Unicorn Overlord is a tactical rpg that released recently for the Nintendo Switch and PS5. The game stars a boy named Alain who was forced to flee from his home at a young age due to war which ravished the entire continent. After 10 years Alain grew to be a young man capable of leading a resistance to form an army, travel the world and defeat the enemy leader Galarius.

The gameplay is rather interesting here as it combines elements of turn based and real time strategy. All of the units move at once on the map so you’re constantly having to scroll to make sure your units are going where they need to be and that need could change very quickly based on a number of things such as where the enemy is going, traps on the map, or skills that triggered. It’s an interesting element that requires constant focus and attention to detail. The turn based combat comes when an allied unit meets up with an enemy unit. Units will engage in an auto turn based battle until each character is unable to continue acting. In order to plan for this the player can arrange each unit as a party of two to five characters in a 2×6 grid. Up to three units make the front row and three make up the back. The position and type of the unit is very key when setting this up as the tanks and evasive characters are best in the front row and the ranged and healer units are better suited for the back. With so many characters you have an overwhelming number of options on how to arrange just one of these parties and you get up to 10.

Speaking of customization you can also customize what triggers their respective skills. For example for healer units you can customize it to where they heal if any unit drops to less than 100% health; however, if you want them to attack more or focus on buffs and debuffs you can set that percentage to less than 75% or set it to where they prioritize the debuff more. You can also choose the character’s weapons, shield and up to two attachments to help with their combat skill. Between picking which party compositions work best, the locations of each member and the equipment and trigger rates of their skills you will spend a lot of time experimenting and crafting the perfect well balanced parties for any situation.

Each unit also has unique advantages and disadvantages. For example armored units have incredible defense making them great for enemies with bladed weapons but enemies with Hammers or magic have the upper hand against them. Parties with flying units as the leader have the advantage of flying over obstacles but they are more vulnerable to enemies with bows. It’s very important that the party composition accounts for various strengths and weaknesses but also it’s important to keep track of where each party is going to so that they aren’t caught off guard by an enemy that is particularly effective against them.

The story itself is actually rather straightforward which works very well here. It’s your typical chosen one who leads an army to save the world and in the process resolves all of the individual problems plaguing the people he meets along the way. This is where we get to the heart of the game which are the characters. The characters are incredibly well done with deep compelling backstories and oftentimes they play major roles in main or side quests along the way to the end so you get plenty of story moments with these characters. Now some of them you’ll only get that if you take the time to look around and do the side quests but it’s highly recommended you do so because you’ll get a ton of entertaining content in the process. I found myself enjoying the side quests more than the main story as these are the ones more likely to give you new characters to recruit and learn about. The main quests are entertaining without a doubt and flesh out the story but the side quests happen to be even more enjoyable which really says a lot because the main quests are really good too.

There is a huge map to explore full of all the quests but also stuff to do on the side such as digging and mining for equipment, using that equipment to upgrade various facilities across the continent and going around looking for treasure. There’s no shortage of things to do on the map, many of which are unlocked after recruiting various characters which promotes going back around the map several times to uncover everything. You also can unlock heart to heart conversations between the characters oftentimes by having those characters fight in the same party and letting their bonds grow. The conversations are literally and subjectively all over the place. They are found in various spots on the map and some really don’t add any value to the characters while some of them explore their backstories and flesh them out even more than the impressive amount we already get without them.

The music and artwork are also amazing. Normally I don’t care enough to commit on either of these as it’s only noticeable to me if it’s at either extreme, the good or bad. In this case it’s a good thing as the special edition came with the soundtrack and I’m really enjoying the music in it and the art style is nice. It’s a lot like what you would see in Triangle Strategy and I can’t really put into words why I like it so much but there is something to it that I find just very aesthetically pleasing.

What I also found interesting is you can actually begin the final boss fight early on in the game. Granted you’ll be way under leveled if you do but what I also liked is if you beat the game too early you’re locked out of the true ending. The game has a good and a bad ending to it and the good ending is only obtainable if you go around and do the entire story first which is something I really liked. I also really enjoy games with good and bad endings and both of them are really entertaining here.

I do have one and only one critic of the game. The trailers for the game emphasize difficult decisions that will affect the game and many of them involve choosing whether or not to spare or free characters. Because of this I thought the decisions played a pivotal role in the story and you didn’t really know which one was the best decision. Turns out that’s not the case at all each decision has a clearly good outcome and a clearly bad one. I started the game concerned that I could make a seemingly good decision for it to come back and bite me later so I second guessed freeing a character but ultimately it just cost me a character to recruit later in the game. So don’t do what I did and overthink things. If a choice looks clearly like a good one it is and vice versa. They aren’t actually difficult decisions at all.

Overall Unicorn Overlord perfectly satisfied the strategy RPG fan in me while giving a solid story with incredible characters. The sheer amount of stuff to do in the game and the level of detail and time you can put into customizing your party is on a whole different level than a lot of games I’ve seen. The detail in every aspect of this game perfectly represents why I love the RPG genre so much. Just don’t do what I did and overthink decisions they are not as complex as the trailer made them out to be it.