Unicorn Overlord Review – A Rare Beast
There are few gaming experiences more engrossing, engaging, and satisfying than a quality strategy-RPG. They offer the joy of building up a little ragtag army, bit by bit, into a gang of storied warriors with precision-specialized skills; the tension of seeing what sort of wrenches the next combat stage will throw into the mix; the utter thrill of eking out a victory with a wild strategy–or having an army that works so well together that they lay waste to all before them. Unicorn Overlord, the latest collaboration between developer Vanillaware and publisher Atlus, seeks its place among strategy-RPG royals–and, despite a few small missteps, lays claim to an honorable spot among its peers.
In its narrative, Prince Alain was spirited off to a faraway island a decade ago as his mother, the queen, was deposed from her throne by the wicked tyrant General Valmore and the Zenoiran Empire. Now, the Empire has all but conquered the continent of Fevrith, and an older Alain sets out to reclaim his throne and liberate the populace from their oppressors, all while bolstering the ranks of his Resistance army. But a mystery lies at the heart of everything: How did the Zenoiran Empire conquer all of the kingdoms so easily? Is there a much darker power at play?
The visuals in Unicorn Overlord dazzle right from the opening cutscene, with Vanillaware’s well-loved 2D art bringing a detailed fantasy realm to life. There are a great many characters and environments throughout so there’s plenty of variety to the eye candy–but even if that hadn’t been the case, it would be hard to draw your eyes away from the attractive character designs, exquisite backgrounds, and weighty battle animations that are there. Occasionally, things can get a bit cluttered and confusing–some parts of the UI are messy to navigate–but after a while, it becomes no big deal.
You can’t just stare at the pretty visuals, however–not while evil is afoot. Fortunately, if you want to take your time with seeing all the game’s sights, you can go straight through the crucial story battles, or stop and do all manner of side-questing. Taking the time to explore and help those in need is a good idea, too: When you begin Unicorn Overlord, Prince Alain’s army consists of a handful of close companions, and it feels like the entire world is against you. Only through fighting small skirmishes, liberating towns, forts, and cities from their Zenovian captors can you gradually reclaim territory. Many of these places are decimated from years of war and neglect–but the prince can bring the materials needed to repair the damage, often with a bit of careful overworld exploration. As you do this, your Honors and Renown grow, and you can recruit and hire more soldiers for your army–as well as expand the number and capacity of your current units. It’s a fun gameplay loop that encourages you to explore and rebuild.
But ultimately, games in this genre live and die by how fun the actual strategy and combat is, and Unicorn Overlord passes this test with flying colors. Battles are a mix of real-time unit movement and turn-based battles that play out whenever two units engage one another. Unlike many other games in this genre, each unit consists of a group of up to six different characters, arranged in a 2×3 grid. A designated leader determines elements like map movement speed and what kind of assistance they can provide allied units: If you want to move fast to intercept an enemy or conquer a garrison, a cavalry leader is an ideal choice, but if you want to be able to provide combat spell or projectile backup to a nearby squad then you’ll need an archer or magic user leading the way.
Movement and positioning is critical, since many fights revolve around taking control of key areas on the map–usually towns, forts, watchtowers, or other structures–and using them as recovery, defense, and deployment stations. Sometimes you’ll be blessed with devices like catapults and ballistas that a unit can man and cause serious damage with–if the opposing army doesn’t get there first and cause you a massive headache. Buildable barricades and traps can hold forces at bay while you muster strength, but a winged unit can fly right over them without a care. Finally, stamina determines how many times in a row a unit can attack, be attacked, or assist–run out of energy and that team can’t move until they rest for a while. There are so many options and factors to consider when it comes to something as simple as map movement, allowing you to devise your own unique approaches to combat. When an allied and enemy unit engage, the view switches to a side-view, turn-based battle that plays out automatically. Units will take turns attacking and using skills based on the abilities and criteria you’ve set for them.
The characters themselves come in a variety of classes, each with its own unique traits, abilities, and weaknesses. For example, a Hoplite is a tremendous tank that can significantly reduce damage from many physical attacks and protect other characters, but they suffer when up against defense-lowering Housecarls and armor-penetrating magic users. A spear-wielding Knight cavalry unit can attack a row of enemies at once, while a similarly mounted Radiant Knight is strong against magic, but both are vulnerable to weapons and skills targeting horse-riders. When crafting units, you can carefully concoct a balanced mix of defense, offense, mobility, and support–or you can go all-in on an ultra-specialized team designed for a singular purpose. Weapons and accessories can grant extra boosts and abilities to individual characters, which you can then further customize by setting specific criteria for when and how skills are used in battle. Micromanaging so many factors can be very daunting at first, but Unicorn Overlord is excellent at encouraging experimentation and discovery, and it offers you myriad opportunities to test out new units or character builds outside of key battles.
Team-building is a delight, but what also helps keep your attention rapt is how the combat scenarios you face keep on evolving throughout the game. Besides adding elements like new units and assorted traps and hindrances over time, the unique scenarios of major story battles often present surprises that require you to change your approach. You’ll just be marching along, only to be greeted by a siege of surprise reinforcements, or perhaps a new ally drops in and wants to help–or needs your protection. And maybe, just maybe, that enemy general can be reasoned with if you have the right person speak to them.
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Unicorn Overlord’s combat is the standout element of the game–which is good, because it manages to carry the weight of a disappointing story. If you’ve played any RPG where a group of rebels reclaims the land from a despot with the powers of darkness fueling him, you probably know where the story is headed. I frequently found myself wishing that the cutscenes were less frequent and wordy so I could get back to the fun of moving a bunch of little guys around a map. The individual characters aren’t much better, with one-note personalities and motives that don’t offer much in the way of development or interesting interactions. There’s a whole affection system among characters that opens up brief little side conversations when relationships reach a certain point, but even these typically fail at making the characters appealing beyond mere utility like “that dude looks cool and hits like a truck, so maybe I’ll use him more.”
But even though the story is lackluster, the core gameplay of Unicorn Overlord is more than compelling enough to make you want to see the story of Prince Alain to its conclusion. There’s so much satisfaction and gameplay depth here to sink your teeth into that you may find yourself thinking deeply about the game’s team dynamics even when you’re not playing. When the primary feeling a game leaves you with is wanting to play more of it, you know you have a gem on your hands.
Sand Land Review – Tanks A Lot
The main character in this open-world action-RPG adaptation of the late Akira Toriyama’s Sand Land is arguably its egg-shaped tank. Developer ICLA has crafted a game with a heavy emphasis on vehicular combat and traversal, which is a fitting design choice considering Toriyama’s love and passion for anything with a motor. You only have to glance at the number of vehicles featured in the Dragon Ball series to appreciate the legendary artist’s vehicular love affair. As iconic and instantly recognizable as Toriyama’s character designs are, his unique vehicle designs are just as evocative and essential to his signature world-building. Whether it’s a car, scooter, hovercraft, or airship, Toriyama’s anomalous designs are a delight, and Sand Land’s bulbous tank is one of his best, mixing his characteristics with historical influences to create a memorable piece of machinery. ICLA’s Sand Land might lack substance beneath its oozing style, but sitting behind the cockpit of some of Toriyama’s intricately designed vehicles is a near-constant treat, even if it falters elsewhere.
The first half of the game’s story is a faithful retelling of the original 14-chapter one-shot manga released in 2000. Set in the titular wasteland, Sand Land centers on a desert world suffering from an extreme water shortage, where sci-fi, fantasy, action, and comedy intertwine. You play as the rambunctious pink-skinned demon prince, Beelzebub, a video game-obsessed fiend who’s as good as gold despite his protestations otherwise. Alongside the stern-faced Sheriff Rao and your wise old pal, Thief, you embark on a quest to uncover a rumored water source that will hopefully restore Sand Land to life. The second half of the game’s narrative covers the brand-new events featured in the recently released anime adaptation. While the first six episodes of the show rehash the familiar ground of the manga, the last seven episodes function as a sequel to the original story, with Toriyama conceptualizing a fresh tale that sees Beelzebub, Rao, and Thief embroiled in a lopsided war after venturing into the neighboring Forest Land.
Now Playing: SAND LAND – Official Story Trailer
Sand Land might not be as popular as Toriyama’s other works, such as Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, but despite its niche nature, its recent resurgence isn’t without merit. The characters and world-building found in Sand Land are its greatest strength, and these elements are seamlessly translated into the game. The relationship between Beelzebub, Rao, and Thief is just as charming as it was on the page, while the game’s open world gives their conversations and banter space to breathe as you travel between locations. These moments excel when pulling lines straight from the manga, but pockets of incidental dialogue have a habit of repeating over and over again, which quickly becomes grating to the point where I wish I could’ve muted it completely.
Fortunately, the story itself is well told, meshing a whimsical child-like wonder with more profound explorations of prejudice, trauma, corporate greed, and the ecologism that exists in a world ravaged by humans. One of Sand Land’s main themes is a self-reflective notion not to judge a book by its cover, and Rao’s backstory focuses on the horrors of war and genocide and how they can still impact people decades after the fact. The entire core cast of characters is also well-layered, informed by their past lives while learning and growing as they unearth more information about the world and each other. The plethora of optional side quests tend to be verbose, even when their contents aren’t particularly interesting or original. Some of these tales do at least expand on Toriyama’s world-building, though, showing how regular people live and survive in the harshness of Sand Land’s vast desert landscape.
Aside from its narrative, another area where the game captures one of the manga’s core aspects is its focus on imaginative vehicles. You have access to various two- and four-wheeled machines that can be swapped on the fly as you traverse Sand Land’s open world. The iconic tank is the star of the show, sputtering fumes from its exhaust pipes as its undulating treadwheels glide over the sand; it’s surprisingly nimble despite its bulky frame, lending combat a sense of fluidity as you dodge incoming fire and pepper enemy tanks with your own booming cannon. You also have access to a secondary weapon–typically something automatic like a Gatling gun–that can be used to dispatch foot soldiers and some of the smaller beasts you’ll encounter. This creates a satisfying flow to combat as you swap between weapons while one is reloading and outmaneuver your enemies using the tank’s speed boost and inherent agility.
Customization is a significant part of the experience, allowing you to swap out either of the tank’s weapons with new and upgraded parts. There isn’t much variety in how these weapons handle, however–one cannon might fire slightly faster than another or inflict burning damage, but they still feel very much the same. Crafting new parts is also overly cumbersome, as the game doesn’t let you compare what you’re building with what you currently have equipped. Enemies scale to your level, too, so there isn’t a tangible sense of progression, even as you install new parts with higher damage output. This is disappointing and takes away from the customization’s potential. Even so, Sand Land’s tank-based action is still fun, with rewarding shooting, despite a lack of evolution. Additional cooldown-based abilities–of which you can equip one–add another element to combat. These can be focused on defense, granting you extra armor or an interception system that shoots down incoming missiles, or they can be more offensive abilities like an explosive laser or an outrigger that locks the tank in place, allowing you to rapidly fire the main cannon while stationary.
Additional vehicles include a motorbike, hovercar, dirt buggy, and jump-bot, among others. Each has its own set of weapons for use in a pinch, but these vehicles are primarily focused on traversal. The motorbike, for instance, is the fastest way to get around Sand Land’s open world, to the point where it can cross quicksand without sinking. The jump-bot, meanwhile, is a lumbering two-legged machine that lets you leap great heights to navigate the game’s various platforming sections. You might try the motorbike’s shotgun or the car’s guided-missile system in combat, but considering you can just swap to the tank at any time, the other vehicles feel superfluous once bullets start flying. The Battle Armor you unlock towards the end of the game is the only exception, mainly because it lets you uppercut enemy tanks into the air.
When you’re not piloting one of these vehicles, Sand Land takes a notable dip in quality. Being a demon prince, Beelzebub is no slouch when fighting hand-to-hand. There’s a typical mix of light and heavy attacks, plus a dodge, and you can unlock both passive and active abilities for Rao and Thief, including a personal tank Rao will pilot to help you out. Not that you’ll need much assistance. Sand Land’s melee combat is simplistic, with a string of light attacks all that’s required to defeat most enemies. Sometimes you’ll need to dodge incoming attacks–telegraphed by your opponent glowing red–and Beelzebub has a few unlockable abilities for dealing extra damage to more formidable enemies. Fighting multiple threats at once is its greatest challenge, only because there’s no way to swap between targets when locked on, resulting in an awkward back and forth. It doesn’t take long for this ponderous dance to grow stale, with the only saving grace being that melee combat isn’t too frequent.
The same can be said for Sand Land’s rudimentary stealth sections. Trial and error is the name of the game here, with an instant fail state present whenever you’re spotted. Fortunately, these clandestine moments are straightforward enough to navigate without attracting prying eyes. The main issue is that your crouched movement is slow and monotonous, offering a change of pace that wasn’t desired. Stealth also tends to occur in samey military bases, which is also an issue elsewhere. You’re forced to traverse the innards of near-identical crashed ships multiple times throughout the game, which only adds to the inane repetition of its stealth and melee combat.
The abundance of side quests are similarly bland, often tasking you with killing a certain number of enemies to either save someone or acquire crafting materials. Sometimes, you might have to search ancient ruins for a specific item or win one of the desert races, but you’re mostly just repeating the same tasks for different reasons. Most of these quests revolve around the town of Spino and your efforts to make it somewhere people would want to live. You’ll complete quests for the likes of traders and farmers that lead to them joining the town and gradually growing it throughout the game. The quests themselves might be dull, but watching the town’s progress is rewarding, especially when it comes with the convenience of putting everything you need in a single hub. It’s just a shame the process behind the town’s resurgence isn’t more engaging.
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The story behind Sand Land’s creation is funny but also sad in a way. Toriyama initially made Sand Land for his own personal enjoyment, devising a short story about an old man and his tank. However, the tank proved more challenging to draw than expected, and since Toriyama stubbornly insisted on drawing everything himself, he came to regret the idea. He persevered anyway, eventually releasing the manga for public consumption, and his pain was certainly our gain. Toriyama’s love of vehicles shines through in Sand Land and is where its most enjoyable moments reside. It’s disappointing that it flounders in other areas, particularly when it comes to stealth and melee combat, but ICLA has still managed to capture the heart and spirit of the original manga through its story, characters, and vehicular combat and traversal. Sand Land is bittersweet in many ways, but it’ss a testament to Toriyama’s talents as both an artist and storyteller that, despite its numerous flaws, it’s still worth playing.
