Progress Report: Unicorn Overlord
So, full disclosure: I played the demo of Unicorn Overlord back when it came out, and found it to be pretty mid. It didn't mechanically vibe with me, nor did it provide was I looking for at the time so I figured that was that and moved on to something else. But, having recently wrapped up Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, I didn't want to jump straight into another story-heavy game (RIP No Sleep For Kaname Date), so instead I picked up this game for $20 and the intention to give it an honest shake. I don't have anything else going on until Prime 4 drops, so why not see what I missed?
Second disclosure: While it is very clearly the game's primary inspiration, I have never played an Ogre Battle game. Many people point to Fire Emblem (and boy, are we gonna get to that real soon), but that's a very superficial comparison that's basically only useful to get someone in the door if they've never played anything other than like, FE and Final Fantasy Tactics. That said, there is a lot of Fire Emblem in there, and I have played a lot of Fire Emblem, so forgive me if that's the lens that I'm viewing this through. I promise that I know the more direct lineage, I'm just not familiar with it.
So, let's start from the top. Unicorn Overlord opens with Alain (the main character) being escorted by the palace by a knight (Josef) at the behest of his mother (the queen) because one of her generals is staging a coup. Upon escaping from the palace, they flee to a nearby island nation where they hole up for several years while said general takes over the country (and then most of the world, now taking the name Emperor Galerius), only to be forced out of hiding when imperial troops find their way to the island. Upon defeating them, Alain returns to the mainland with the aim of liberating his homeland (and the rest of the world) and putting a stop to Galerius' plans. And...congratulations! You have now described, almost to the letter, the plot of Fire Emblem 1: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light (c. 1990) - and several other Fire Emblems, as well as a plethora of other medieval fantasy tactics games. The well is not that deep, and I do not have high hopes for it as the game goes on, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.
And yeah, I know, coming up with a hyper-generic plot doesn't make this a Fire Emblem ripoff, but this is not limited to just the broad strokes. Sure, Alain is a blue-haired, sword-wielding goody-two-shoes and Josef is an older paladin intended to help you get out of early jams, but there are some deeper cuts here that make it clear they've done their homework. The game isn't quite as blatant with its inspirations for a while, then it drops a map where a cleric is broken out of jail by an enemy swordsman with a high-crit weapon, who can then be recruited by sending said cleric to talk to him; the cleric is also a red-haired girl who is the sister to a princess who rides a flying mount and wields an axe. Making the same character both the Lena and the Maria? Now that's efficiency.
Side note: It's not really going to come up because I've seen like, three of them up to the point where I've played, but UO also features Support Rapport Conversations, where units that have fought together in the same unit long enough can deepen their bond with a short conversation spanning three ranks and granting small, but increasingly significant mechanical benefits. Again, the game is not subtle about what it's doing here; I've seen the game described as what you would get if you took all the constituent parts of Fire Emblem and used them to build an RTS instead, and it's very hard to argue with that, especially from a conceptual level. They probably weren't explicitly going for something so close, but you can see how a thought process of "Hey, Three Houses did really well, we should do something similar to that!" would lead to what we got as those elements got plugged into Vanillaware's RTS engine.
Anyway, the actual game is a strange hybrid of choosing and equipping units, building teams, and setting tactics, which is...a lot. This is where I imagine having some kind of Ogre Battle experience comes in handy, because I didn't really feel like I had a good handle on combining all of these things until around the time I wrapped up Act 1, even with the game's attempt to slow-play things for the sake of tutorializing. This may perhaps be an unpopular take, but I really feel like it could have done with one less layer of complexity, ideally the part where you can go in and individually kit out each of your army's members. This naturally becomes less of a problem as you reach your unit caps and people start getting benched, but even just 10 hours in, I was already juggling 20 guys and it gets incredibly tedious just trying to do a basic "okay I have three new swords, who needs an upgrade?", let alone if changing equipment means gaining or losing skills (and therefore available tactics).
Comparatively, the act of putting together your squads is really well done and obviously the heart of the game. This is a min-maxxer's paradise, with up to five units in each squad, and the ability to set each individual unit's tactics via something very similar to the FF12 Gambit system. There's always something to optimize: a better kit, a better combination of units, a different set of tactics, etc. This is clearly the kind of game that you can get obsessed with if you allow it, and even as someone who falls on the side of "Eh, I'll stick with what I've got until it stops working," I'm still sorting through ideas that I could do with a unit that joined me at the end of my last play session. As for the stages themselves? They're...fine, I guess. Console RTS games face an uphill battle at the best of times, and UO is a perfectly adequate one. It's not nothing, but again, the game's primary loop is the squad building, and the actual combat parts are really just an excuse to see your efforts play out. And for what it's worth, I like it better than 13 Sentinels' combat.
If I do have one major complaint about the game, it's that as someone who is not (yet?) a sicko, I very much get the vibe that this is a case of "We made these systems that are cool to play with for like, 20-30 hours for most people and then made 50 hours of content." To the game's credit, a lot of it is optional, but doing so means both foregoing new characters and falling a bit behind the level curve. Now, the game is not particularly difficult so that's less of a problem than it seems like, and if you really want a particular unit type, you can always hire a merc and create your own. They won't be able unlock any rapport conversations, and you'll be limited by which unit types are available on the critical path, but it's better than nothing. But I digress: after a little over 10 hours, I have 22% map completion and the game is already starting to get a little samey. Maybe there's some big twist coming, but I really don't get that feeling - this seems like what the game is, and there's as much of it there as you would like to indulge in, for good or ill.
I hope the next time I write about UO, it's a full review after finishing the game, but I would not be surprised at all if it just quietly fades into the background and I just move on to something else after 25 hours or so when I've had my fill. The good news (for UO, at least) is that I don't have anything lined up for a while, so it has as much runway as it needs. Whether or not that ends up being a good thing...we'll see.