New game by Vanillaware, and we're back into fantasy territory with a spiritual, single player successor to Vanillaware's own Grand Knights History and Quest Corporation's Tactics Ogre.
Story involves a big bad guy killing the royal family and conquering the world, only that the young prince Alain, your character, escapes and 10 years later he form a rebellion to reestablish his birthright. Standard fantasy stuff, but so far characters and writing have been a notch or two, or three, or twenty above Fire Emblem Engage.
Graphics are of course on par with Vanillaware's usual standard, but I consider them not a striking as 13 Sentinels. Reason one is the setting, a rather standard fantasy world like Dragon's Crown and not as unique as Odin Sphere. Reason two is how vast Unicorn Overlord (UO) is, and so artists had less time to focus on a single location or character; some sprites also clearly use Dragon's Crown as basis, and give a sense of deja vu. Reason three, and a very personal one at that, I'm getting bored by fantasy.
UO has two distinct phases: in the first, you go around the overworld collecting materials, rebuilding towns, uncovering scretes, completing quests, and fighting random enemy formations roaming around; these enemies do not give your units experience but they do give renown if defeated (renown is used to increase formation size, promote units, and recruit mercenaries). There are no time limits on the overworld nad you can freely teleport between discovered locations. Cities around the overworld are "proper" missions, and once you start one, perspective shifts to a sort-of real-time strategy game.
To clear a mission you need to capture the enemy's stronghold, and lose if the enemy capture yours or all your units are dead and don't have resurrection items.
Units are not single characters like in Fire Emblem, but a formation of up to 6 characters (the exact number depends on your renown), arranged in a 2x3 table. Characters belong to a class and all have diffrent attack and defence abilities: gladiators sweep a column, lancers pierce through rows, and so on.
There's a lot of unit types and to survive you need to mix and match classes to bring out their best abilities. For example I unlocked gryphon riders relatively early in the game, placed two together along with a lancer, and they were able to plow through most enemy formations with ease. So I added a third rider, gleefully admiring them destroying enemy formations. Then enemy units started to be more varied, and my gryphon riders lost almost all combat capabilities as they lacked endurance and healing capabilities. Same thing for the starting thief, he was (and still is) able to dodge most attacks, but then enemy formations got bigger and units inside got more attacks, and the thief wasn't able to dodge everything.
There's some rock-paper-scissors mechanics for classes as well (warriors break armour, archers are good against flying units, etc), and in the 10 or so hours I've been playing, the influx of new possibilities has been steady, to the point that I still have to experiment with the latest classes I've got, shaman and elven archer.
Formations are done, so it's time to deploy them in battle. Movement is in real time, with underlying terrain affecting movement speed or even vision, for example units in woods are invisible unless someone is close enough. Maps are littered with secondary strongholds (where you can withdraw/deploy units, heal deployed units), watchtowers (from where archers and mages can offer ranged support for free), mantlets (defence bonus for units inside), and even siege weapons.
When two units collide, the battle is played automatically based on classes' abilities and assigned tactics. Characters attack as long as they have APs (red gems) and activate support abilities if they have PPs (blue gems). The losing formation, if not all its units have been decimated, is knocked back and is unable to move for a short period of time; if engaged in this state, the other formation gets to strike first. Units can attack (or offer ranged support where outside watchtowers) for a limited number of times before they have to rest, their stamina. Units without stamina cannot move and will always be subject to first strikes; units can rest on the battlefield or at strongholds.
Long story short, there's a lot to UO. It's a massive game that's a joy to play, but is not without its problems.
First, the options available. Yes, it's the game's greatest asset but also a weak point: all characters have four equipment slots, various abilities, you can modify their tactics. It's fine if you have, let's say, 20 characters, but you break that number...within the first hour? You can teleport to cities and forts to buy stuff and recruit units, but not all items and units are available everywhere, you need to check on the world map what a location offers, teleport to it, buy what you want, and repeat it for as many times as you need.
Having a "master list" of units and items would greatly speed up the process, and often I've found myself skipping on exploring available weapons (even enemy drops) because I had to take care of so much else. The good thing is that on Switch loading is basically immediate and even switching areas of the overworld is met with a fade-in/fade-out of less than a second.
Second, the interface. This is a direct result of having to cram so many things on screen at once, and navigating some screens is a bit of a nightmare. There's also a bit of clunkiness typical of Vanillaware titles, but at least there are plenty of shortcuts, animated UI elements are fast and responsive, and you can skip almost anything.
Story involves a big bad guy killing the royal family and conquering the world, only that the young prince Alain, your character, escapes and 10 years later he form a rebellion to reestablish his birthright. Standard fantasy stuff, but so far characters and writing have been a notch or two, or three, or twenty above Fire Emblem Engage.
Graphics are of course on par with Vanillaware's usual standard, but I consider them not a striking as 13 Sentinels. Reason one is the setting, a rather standard fantasy world like Dragon's Crown and not as unique as Odin Sphere. Reason two is how vast Unicorn Overlord (UO) is, and so artists had less time to focus on a single location or character; some sprites also clearly use Dragon's Crown as basis, and give a sense of deja vu. Reason three, and a very personal one at that, I'm getting bored by fantasy.
UO has two distinct phases: in the first, you go around the overworld collecting materials, rebuilding towns, uncovering scretes, completing quests, and fighting random enemy formations roaming around; these enemies do not give your units experience but they do give renown if defeated (renown is used to increase formation size, promote units, and recruit mercenaries). There are no time limits on the overworld nad you can freely teleport between discovered locations. Cities around the overworld are "proper" missions, and once you start one, perspective shifts to a sort-of real-time strategy game.
To clear a mission you need to capture the enemy's stronghold, and lose if the enemy capture yours or all your units are dead and don't have resurrection items.
Units are not single characters like in Fire Emblem, but a formation of up to 6 characters (the exact number depends on your renown), arranged in a 2x3 table. Characters belong to a class and all have diffrent attack and defence abilities: gladiators sweep a column, lancers pierce through rows, and so on.
There's a lot of unit types and to survive you need to mix and match classes to bring out their best abilities. For example I unlocked gryphon riders relatively early in the game, placed two together along with a lancer, and they were able to plow through most enemy formations with ease. So I added a third rider, gleefully admiring them destroying enemy formations. Then enemy units started to be more varied, and my gryphon riders lost almost all combat capabilities as they lacked endurance and healing capabilities. Same thing for the starting thief, he was (and still is) able to dodge most attacks, but then enemy formations got bigger and units inside got more attacks, and the thief wasn't able to dodge everything.
There's some rock-paper-scissors mechanics for classes as well (warriors break armour, archers are good against flying units, etc), and in the 10 or so hours I've been playing, the influx of new possibilities has been steady, to the point that I still have to experiment with the latest classes I've got, shaman and elven archer.
Formations are done, so it's time to deploy them in battle. Movement is in real time, with underlying terrain affecting movement speed or even vision, for example units in woods are invisible unless someone is close enough. Maps are littered with secondary strongholds (where you can withdraw/deploy units, heal deployed units), watchtowers (from where archers and mages can offer ranged support for free), mantlets (defence bonus for units inside), and even siege weapons.
When two units collide, the battle is played automatically based on classes' abilities and assigned tactics. Characters attack as long as they have APs (red gems) and activate support abilities if they have PPs (blue gems). The losing formation, if not all its units have been decimated, is knocked back and is unable to move for a short period of time; if engaged in this state, the other formation gets to strike first. Units can attack (or offer ranged support where outside watchtowers) for a limited number of times before they have to rest, their stamina. Units without stamina cannot move and will always be subject to first strikes; units can rest on the battlefield or at strongholds.
Long story short, there's a lot to UO. It's a massive game that's a joy to play, but is not without its problems.
First, the options available. Yes, it's the game's greatest asset but also a weak point: all characters have four equipment slots, various abilities, you can modify their tactics. It's fine if you have, let's say, 20 characters, but you break that number...within the first hour? You can teleport to cities and forts to buy stuff and recruit units, but not all items and units are available everywhere, you need to check on the world map what a location offers, teleport to it, buy what you want, and repeat it for as many times as you need.
Having a "master list" of units and items would greatly speed up the process, and often I've found myself skipping on exploring available weapons (even enemy drops) because I had to take care of so much else. The good thing is that on Switch loading is basically immediate and even switching areas of the overworld is met with a fade-in/fade-out of less than a second.
Second, the interface. This is a direct result of having to cram so many things on screen at once, and navigating some screens is a bit of a nightmare. There's also a bit of clunkiness typical of Vanillaware titles, but at least there are plenty of shortcuts, animated UI elements are fast and responsive, and you can skip almost anything.
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