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I was pretty sold on Unicorn Overlord the moment it was revealed at September's Nintendo Direct simply because it's the new game from Dragon's Crown and 13 Sentinels developer Vanillaware. After reviewing an extended breakdown shared by the devs and publisher Atlus – yes, the Persona Atlus – it's jumped even higher on my list of most-anticipated 2024 releases.
Unicorn Overlord is out on March 8, 2024, for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, and the day can't come soon enough. Vanillaware promised "the rebirth of tactical fantasy RPGs" in the game's reveal, and it certainly looks the part in these new details.
Set in the wartorn realm of Fevrith, Unicorn Overlord challenges you to find allies among five fractured kingdoms and unite against a corrupt empire. As fallen prince Alain, you sit at the frontlines of battle and diplomacy, and also chicken-catching, woodcutting, village-building, NPC-recruiting, cooking, shopping, side-questing, and a whole bunch of other fun and silly-looking stuff that makes this unmistakably a Vanillaware game.
The actual tactical combat of Unicorn Overlord looks good, and I'm not just talking about the incredible art. Fights are split between open-world maneuvering and actual 2D encounters. That's the game's centerpiece, but the buffet assembled around that combat is what's really got my attention.
You'll need to liberate and rebuild forts and cities, for example, and the process of upgrading and staffing them looks engrossingly Suikoden-like. Likewise, you'll sift through a wealth of potential recruits to join you, and beyond a large cast of core characters, there's a huge pool of units with distinct stats and strengths to consider. Choose guards, hire mercenaries, and expand and oversee individual squads, Atlus explains.
Marrying these points, your quest log contains (at least – just from what I've seen) main quests, side quests, liberation quests, and overworld quests, sending you all over the place to fend off enemy militia or, perhaps, into the fields for a bit of gathering. Items can be delivered to towns to help with rebuilding efforts, which sounds like a good way to blend the open-world mechanics.
There's a surprising amount of resource management to Unicorn Overlord, even putting manpower aside. There are mining spots, wood and stone deliveries, passive goods produced by garrisons and forts, war funds, as well as prestige currency like Renown which seems to be key to upgrading your cities and unlocking new functions. I don't get true-blue management sim or 4X vibes from it, but as a streamlined version of those systems thrown in Vanillaware's cooking pot with a heavy splash of Fire Emblem, Unicorn Overlord looks tailor-made for me – and, I know for certain, a lot of folks hankering for a tactical RPG. Here's hoping it lives up to all this promise. Vanillaware hasn't missed yet, and this looks like something extra special.
Here are the big video game release dates for all platforms for 2024 and beyond.
