Review of Unicorn Overlord – Anime Army

Fans will recognize the unique art style of Japanese studio Vanillaware at first glance – it can be recognized, for example, from games like 13 Sentinels or Dragon’s Crown. Their latest game is also full of it, but it is also a very large and deep strategy game, which its creators have been dreaming about for ten years, while developing it against the background of their other games. This long-term care is definitely recognizable in the game. It is no coincidence that the seemingly inconspicuous 2D game is sold at full price of big games ($ 60 on PSN in the US), and that physical copies sold out very quickly both in its home country, Japan, and elsewhere in the world.

• Platform: PS5
• Publication date: 03.08.2024
• Manufacturer: Vanilver (Japan)
• Genre: Tactical RPG
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data for download: 7 GB
• Play time: 50+ hours
• Price: 1,499 CZK (Alsa)

Romantic adventure

The story begins like many similar Japanese fantasy stories: a treacherous general murders the royal family, only for their underage son Alain to escape with his loyal guardian, the knight Joseph, to an orphanage in a neighboring country. There, under Joseph’s guidance, he trains hard and prepares himself for the day when, as an adult, he will set out on a campaign back to his homeland, recruiting comrades and an army along the way to overthrow the cruel tyrant. While the plot is a traditional cliche, it is brought to life beautifully by the superbly written and voiced dialogue, which makes almost every one of the game’s hundreds of characters really stand out on all sides of the conflict.

So instead of a compelling main story, the game will entertain you with short stories of individual allies and enemies you meet along the way. The power of the experience is greatly increased by the ability to decide in many cases who you want to add to your army and who you don’t – you can also grant mercy to a number of defeated enemies. There are several kingdoms on the continent and they are inhabited by different peoples, in addition to humans, maybe also elves or some variation on the theme of “furries”. The core of the story that you write and influence is the choice of your companion, which is important for the future of the entire empire. For this purpose, the game has so many likeable characters that I really had a hard time deciding (in the end, I chose the Queen of the Elves, and it was quite an interesting twist).

You can also grant mercy to multiple defeated enemies.

While the core of the game is of course the combat and duels, I also enjoyed simply wandering around the game world, where you can find all sorts of hidden chests, caves and treasures, just like in the original Zelda games. In addition to the main story locations and battles, the game world is filled with additional ones, which, among other things, provide you with other characters and resources. It is immensely satisfying to liberate a city and then help its inhabitants rebuild it so that they can then contribute to your campaign. I myself was surprised when I dropped the platinum trophy at the end of the game – apparently I liked the game so much that I accidentally explored 100% of the world, played all the battles and recruited all the characters.

Fair anime war

The battles themselves have two active parts – you decide how your units move around the map, and there is the ability to stop time. Once your unit encounters an enemy unit, the battle will happen automatically, but of course you can watch it, and it is full of impressive animations. You do not control the battle directly, but you have a huge influence on its course, through which two units you put against each other, in what formation the characters in yours are assembled, what equipment you give them, and also how you set the detail “AI prompts” and priorities for them in the battle. Although at first glance it may resemble auto chess, you have a huge influence on the course of each battle. There are almost a hundred types of professions in the game and an abundance of combinations of spells or abilities, including unique to certain characters.

At first glance, the game may resemble, for example, the Fire Emblem series, and in general, fans of all Japanese tactical RPGs will find something to their liking here. At first, I was a little confused by the relatively strange button placement of some functions, but after a few hours I got used to the controls. The variety of difficulty levels will please both newcomers and seasoned veterans. The non-linear story will easily captivate those for whom one approximately fifty-hour playthrough is not enough. As we are accustomed to Vanillaware games, the game looks and sounds great and has no technical issues, at least in the PS5 version that I played. If you are a fan of tactical games or intertwined personal stories, you should definitely give this game a try.