I’d heard a lot of alright reviews of Unicorn Overlord. There were plenty of bits that people seemed to love, some that seemed like they were inserting their preferred headcanon and some that was just people sharing the bits of the game they loved most. For example, there’s an exchange between two women in one of the early encounters that is easily read as incredibly gay. It isn’t a stretch at all and while I’m skeptical of actual lesbian representation in this game, I would be surprised to find out that this relationship isn’t canonical. Needless to say, short videos and screenshots of this exchange made their rounds on the internet in the weeks following the game’s release, which is how the game caught my attention. There’s some later interaction that lend to this kind of read as well, but still nothing that actually outright says it or demonstrates it. Shortly after those images and gifs went around, the absolutely delicious food you can get at taverns in the game–as part of the relationship building mechanics of the game–started showing up in screenshots and helped tip my opinion in favor of trying the game out. It all looks so delicious! Not quite like food in a Ghibli film, but close enough that the comparison is deserving. What really hooked me, though, was learning that it was basically a Fire Emblem type game but with different battle mechanics and a better gaming experience than Fire Emblem: Engage provided in early 2023. Which is a low bar to clear, in my opinion, but an important bar given how much I love those kinds of strategy games and how disappointed I was by Engage.

Now, Unicorn Overlord isn’t perfect. So far, twenty-some hours into the game, the story is fairly banal. I’ve mostly explored the first country you get access to, as you guide the young scion of a conquered kingdom through the process of freeing the world from the empire created by the tyrant that killed said scion’s mother, but I’ve begun to dip my toes into the next areas and it all seems a bit boringly straight-forward. There doesn’t seem to be anything clever going on in the plot and all attempts to recruit additional characters seem to succeed so long as you talk to the right units in battle (which the game goes out of its way to make easy for you to do) or because you defeated the map’s boss in battle and stayed your hand so they could join your side. Despite some of these absolutely horrible villains committing severe crimes, most of them have stories (some revealed after the fact, during relationship conversations) about why they’re doing what they’re doing that largely amount to them being forced to take up a life of crime to provide support to those they care about that has been taken away from them as a result of the vicious conquering empire or because they were being literally mind controlled. I keep expecting someone to betray me, using a likely sob story as cover to keep their skin intact while they worm their way into my army, but so far everyone seems to be on the level. Some of these relationships and character turning points are more compelling and interesting than others, but most of them seem pretty boring or a little heinous to consider.

Other than the somewhat bland plot and new companion motivations, the rest of the game is a lot of fun. While the combat can get a little tedious at times, the huge range of possible unit compositions for battle means that you can rarely go on auto-pilot. After all, despite there being a fairly basic level-up system, stat increases don’t necessarily help you all that much. They do help of course, but what matters more is making sure you have the right strengths to hit the enemy’s weaknesses, getting the right passive abilities lined up, and the order of actions. All of which is based more on unit type and gear than the level your characters are, though higher levels unlock additional powers, so hitting those milestones are still super helpful. What it essentially boils down to is that your unit–a group of two to so far four characters led by one member of that group in particular–enters every battle with a pre-determined outcome based on their abilities, their gear, their initiative, and the rules you’ve placed on how those specific character uses their abilities. You can alter the outcome by using items, changing the placement of your units on the little map tile they’re displayed on, or changing the rules that govern how your characters use their abilities. As long as you’ve got the right strengths lined up, are setting sensible rules on your units, and aren’t burning through resources too quickly, you have a very good chance of winning each fight on the default difficulty. Once you go up in difficulty, though, the battles get more strenuous and require more exact planning on your part to make sure that you’ve gotten everything lined up as perfectly as possible.

The extra layers of strategy are a lot of fun to play with and–much like another favorite game of mine, Chained Echoes–require you to consistently pay attention to the game you’re playing. If you ever let yourself run on auto-pilot, counting on the power of a unit you’ve built and their comparatively high levels to see you through every battle, you’ll quickly win up losing an encounter. While death is not permanent in all but the highest difficulties, losing a character in a unit is a quick way to lose every encounter after that. If you start to get steamrolled, it will only happen more and more quickly. Which means you have to stay on guard and I love a game that gives me an evolving challenge by introducing new unit types, abilities, and terrain effects. Every time I start to get tired of battles or feel that they’re getting too easy, I move into a new area that introduces some new difficulties for me to work around or overcome. It’s a lot of fun. I’ve still got a lot of game to play, sure, but it has so far been worth the price of entry and the headache involved in getting my hands on a physical copy of the game. As long as the story doesn’t take a turn for the worse, I should enjoy my time with the rest of this game. I don’t need a perfect story to enjoy a game this engaging, it just needs to be, at worst, bland enough to not get in the way of me enjoying the mechanics.

All that said, my absolute favorite part of the game is the voice acting. There’s been no stirring performances yet, and I doubt the writing in the game is strong enough to deliver that, but the directing for the voice actors is stellar and every voice line I hear sounds like the actor is fully committed to their character and aware of the nuances of the situation playing out on screen. The characters practically leap out of the game and I’m only rarely tempted to skip ahead of the voice lines since I can read two or three times faster than the lines can be spoken. Which, for someone who knows they’re playing a very long game and has a huge backlog of other games to play and books to read, is saying a lot. I’m willing to give this game as much time as it wants because of the voice acting and I can’t think of another game I’ve ever played where that was true.

Once I’ve finished the game, probably after my vacation, I’ll write more about it. Let you all know what I think of Unicorn Overlord in its entirety. For now, though, I’d definitely recommend it if you like strategy games or have a hankering that only Fire Emblem can normally fulfill. White it doesn’t have the character depth and emotional intensity of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, it still feels like a more worthy successor to that stellar entry in the Fire Emblem franchise than Engage ever did.