Awesome idea. Cool environments. I really felt at times I was playing a SpongeBob Souls game. Kril is a good character. His enthusiasm for paying taxes makes him a bitch but I root for him anyway.

I got softlocked on the scenery, twice. And the music I find to be lacking for the good visual vibe going on here.

It's at the right price point for what you get.

Unicorn Overlord is a very clearly a passion project and love letter to tactical RPGs and it is one that sticks its landing incredibly well. It manages to balance a wealth of new, fresh, and innovative ideas in its gameplay and presentation, while also bringing in a “best hits” mentality from the games that clearly inspired it. What results is something that I greatly enjoyed.

The blue haired, sword-wielding, prince & co. starting a revolution to take back a corrupted kingdom is almost identical to the setup of Fire Emblem 1- and there are clear ideas pilfered from games like Final Fantasy XII and Suikoden baked into the gameplay and worldbuilding, yet it remains very much its own thing. Combining real-time and turn-based elements in the gameplay mechanics was incredibly fun and interesting, and added new layers of strategizing I’ve not experienced before. Every tool in my kit felt like it had a place in battle, and I could experiment however I wanted. The party composition especially held a lot of depth that felt great to see the rewards of when I smartly approached it. When not in combat encounters, the world is incredibly liberating and I felt very rewarded by my own choices allowing me to take on harder battles early to explore entire continents well before the story took me there. Every corner had some new quest to do, piece of an objective to find, or simply an item to pick up that I could use to rebuild a town or heal in battle. I also loved that the final mission of the game opens up fairly early on, and you can choose to tackle it as early as you want if you feel equipped. This game is just a ton of fun overall.

The game loses me a little bit with its story. It’s far from being “bad”, it's populated with tons of varied characters, and (along with the rest of the game) is presented outstandingly- but it doesn’t take nearly as many risks as the gameplay does. It is very serviceable, and very much nothing I haven’t already seen many times over. I don’t mind serviceable stories, but when that is all that pushes along the adventure, it seeps into the gameplay and by the last chunk of it all I was ready to be done. It got a little repetitive admittedly, but not anywhere close to negatively impacting my feelings on the game.

Ultimately, though, Unicorn Overlord is the type of game that makes me sad knowing it’ll be overlooked by most when it deserves a lot more attention. I enjoyed my time enough to even grab the Platinum trophy on my Playstation. This was my introduction to Vanillaware and it has bumped up some of their other titles on my priority list out of virtue of how much I enjoyed this one. And while Atlus only published it I can pretty easily say this is my favorite new game they have put out since SMT4. If you enjoy tactical RPGs, Fire Emblem, gorgeous art direction, fantasy settings- or if a screenshot of the combat looks like the type of thing you might enjoy- try this game. It’s well worth it, and I had a wonderful time.

Edit ~one month later: I gotta say I really was in the moment when I reviewed this because nowadays I really, REALLY struggle to remember or care about anything story or character related. The gameplay loop is very satisfying and fun, the world is great, and I'm sure some will get plenty of mileage out of the cast- but to me I think it is really bland and it does kind of take away from the experience retrospectively. I was thinking about the 75 and counting JRPGs I have completed and I think Alain might be the single most boring protagonist of any of them..? I feel like he got zero characterization at all aside from being an honest and noble prince to save the day! I can't remember more than three or four of the party member's names either. If you asked me to describe the story I think all I could really muster is "Your castle gets overthrown and now years later you, the prince, must go back and stop the bad guys"- and to be fair, I think that really is all they give. I had a lot of fun with the game, but truthfully it really feels disposable, or the type of game I would say rent or borrow from a friend if those were still popular ways of playing games these days. The game has gone on some fair sales recently so I think if you can snag it with a price drop you'll have some fun for sure. Though if you are craving a tactical RPG and you have not played Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem Geneaology of the Holy War- prioritize those first. A lot of my praise of this game still stands- it's fun, gorgeous, and feels very liberating. However, I really can't turn a blind eye to how barebones and cookie-cutter the remainder of the experience ended up. I have bumped it down a star accordingly to reflect my marinated feelings on it.

I still hope this game is successful and gets an audience and that Vanillaware listens to fan reception and someday could maybe make a really great sequel that addresses a lot of the dissapointing elements. I'd love to play that game, but for the time being I think Unicorn Overlord as we have it now leaves something to be desired.

Absolutely mindblowing.
This game has one of the most complex narratives I've seen in a videogame, and by the end, it successfully manages to answer every single question you have, and this is what I call good writing.

The way the story is structured is very fascinating, having to replay the same sections but slowly gathering more information and creating new branching paths is such a clever idea to tell a story, and it never gets boring. Also the way the overarching story is connected via the character stories is incredible, some character arcs conclude inside other characters' arcs, and they make perfect sense.
Reading the mystery files also gives a ton of information about what is currently happening in the game, and it's very helpful.

Sadly the game has only one specific flaw, which is honestly quite major, and it's the gameplay. The Destruction mode itself is a decent idea, having combat in between keeps it fresh considering how the vast majority of the game consists of pure dialogue, however, the combat itself is very shallow and mediocre, even though it can be fun sometimes, there are barely any interesting mechanics, and it's frustratingly repetitive. It only gets worse when you are forced to progress the Destruction mode so you can progress the story because it hurts the pacing.

Personally I didn't expect to love this game that much, it's a very unique experience, the plot hooks you from the beginning and slowly unravels in a way I've never seen before, the overall story is just phenomenal, and the characters are very well written.

Final Rating: "Amazing" ~ 9/10.