop that helps UO really stand out; The (mostly) open world nature of the game. Besides needing to beat the first main story mission to explore the other nations of Fevrith, this game is open world and you can move around in any order. In a lesser game, I could see this bothering me, especially since I'm not exactly a fan of the open world formula, but Unicorn Overlord handles its open world aspect extremely well. Rather than having large open areas with some bits of stuff to do scattered about, this game is tightly designed to find stuff wherever you go. Usually it comes in the form of another battle/mission, but that's what makes it work so well; You rarely go without the combat for a long time/denying you of stuff to do for the sake of being "open." Once you do one fight and maybe screwed around in the area you liberated for a bit or adjusted your teams after getting a new character, it's onto the next one. Besides the finding new fights, each victory usually liberates a town on the world map, giving you more stuff to buy, maybe some extra quests to check out, and the ability to rebuild these towns after the oppression they endured. Not to mention there's items to find on the map and if you want to certainly places, you can run past enemies too. There's rarely a shortage of things to do in Unicorn Overlord, making it one of the few open world that I actively enjoy.
For those who do enjoy open world stuff and worried they might be too restrained with Unicorn Overlord, don't worry; If you know how to win certain battles/best make used of you teams, you can easily sequence break into the higher leveled areas and mess around there. You can even do the final battle incredibly early if you know what you're doing. The open ended nature of this game makes it even more suitable for repeat runs on top of the team building and combat (which in themselves opens up so many ways to mess around with the game).
While I have glowing praise for this game, I do have some complaints/nitpicks for the gameplay. First is how, while generally being content rich, how much the game runs out of some gas in the later areas. There's still enough to do, but Bastoria and the Orthodoxy have a lot less fights and story in them sadly. On one hand, this does open up to some bigger scale battles since I think there are maybe a bit too many shorter fights in this game, but on the other it does suck there's less fights at certain points of the game where the player really gets to make some very fun teams. I'm also kind of agree with the crowd that wished there was some more post game content/NG+ since there's a lot given to you at the end you also don't get enough time to enjoy.
Another issue I have is also for those more end game areas, there are two VERY annoying enemy types that can really ruin your time without specific checks; Featherbows and Quick Cast Sorceresses. The former has a passive that blinds all your units in a row if one of them tries to attack, which can really draw out fights. As for the latter, they basically get a free chance to freeze an entire row of your units, which can be absolutely devastating. I don't mind the specific challenge against these enemies, but you see them a lot in the end, which in turn becomes very grating and sometimes screws over some fun teams that you've built.
Also while I love the unit variety in this game, I do kind of wished we got monster units like Ogre Battle/Tactics (stuff like Dragons, Hellhounds, the Undead, Fairies, Octopuses, etc. That kind of more unusual units).
My last issue with the game is that it kind of starts off slow. I get them not wanting to overwhelm the player like the Ogre Battle games, especially with team building stuff (Ex. OB 64 throws five teams of roughly 15-20ish units total for you organize ASAP, even more once you throw in the soldier groups you need to throw in to get more generic units, which in itself is another story of complexity), but sometimes UO feels slow at first with 2-3 sized units with only one Action Point (i.e one move per fight basically). At least combat gets fast quickly and some early teams do offer a lot of variety, but I wished we got to use larger squads a bit faster. Even with these flaws, the gameplay is just fantastic and is overall amazing provided you like screwing around with stuff and finding new exciting things to try out.
Next up is the story. The story itself isn't going to be winning any rewards as it's fairly basic as you've might of heard, but this game is very much a "case of simple doesn't mean bad." It's a standard tale of a Prince reclaiming his fallen kingdom while freeing other nations, a common story especially for those that have played Fire Emblem, but I think generally it's told, or rather executed well enough. The game doesn't try to be too goofy or overly serious with its tone or how it portrays this narrative, which is honestly very refreshing. It's pretty much hearing a classical story once again, it might not be the most revolutionary thing, but it's going to be a fun enough story to enjoy. Plus given the open ended nature of the game, it feels fine to have a more basic story to prevent things from getting overly complicated (especially given all the scene variations depending on your order of play; More on that later). And in spite of its more simple nature, I do think the story still has some nice highs in certain spots and it does throw some curveballs for some of the more easily predictable stuff that I will give the game credit for.
Helping it to be a simple but effective are the characters. Again, you aren't going to be getting some ground breaking characters, but I feel the cast isn't as bare bones as many claim. Though it's in an odd spot; It feels like they're in a middle of triple circle Venn diagram where it has aspects of FE1 characters (a lot who don't get many lines, but still many characters who still stand out), the early GBA FE characters/supports (actually get more characterization, albeit kind of limited), and FE Tellius where characters get scenes beyond their join map/supports (i.e getting to see non-main characters get some extra screen time, including some main story scenes, even if it's just a minuscule bit). Hope that kind weird explanation made sense, but basically despite the seeming shallow or basic at first, there is some surprising depth. I do wish more was done (we'll get to that soon enough), but I ended up endeared to a good number of characters as well as found a few scenes and rapports that legitimately impressed me.
Also one other thing that impressed me was the variance in some scenes and story bits depending on the order you play the game. Thanks to the open world nature, there's some neat details if you do certain things in order. For example in Drakenhold, if you complete the main story quest in it without recruiting a certain character, when you do recruit them their recruitment scene changes slightly to adjust to a possible story reveal if you did it. Or how early if you reach the midway point with another minor character recruited, they are better addressed in a story scene. But some of the more interesting stuff is if you rush to the final boss super early on and see some very dark, but morbidly interesting changes that happen that kind of deconstruct the idea of the hero rushing to the end early that people typically have. The fact there's so much variance in an overall simple plot is honestly really cool and shows there was a lot of care placed into the writing for a seemingly basic tale.
While not strictly story related, I do also want to give a shoutout to the Archives in this game. It's basically this game's version of the Hugo's/Warren's Reports in the Ogre Battle/Tactics games. Granted not as in depth as those glossaries, but it gives a lot of fun extra material to read into for those who care about the lore of the game. Not only that, but it basically has something akin to Golden Sun Dark Dawn's Red Word system where if there's another important term (and you found it), it actually takes you there so you can read up on it. More games with a decent amount of lore need to do that more often.
Now for the story negatives. Besides the story being more basic (which I don't find a problem), I have two main gripes. The first is that while I like the story and find it good, it does feel like a multiple points where it's obviously missing something to go from "just good" to better (and perhaps to something great). There's a few villains, namely two arc villains for certain nations, who I'd feel like would be a lot more interesting if they just had one or two more elements better explained/explored about them. As is, they're fine enough, but you can plainly see how they're close to being something a lot better and were missing one final push to make them truly standout. My other issue is how near the end of the game, there's a lot of honestly really cool lore dumps about the world and exact nature of the villains, but I REALLY wished we got more hints/build up to it. Thankfully we weren't completely without some hints and most of these lore dumps do feel like a natural continuation, but there's some information that would have been very nice to learn BEFORE you're that late into the game.
I do have one issue with the characters as well; So this game has rapports, or basically FE supports, and they're some of the best source of characterization for a lot of characters and get to give the cast more life. The problem is that there's A LOT of rapport chains, instead of having the usual three talks, only have two or even one. Now, I fully understand writing for a playable cast of like 60ish characters is a lot and I'm thankfully for what we have (again, these rapports are great and show why this cast isn't flat as many claim), but there's so many cases where some rapports should have gotten the full three talks. It feels like it's sort of the opposite problem of FE6 where instead of it taking forever to unlock really good supports, it's easy to unlock rapports and find some you'll love to only then find out it was the only one between certain characters.
That all said and done, while the story and characters won't be the greatest amongst SRPGs, I think it gets at least a respectable and enjoyable place among them, even if more could have been done.
For some remaining areas before we close off...
The music for this game is excellent. I do think that it does start off more tame, but once you get deeper into the game, it REALLY picks up. Especially for the boss battle themes as they're easily the highlights of this game's OST.
The presentation for this game is also fantastic and another highlight for this game. The art is great, especially for the character designs and the numerous backgrounds they created, making this one of the nicest looking games I've seen in a bit. Battles also flow nice enough (though I wish the speed up was the default speed for some animations to give them some extra oomph). The voice acting is also pretty great and some VA have some AMAZING line reads for certain spots. Also the food looks absurdly good, which seems to be a Vanillaware Staple that was fun to learn about.
In conclusion, Unicorn Overlord is a fantastic game. Granted, I do feel like it requires the right mindset given how different it is to other SRPGs most are used to, but it's truly a worthy game to check out. If you're unsure, on the game, there's a decently large demo that you can check out that I highly recommend. Unless something drastic happens with the games I play this year, this might be my favorite game in 2024.
To start off with the best of what makes UO so great is the gameplay. As stated before, this game is pretty much a spiritual successor to the Ogre Battle games in how it plays; I.e a RTS with RPG elements where you make squads of units that fight in auto battles and is more so about positing these squads in the right fights to win each battle rather than commanding each unit's exact action. And for the most part, UO makes MANY improvements to the combat and unit variety. In Ogre Battle 64, while I had a bunch of different units, it felt like I was usually just trying to optimize each team to be their own little death ball to carve through the map in most cases (with maybe one or two specialized teams for very specific enemies). In this game however, while some overpowered teams that decimate through everything can exist, there's so many more ways to build each team now. You can factor in stuff like passive effects/actions, buffs, debuffs, status effects, special moves, and other fun stuff to screw around with. Each character doesn't feel like a replaceable cog in a death ball machine, but rather a specific piece for a team to function that still has many ways to be utilized in. There's a great deal of synergy to be found with many different units in this game. I'm still learning about funny team combinations or learning how to better utilize certain characters/unit that I overlooked. Even if you're not the most apt team builder, I'm willing to bet there's still some fun and enjoyable team set ups that you can make. While the goal of each team is still defeat the foes before you, how to do so feels more varied and inspired compared to the fights in Ogre Battle.
That alone would make the combat and team building aspect of this game amazing, however, we haven't mentioned the Tactics system yet. For those who played FF12 ZA, this is basically the gambit system (i.e control how each character's AI works), which feels so natural with the auto-battle aspect of the game. If you know how to program your unit's actions correctly, it enables a lot of creativity and creates a great deal of fun through fine-tuning each team before they're sent off to battle. Now admittedly, this aspect of the game can be overwhelming, it certainly took me a bit to properly learn and how to make efficient teams (hell, even still have a lot to learn still now), but for some, that too is part of the fun for this game through trial and error before you find your favorite team set ups. Then once you see those set ups in action and see them work splendidly, it creates a nice rewarding feeling that never gets old.
Making this better is the game having plenty of great battles/maps to release these teams onto. In general, a lot of the map design for Unicorn Overlord is quite fun. Sure there's some stinkers I'll rant about if you give me the chance to if asked, but in general, the map design for this game is great. There's many rememberable battles in this one with some fun twists, cool stage gimmicks, and includes one of my new favorite maps in the form of "The Two Princes" in ANY SRPG. In addition to the teams you can deploy, there are Valor skills you can use tied to each class that opens up MANY ways to engage with each fight. Some are kind of broken and utterly cheese some maps, but it's fun figuring out how best to use the Valor skills to your advantage. Like-wise with the items you can use mid-battle as this game greatly encourages using your items rather than hoarding them away, which helps to open up another avenue of strategy for you (though they are kind of broken if you're playing below Expert as you don't have an item limit there). All of this, plus the unit variety, flexible team building, AND tactics system make for one hell of an amazing gameplay loop.
That said, there's another aspect of the loop that helps UO really stand out; The (mostly) open world nature of the game. Besides needing to beat the first main story mission to explore the other nations of Fevrith, this game is open world and you can move around in any order. In a lesser game, I could see this bothering me, especially since I'm not exactly a fan of the open world formula, but Unicorn Overlord handles its open world aspect extremely well. Rather than having large open areas with some bits of stuff to do scattered about, this game is tightly designed to find stuff wherever you go. Usually it comes in the form of another battle/mission, but that's what makes it work so well; You rarely go without the combat for a long time/denying you of stuff to do for the sake of being "open." Once you do one fight and maybe screwed around in the area you liberated for a bit or adjusted your teams after getting a new character, it's onto the next one. Besides the finding new fights, each victory usually liberates a town on the world map, giving you more stuff to buy, maybe some extra quests to check out, and the ability to rebuild these towns after the oppression they endured. Not to mention there's items to find on the map and if you want to certainly places, you can run past enemies too. There's rarely a shortage of things to do in Unicorn Overlord, making it one of the few open world that I actively enjoy.
For those who do enjoy open world stuff and worried they might be too restrained with Unicorn Overlord, don't worry; If you know how to win certain battles/best make used of you teams, you can easily sequence break into the higher leveled areas and mess around there. You can even do the final battle incredibly early if you know what you're doing. The open ended nature of this game makes it even more suitable for repeat runs on top of the team building and combat (which in themselves opens up so many ways to mess around with the game).
While I have glowing praise for this game, I do have some complaints/nitpicks for the gameplay. First is how, while generally being content rich, how much the game runs out of some gas in the later areas. There's still enough to do, but Bastoria and the Orthodoxy have a lot less fights and story in them sadly. On one hand, this does open up to some bigger scale battles since I think there are maybe a bit too many shorter fights in this game, but on the other it does suck there's less fights at certain points of the game where the player really gets to make some very fun teams. I'm also kind of agree with the crowd that wished there was some more post game content/NG+ since there's a lot given to you at the end you also don't get enough time to enjoy.
Another issue I have is also for those more end game areas, there are two VERY annoying enemy types that can really ruin your time without specific checks; Featherbows and Quick Cast Sorceresses. The former has a passive that blinds all your units in a row if one of them tries to attack, which can really draw out fights. As for the latter, they basically get a free chance to freeze an entire row of your units, which can be absolutely devastating. I don't mind the specific challenge against these enemies, but you see them a lot in the end, which in turn becomes very grating and sometimes screws over some fun teams that you've built.
Also while I love the unit variety in this game, I do kind of wished we got monster units like Ogre Battle/Tactics (stuff like Dragons, Hellhounds, the Undead, Fairies, Octopuses, etc. That kind of more unusual units).
My last issue with the game is that it kind of starts off slow. I get them not wanting to overwhelm the player like the Ogre Battle games, especially with team building stuff (Ex. OB 64 throws five teams of roughly 15-20ish units total for you organize ASAP, even more once you throw in the soldier groups you need to throw in to get more generic units, which in itself is another story of complexity), but sometimes UO feels slow at first with 2-3 sized units with only one Action Point (i.e one move per fight basically). At least combat gets fast quickly and some early teams do offer a lot of variety, but I wished we got to use larger squads a bit faster. Even with these flaws, the gameplay is just fantastic and is overall amazing provided you like screwing around with stuff and finding new exciting things to try out.
Next up is the story. The story itself isn't going to be winning any rewards as it's fairly basic as you've might of heard, but this game is very much a "case of simple doesn't mean bad." It's a standard tale of a Prince reclaiming his fallen kingdom while freeing other nations, a common story especially for those that have played Fire Emblem, but I think generally it's told, or rather executed well enough. The game doesn't try to be too goofy or overly serious with its tone or how it portrays this narrative, which is honestly very refreshing. It's pretty much hearing a classical story once again, it might not be the most revolutionary thing, but it's going to be a fun enough story to enjoy. Plus given the open ended nature of the game, it feels fine to have a more basic story to prevent things from getting overly complicated (especially given all the scene variations depending on your order of play; More on that later). And in spite of its more simple nature, I do think the story still has some nice highs in certain spots and it does throw some curveballs for some of the more easily predictable stuff that I will give the game credit for.
Helping it to be a simple but effective are the characters. Again, you aren't going to be getting some ground breaking characters, but I feel the cast isn't as bare bones as many claim. Though it's in an odd spot; It feels like they're in a middle of triple circle Venn diagram where it has aspects of FE1 characters (a lot who don't get many lines, but still many characters who still stand out), the early GBA FE characters/supports (actually get more characterization, albeit kind of limited), and FE Tellius where characters get scenes beyond their join map/supports (i.e getting to see non-main characters get some extra screen time, including some main story scenes, even if it's just a minuscule bit). Hope that kind weird explanation made sense, but basically despite the seeming shallow or basic at first, there is some surprising depth. I do wish more was done (we'll get to that soon enough), but I ended up endeared to a good number of characters as well as found a few scenes and rapports that legitimately impressed me.
Also one other thing that impressed me was the variance in some scenes and story bits depending on the order you play the game. Thanks to the open world nature, there's some neat details if you do certain things in order. For example in Drakenhold, if you complete the main story quest in it without recruiting a certain character, when you do recruit them their recruitment scene changes slightly to adjust to a possible story reveal if you did it. Or how early if you reach the midway point with another minor character recruited, they are better addressed in a story scene. But some of the more interesting stuff is if you rush to the final boss super early on and see some very dark, but morbidly interesting changes that happen that kind of deconstruct the idea of the hero rushing to the end early that people typically have. The fact there's so much variance in an overall simple plot is honestly really cool and shows there was a lot of care placed into the writing for a seemingly basic tale.
While not strictly story related, I do also want to give a shoutout to the Archives in this game. It's basically this game's version of the Hugo's/Warren's Reports in the Ogre Battle/Tactics games. Granted not as in depth as those glossaries, but it gives a lot of fun extra material to read into for those who care about the lore of the game. Not only that, but it basically has something akin to Golden Sun Dark Dawn's Red Word system where if there's another important term (and you found it), it actually takes you there so you can read up on it. More games with a decent amount of lore need to do that more often.
Now for the story negatives. Besides the story being more basic (which I don't find a problem), I have two main gripes. The first is that while I like the story and find it good, it does feel like a multiple points where it's obviously missing something to go from "just good" to better (and perhaps to something great). There's a few villains, namely two arc villains for certain nations, who I'd feel like would be a lot more interesting if they just had one or two more elements better explained/explored about them. As is, they're fine enough, but you can plainly see how they're close to being something a lot better and were missing one final push to make them truly standout. My other issue is how near the end of the game, there's a lot of honestly really cool lore dumps about the world and exact nature of the villains, but I REALLY wished we got more hints/build up to it. Thankfully we weren't completely without some hints and most of these lore dumps do feel like a natural continuation, but there's some information that would have been very nice to learn BEFORE you're that late into the game.
I do have one issue with the characters as well; So this game has rapports, or basically FE supports, and they're some of the best source of characterization for a lot of characters and get to give the cast more life. The problem is that there's A LOT of rapport chains, instead of having the usual three talks, only have two or even one. Now, I fully understand writing for a playable cast of like 60ish characters is a lot and I'm thankfully for what we have (again, these rapports are great and show why this cast isn't flat as many claim), but there's so many cases where some rapports should have gotten the full three talks. It feels like it's sort of the opposite problem of FE6 where instead of it taking forever to unlock really good supports, it's easy to unlock rapports and find some you'll love to only then find out it was the only one between certain characters.
That all said and done, while the story and characters won't be the greatest amongst SRPGs, I think it gets at least a respectable and enjoyable place among them, even if more could have been done.
For some remaining areas before we close off...
The music for this game is excellent. I do think that it does start off more tame, but once you get deeper into the game, it REALLY picks up. Especially for the boss battle themes as they're easily the highlights of this game's OST.
The presentation for this game is also fantastic and another highlight for this game. The art is great, especially for the character designs and the numerous backgrounds they created, making this one of the nicest looking games I've seen in a bit. Battles also flow nice enough (though I wish the speed up was the default speed for some animations to give them some extra oomph). The voice acting is also pretty great and some VA have some AMAZING line reads for certain spots. Also the food looks absurdly good, which seems to be a Vanillaware Staple that was fun to learn about.
In conclusion, Unicorn Overlord is a fantastic game. Granted, I do feel like it requires the right mindset given how different it is to other SRPGs most are used to, but it's truly a worthy game to check out. If you're unsure, on the game, there's a decently large demo that you can check out that I highly recommend. Unless something drastic happens with the games I play this year, this might be my favorite game in 2024.