The sharp horn of the Unicorn Overlord

At first glance, Unicorn Overlord looks like it’s just another Fire Emblem. However, don’t be so quick to judge cause there are many unique qualities that Unicorn Overlord brings to table that makes for a very satisfying experience that left me wanting more after the demo.

Being that the demo allows your save data to carry over, it starts you right at the beginning of the game. Queen of Cornia, Llenia, tasks her Great Knight, Josef, to take her son and heir, Alain, to escape incoming danger from a coup staged by General Valmore. General Valmore ends up taking over Cornia Kingdom and all the other surrounding kingdoms as Josef and Alain exile themselves to a remote island waiting for Alain to come to an age where he can take action. Once this and supporting lore is established, the demo gives us up to five hours of gameplay to choose our own path, customize units, explore the overworld, and do battle.

If you’ve never played a tactical strategy game, Unicorn Overlord does an amazing job of teaching you its mechanics. It takes each mechanic one by one and teaches you how it works. It even shows you examples in a battle setting. The most exciting mechanic is movement. Unicorn is not grid based. Your units and enemy movements move in real time! Yes, this means all battles are given a time limit in which the player needs to complete the mission’s objective (usually defeat so and so) to win.

Second, let’s talk about the units. Units may contain up to six characters per unit. This gives you a high ceiling for customization. However, at the beginning of this game you start off with two characters per unit. As you gain renown, which is received from battling, you can upgrade your units and customize them with whichever character combination you’d like.

Last, but not least, is the overworld exploration. You get to traverse the overworld freely from which you can find items, access towns and guilds, and choose which missions you want to tackle next. The coolest part is that battles take place on the same exact overworld map. The battles start off smaller, but the demo gives a taste of just how grand the battles can become.

The main character and leader of the Liberation Army is Alain, he’s a righteous leader who is slightly generic. Lex, is his silly and lighthearted friend, bringing a fun dynamic. They are accompanied by Josef, Alain’s retainer who is experienced and vastly over-leveled as a means to help newer players. Ultimately, nobody is quirky enough to stick out to me after five hours of gameplay.

The story has a few lighthearted moments, but it maintains its serious to dramatic tone between its characters, which is promising. Interestingly, there are times throughout the game where you, as Alain, must decide to “execute or free” a certain character after an altercation. Freeing certain characters means they’ll join your army, but does freeing criminals mean they come back later… stronger? It’s not certain, but this is also another aspect of Unicorn Overlord that I want to see through to the end.

Unicorn utilizes clean 2D story book-like graphics that complements the look of the fantasy setting. The art direction is simple enough that one might not give it another thought, but when it comes to the up-close and personal battle segments the game look pleasing. It looks even better if you opt to play in handheld mode on a Switch OLED, but it’s coming to all current generation consoles so no one will miss out on the action.

Unicorn Overlord presents a mash-up of real time tactical strategy which proves to be fresh and addicting. The real time element mixed with highly customizable units and free movement upon the overworld creates an amazing gameplay loop and gives the player the utility to forge their own path. This furthers the uniqueness of one’s journey.

Even though the characters may be a bit generic at first glance, seeing the characters growth in the later hours of the game may rectify this minor gripe. Regardless, I was left yearning for more after the end of this demo. The moment I hit the story beat cut off is the moment I knew I couldn’t wait for Friday, March 8 for the final release.