Atlus is best known lately for publishing RPGs like the Persona series and 2024’s Metaphor: ReFantazio, but that’s not the full story of the studio. Along with those hit games and many more, Atlus is also the home of developer Vanillaware, which has released incredible brawlers, visual novels, and strategy games over the years. Its most recent release is one of the best in Vanillaware’s history, and it’s now available with PlayStation Plus.
Unicorn Overlord is a hard game to categorize. It’s sort of a real-time strategy game with turn-based combat elements and an auto-battling option. All of that combines into a complex but extremely satisfying strategy game that focuses on how you prepare and maneuver on the battlefield rather than the turn-by-turn actions of your army. While it draws from old-school tactical RPGs like Ogre Battle, Unicorn Overlord’s fresh take on large-scale combat makes it feel utterly unique even in the crowded RPG genre.
The game follows Alain, a prince who was spirited away as a child for his own safety when the capital was invaded and taken over by a rebel army. Decades later, the usurpers have control of their own empire and are extending their tendrils to begin taking over the world with the help of a magical ability to dominate the minds of their would-be opponents. From that dire starting point, your goal is to push back the empire, liberating the countries they’ve already conquered before taking back the capital.
If that story sounds a little by-the-numbers, well, it doesn’t get much better. Unlike Vanillaware’s previous sci-fi epic, 13 Sentinels, Unicorn Overlord isn’t really a game you come to for the scintillating writing. Its comfortably generic fantasy setting is just the backdrop for a fantastic military campaign full of interesting battles and a huge cast of fan fiction-worthy characters to recruit along the way.
Before you ever hit the world map, the first step in every battle is to set up your troops. You first need to organize your characters into units of up to six members. Each character has their own abilities, which they’ll use automatically once battle starts. You can spend an incredible amount of time in this stage, choosing which abilities they’ll use and in what order, and equipping them for the combat ahead. Even where they’re placed in the lineup is important, as front-line characters can protect those in the back, and attacks have specific ranges that can make sliding a single character into a different position the difference between victory and defeat.
Once you’re satisfied, you move to a world map where both your units and the enemies’ move in real time. The map is dotted with bases, and the battle is only won when either you capture the enemy’s main base or they capture yours. As you maneuver around the map, running one of your units into an enemy unit will start a battle, where all the preparation you did beforehand will either pay off or not. Once combat starts, you can’t give any further orders, leaving it up to the plans you set up ahead of time to decide the outcome.
Despite the hands-off nature of the actual fighting, battles in Unicorn Overlord are thrilling. On the world map, you can spend points earned from successful skirmishes to affect the battle, raining down fire on enemy positions or commanding your own units to charge. You can also swap out units at base, meaning sometimes the best strategy when things aren’t going your way is to retreat and try something new altogether.
The satisfaction of watching your plans pay off is unlike the joy of any other strategy game. More than most games, Unicorn Overlord makes you feel like you’re really commanding an army — not controlling every move your characters take, but making sure they’re ready for the challenges ahead and guiding them from afar. Unicorn Overlord might not compare with Atlus’ other RPGs when it comes to story, but its unique take on strategy needs to be experienced.
