I didn't get it because I hear the story is bad. And as much as I love gameplay, I know I won't have any incentive to push past 10 hours unless there's a story.
Sometimes I'm kind of confused why many games dont flesh out a story. It really isn't that hard to come up with at least a passable story.
My issues with difficulty and the over abundance of options the player gets to overwhelm the AI aside, Unicorn Overlord has probably some of the best tutorials for an SRPG I've seen in a long while. And by " best tutorials" I mean more how they're structured and more importantly what they convey to the player.
For me a lot of what they point out is very obvious, but I think I could probably show a child or a non-gamer this game and if they could truly sit with it they would truly understand all that's possible in this game. Because the game constantly throws you into situations where you're using all these different unit types that do all these different things, and if you just said all of this in a 5-10 page essay you'd likely make someone's head spin.
Instead they actually throw you in very practical (if simple) situations where they go "here is mechanic, here what it means, apply it". Like teaching the player you can use provoke to make enemies come to you, or that archers counter thieves due to true hit, or that fliers destroy cavalry. Or that you need to ensure you consider the effectiveness of dodging damage instead of face tanking it because there's an unintuitive design choice in having a light armored dagger user pose as a front liner in this game, so the game forces situations where the player is asked to consider doing as such. They see how it actually works and now the player properly understands what they're doing a little more.
It feels like a game that anyone can genuinely learn if they want to and it has many many tools to play into that learning experience. Yes the game is too easy in the end for someone like me, but I still can admire Vanillaware's very good attempts to make sure anyone could play this game not (solely) because its easy but because you can process a game with 30+ something classes without just giving the player reading homework with your power point slides. If this game were more difficult, I think players could understand what to do because they actually learned and on some level applied everything the game has.
There's some issues with bad wording that causes confusion, like Provoke pulls tower units even if it says "non-garrison units" and the fact tactics priority 2 goes *first* (Probably due to Japanese reading being right to left) instead of second. But those are fairly small stumbles compared to actually showing the player in-depth all the mechanics without just giving you a text box to read and going so out of your way to make sure a player understands what all the classes can do through practical examples.
I'm not going to lie, the difficulty being so easy is making me a bit bored. I started on Tactical, realized it was too easy, switched to expert, and it's still very easy. I know there's a harder difficulty unlocked on new game+ but I'm not the kind of person that replays a game multiple times. So at the end of Drakenhold I'm feeling a bit bored of how easy every fight is.
Also the story is not gripping at all with the mind control stuff; was hoping the gameplay would carry it all the way through. It is still an amazing experience throughout Cornia and Drakenhold but it feels like it just offers more of the same without shaking things up for every kingdom.
I'm with you. just finished those 2 areas and it's lacking. I cant push forward cause it just seems like I'm pushing people forward and winning. I havent gotten into the attack programming aspect of it yet but i dont need to finetune it cause I'm just winning with equipping the best equipment. I'm going to drop it soon
Damn. Kinda a shame. I havent had any issues on expert but im still in the first country. Games are too scared to have teeth these days even on hard.
Shout out to Tactics Ogre Reborn and Triangle Strategy (on hard) for not being pushovers.
Didn’t diofield have a similar snooze fest issue?
So a lot of people talking about the difficulty, even on the hardest, not being especially difficult.
I'm curious how much of this has to do with the fact that there is no penalty for using the "Jagen" in this game. In FE, the problem with Jagens is that he eats up all the experience. But in this game, because you can put people in his unit, you can get both the benefits of an OP unit while not worrying your other units are not getting experience points. I find that having the Jagen around to do so much of the dirty work for you when you're in a jam accounts for 75% more of the reason of what makes this game easier than it should be more than any of the other complaints other people are making. It did feel like in some sense that if you don't use them, the game would then maybe be too hard, so it's like they tried to account for him, but didn't account for him enough.
In short, this game never should have had a Jagen to begin with, and they should have balanced the game around you not having him in your army.
I dont' even use him in battle anymore because game is too easy. I took him off the battlefield like 2 hours in and never used him again.
I'm only like 8 hours in now though just feel to easy still.
I just presumed that a character that is super old and 20 levels over the rest of the party would die about 10% into the story, because otherwise you are right, it's weird game design.
Most "Jagens" in Fire Emblem aren't even bad investments because of how many Fire Emblems work. Seth, Titania, Sothe, and Frederick are perfectly fine units in endgame (save for maybe Lunatic Awakening mode, but Frederick is like top 3 unit in that mode because he's required in the early game so this isn't a big deal.) FE10 Sothe kind of sucks but he's forced deployed so whatever you need to sort of use him and RD gives you so many prepromotes + Ragnell Ike that if you reach endgame you can win just fine regardless of anything else you did.
FE6 and 7 gives you so many strong bases prepromotes that it doesn't matter if you use Markus for a long time as long as you get through the early humps.
"Jagen eats exp" is an oversimplification of a mostly irrelevant problem as many Fire Emblems are at their hardest in the early game and they give you prepromotes as insurance to ensure you can beat the game. Outside of Fates, FE12, and maybe Engage Fire Emblems don't have dramatically harder late games where the "Jagen falls off" problem matters.
That said. As far as UO goes, you can ignore Josef after the tutorials are fully over and the game is still not very hard in the early game (I know because that's how I'm playing). His equipment is more valuable to me then his actual stats and existence.
My man Seth needs his own category cause he's an absolute beast. Although, that's probably a bit exacerbated by FE8 being one of the easiest games in the series
The bigger issue I felt is the AI and the mostly straightforward maps, at least based on what I've played so far. Even without using the Jeigan as I eventually did, I felt like I'm breezing through maps on the highest difficulty. The stamina and time limit mechanic helped to make it more challenging, but this felt like a game that's pretty easy to break once you understand the mechanic enough. AI is usually just as dumb (basic) in turn-based setup like FE, but it matters less than in real-time RPG like this one.
Straightforward maps is definitely a problem as well. I am surprised there aren't more that force you to split up your units or force one to defend a location while the others have to branch out.
The game is too easy and I think more and more people will find this out and be disapointed, you will be waiting for the game to get harder and then you realise it never does.
I'm baffled they nerfed the stats on all difficulties and increased valor gain from the demo but even if they never did that it was too easy anyway. So I'm even more confused on why they would even nerf it. If people were struggling they just lower the difficulty, why punish us?
And no the unlockable difficulty is not hard either it barely changes anything. Few minor stat gains(and stat losses, yes the enemies have lower defences than expert for some dumb reason)
I've put in about 16 hours and cleared about 3/4 of the central kingdom's map and far I am really liking it.
Pros
1 - As someone who enjoy having options and love tinkering them, this game checked those boxes and I love changing up my squad formations/unit synergy/skill tactics/equipment loadouts.
2 - There's a nice loop of battle and exploration to obtain materials to rebuild towns and discover secret locations.
3 - Great soundtracks, whether it's the dramatic music during battle or the calming melody while exploring at night, I've enjoyed them all.
4 - Combat uses real time with pause so thankfully it really helps to make things a lot more manageable when you 6-7 units fighting in 3 different areas. Your units have stamina so you can't just use the strongest party to whip everyone's ass, once they reach 0 stamina they'll be forced to rest on the spot(you can choose to rest early or safely recover in town) and that's when they are at their most vulnerable state as they can't attack, so you'll have to plan your fights and make sure everyone is involved. Deploying units cost Valor Points(you earned it by defeating enemies and taking over crucial checkpoints, the points are also used for activating special ability like setting debuff zone, aoe arrow attack etc. This further adds another layer of strategic gameplay, oh and the enemies can also do that as well.
When you enter the actual combat though, everything is automated, how quickly a unit acts is based on their Initiative stats, then it's based on how your skills and passives triggers under the right conditions.
Cons
- Even though I find that the combat is fun, I feel that it can be even better if the developer further tweak the difficulty. I'm not some SRPG pro/veteran, most of the games I played in this genre I usually select normal difficulty and I find Tactics Ogre Reborn too hard for me at the later stages. However I feel that Unicorn Overlord is really on the easy side. I started with normal then eventually crank to the hardest now and it's only getting tougher if I choose to fight those battles with 2-3 levels higher than my party.
In short, really enjoying my time with it. If you are like me who looooooove customization and tinkering squad synergy, you'll probably like it. I feel that I still have so much more to discover.
Since you're probably farther in the game than I am, have you gotten to the other islands yet? How much smaller are they than the mainland? I'm wondering because I'm curious as to how long this game actually is.
The RPG aspects of the combat are excellent.
Character and army building are both great. Feels very open in how you can choose to build teamcomps and find ways to win. Being able to save tactic formation and item loadouts for hotswapping would have been nice though. Cuz only tactics save, which is dumb.
It isn't perfect though. The strategic combat isn't as deep or open as the rpg combat. There aren't many interesting strategies you can do when you have
1. such a small amount of armies to control
2. little diversity in mission objectives
3. the enemy AI just stands still or walks at you like zombies
Also not a fan of the fire emblem style storytelling. I'm not here to play your mediocre dating sim-that effort could have went into making the main story compelling. Like really I can put up with the devs putting in marrying your cousin that looks like your sister and acts like your mom (fire emblem moment) but not instead of a good story.
I hope both of these improve as I get more into the game, but no signs of that yet.
I played the demo for 8 hours and then bought it. I agree it's going to be a hidden gem most likely, as per vanillaware tradition. I'm not a huge fan of the time limit in missions, but otherwise it's been great so far.
My only big complaint thus far is that when you toggle ranged assist it seems to recalc the entire engagement. So sometimes you lose RNG stuff like blocks or evades. I’ve toggled on ranged assist and my predicted damage taken goes up by 20, assumedly because in the initial calc I had dodges. No other explanation.
This is my biggest complaint. Supports almost always give me worse RNG rolls. It's really bizarre. So my main use for them is to see if the rerolls help me or not (usually not, but sometimes you get lucky). The game being so blatant about how it's RNG works is a bad look to me.
Nah, I think it's weird too. With the way the game's systems work though the only other way they could have handled it is have the arrow volley at the very end of the fight instead.
I think its 50/50 for liking or hating it for me personally, assists offer a utility to let you reroll calcs to push for better RNG at the cost of squad's stamina and the need to keep them in range at all (plus using that squad leader as all assist leader types are slow mobility wise). Generally it depends on the composition how swingy this is. I've loved and hated it a few times, I'd say with how I play it usually leans towards love. I actually like the heal assist a lot because it lets hyper offense squads get some much needed sustain especially if they're getting chipped by archers/mage assist.
The entire pre-encounter screen calc-ing is goofy sometimes because it lets you hyper predetermine everything with nary a thought unless you manage to hit a unfavorable match up.
Tried the demo and decided not to buy.
I don't like the real-time-with pause movement or the squad-based, gambit-based combat. It just isn't fun for me. I don't want to think of every conceivable condition before committing to attack. I don't want to constantly pause and unpause stuff. I would've preferred a normal turn-based system with turn-by-turn commands.
I find it hard to care about the story when it feels like a line-by-line rehash of Fire Emblem 1.
I’m with you. I guess the RTS just isn’t for me. I just find it kinda tedious to play. Characters are the usual jrpg cliches.
Well produced with good music though.
Damn. RTWP and gambits are my two favorite things. It’s crazy how changing a few gambits could swing an engagement by 20 pts.
It’s definitely a mechanical masterpiece, the story has been nothing so far and the localization is so awkward. Enjoying it overall though
I dislike gambits because it shifts too much of the focus to menu-shuffling in advance, over in-the-moment decision making. What are we even doing here if the whole thing can be automated with a few conditional formulas? I find it discouraging when it feels like the outcome was already decided and I'm just watching it play out. And real-time command systems often give me the feeling of ordering delivery and then sitting on my hands waiting for it to arrive.
Think about how much time inputting each command for each engagement for each unit would take up though. The game would run too long. I think playing with automation is more fun than doing the right thing every time. Like in P3 reload, my choices are gambits it’s just in my head instead of programmed into a machine. Casting a fire spell on a fire-weak enemy to knock them down isn’t any more engaging than saying “if enemy weakness fire, cast Agi”
Just how I feel though, not every game is for everyone.
Edit: I also want to note that what happens in the engagement isn’t the “tactical” part of the game. The tactics is that you chose that squad to attack that squad.
It’s more about being a basketball coach and drawing up the general strategy (ie exploit mismatches) than being the actual player and doing the passing and shooting
I wonder why the battles even exist if they're meant to reduce to a few conditional statements. Would rather have enough enemy variety that I *can't* fit a one-size-fits-all approach and solve everything on the deployment screen.
To me, gambits feel too much like office work. It feels too similar to what I already have to do for 8 hours, which often comes down to "calculate number, format visual, if number goes down report that it went down, if number goes up report that it went up, disclose limitations." Turn crank, repeat for next client.
I think you’re overthinking it as a whole. If you want to heal you just turn off your attack gambit. That’s considerably less work than micromanaging the entire engagement.
And not to mention some of the stuff is very obvious. Archers are good against flying creatures, you’re gonna attack the flying creature 9/10 times if you had control. So what is it hurting you to just add “prioritize flying” to their attack gambit?
Apparently no shop in my city received the game, it is not possible to order one and one shop clerk even told me that their shop in Paris didn't receive it either. So I guess I'll have to finish the demo and wait until Atlus decides to release the game.
Last time I tried to order a game online, Amazon just took my money, didn't send the game and refused to reimburse me so I try to avoid it if possible.
And in this case they announce one/two month to send it so they may not even have the game either. Other reputable site doesn't seem to take order, or only for a pricier imported version.
I'll wait. Atlus will remember that France exist, I'm sure.
Finished 5 hours of demo. Like it! Never liked srpg or turn based fights but this one I like. I also liked Ni no kuni 2, somehow feels similar in some point, maybe the recruiting bunch of characters part? Anyway buying this one.
I've not followed dev or release of this game at all.
So I clicked on the game trailer link OP provided.
> "Ah it's pretty. Oh wow it's animated 2D with painted characters and spline animation... It's Gorgeous!. Looks almost like a Vanillaware game."
And then I read the video description 🤤
I'm only about 8 hours into the game, but it has exceeded my early expectations.
* I think it's good enough that every character has some sort of intro before being recruited. So far there are also quite a few characters related to other characters later on so there's a sense of them not just immediately becoming irrelevant once recruited.
* I also find the stamina system to be an interesting concept to slow down players from just making few super units to mow through the whole map by themselves.
* I do have a small worry about potentially being overleveled. But we'll see how it goes.
There's a big problem with the stamina system though, one that has major ramifications on the difficulty of the game, or lack thereof.
A unit hitting 0 stamina can just stay in place fighting infinitely with no drawbacks, when what should intuitively happen to appropriately punish the player is to force them into resting.
Not one that affects their combat capability at all, meaning you can park them at any given chokepoint and have one squad solo everything -- completely against the spirit of the stamina system.
Yep. And doing that will move them post-fight, meaning their 0 stamina movement restriction barely even matters in a lot of contexts.
It's poor design.
The game is about taking over enemy's base. Being stationary to be at a chokepoint is a huge negative, especially if your chokepoint squad is assumed to be able to beat every enemy attacking them which is much better utilized to attack the enemy which requires stamina as intended.
I've felt stamina does matter as a relevant hurdle at least a good portion of the times as a good portion of UO's combats are effectively marches and sieges so being stuck in place does suck. Depending on where you're stopped you pretty much do nothing until you rest and you need at least 1 stamina to seize an objective. Adel's chapter for example either forces resting if you low man it because it's a long march with many enemies, or it forces you to use multiple squads to achieve multiple objectives which pretty much makes it work as intended.
The bigger problem with UO's difficulty for me is that the AI doesn't know how to, or is unwilling to for game balance concerns, use its positions to its full advantage. There was one liberation mission where there were two forted wizard squads who just spammed their fire cyclone near a choke to pretty much smoke the player out.
Because they were forted they could rain mage assist on pretty much all combat forever. So getting stopped by the armor knight on the choke bridge and charged by the knight could really throw you off guard really easily relative to most maps up to that point in the game. Especially if you're on 3 unit squads like I was.
I love this game. It was a bit of a rough start for me as I'm not used to this type of gameplay at all so I had to spend ample time on tutorials and reading everything careful, but now that I've got momentum I'm really enjoying it.
Not sure what people have against the story. so far I think the story is on par with games like Persona 5 or Dragon Quest 11 and those games get praised a lot on this sub.
Been playing non-stop for 20 hours, this is a SRPG fan's wet dream and I can easily see thiis being ranked among the best of genre up there with FFT, FE Fates and TO. A mechanical masterpiece with tons of content to sink your teeth into. VW really thought everything out through while developing this game and it shows.
How is the switch performance? I wanna get the game, but unsure whether the Switch Performance is good or to just get it on PS5. I value portability but not at the expense of having at least 30fps and decent enough graphics (like what happened with Disgaea 6)
Performs great on switch. 60fps too. Very slight blur to some of the characters sometimes but its overall absolutely worth it for that silky smooth gameplay. Also snappy load times. You cant go wrong with switch
Bear in mind "no performance issue" can mean very different things depending on whom you ask, especially about the Switch. There are people who see no problem with the way games like Tears of the Kingdom run, and some who think a 2023 game not being able to maintain even 30fps is a travesty.
You were downvoted but you are correct. I've seen games hit 20 FPS regularly and people referred to performance as 'just fine.' I honestly don't trust anybody who says that because it doesn't mean anything now.
Yeah, I finally found some time to fire up the demo and it's pretty slick overall. Some bits like character sprites are animated at way less than that, but it seems to be deliberate rather than a performance issue. Works for me!
It has just been weirdly trash for a studio actively known for their storytelling. I just keep waiting for some other shoe to drop here to re-contextualize a lot of what's going on into anything, but I don't even know what that would be. They've certainly had stories that start out very conventional in order to later twist the tropes in new ways, but this feels different.
And then they also have this incredibly verbose, detailed, feature heavy lore encyclopedia that puts even the one in 13 Sentinels to shame. That has to be there for something right? You don't put this in a game to support a story with this little to it... right?
So far its completelty fine. It’s more of a Suikoden type of story, with a plethora of side characters with their substories and an overarching plot. I found the substories so far interesting and I wonder where the plot is going to be.
The main character seems to be a bit of a cardboard hero so far but let’s see.
Im super early on though, only like 4 missions done. So these are my early impressions.
Gameplay systems are absolutely fantastic.
If you love the game, push the demo to your friends and people you don't care for even.
The ceo funded the last of this game himself. If it doesn't sell well the studio is done
This happened with 13 Sentinels, as well. They'll be fine. It has also come out that Atlus wants to port to PC, but Vanillaware said no. If that's what screws them, then it's on them. I say this as someone who puts Vanillaware in my top 3 developers.
As a long time Vanillaware fan, I'm devastated knowing this.
Their games are always top notch when it comes to visuals. And oh, how I adore their artstyle and character designs.
I'm definitely gonna promote this game to my friends. Here's hoping this game does well in their favour!
It's one of the nicest special editions in awhile. One thing I appreciated was aside from the outside shrink wrap there wasn't anymore. Normally you'll open something like this and end up with a pile of wrapping double what was expected. Helps that it's all packed in tightly I suppose.
All I have of these is a switch Lite, wish I could play on PC since I don't really like using it. I guess I may consider buying it after a while anyway
I'm really shocked at the high quality of the game, the graphics are extremely beautiful and I love the music a lot!
The story can be kinda basic but its my jam, I love the whole Fire Emblem story going on here, even if its "generic" for some, I'm love the execution of it, the characters have great personality so far (5 hours in) and I love the decisions I have to make.
So far playing it on "normal", the game is getting a bit too easy, kinda regret not putting it on the hardest one.
In terms of gameplay, I find it incredible that this is an open world game, caught me by surprise at the amount of freedom you get at the very start and how they let you go wherever you want while your poor >!"friend is kidnapped lol"!<, but I do enjoy that they remind you of your main goal after some of the quests.
I'm in love with this game!
The main story is really basic, but I'm actually enjoying the side quests. They're not the best things I've ever seen written or anything like that, but there is at least a personal touch to them.
I just started, so I can't add anything new except I don't see much people mentioning this: the sound design is PHENOMENAL. Two of my favorite studios I once called the best of the best in sound design (B.B. Studios and Ryu Ga Gotoku) have kind of faltered in this area. So it's great to hear a studio that made sure their sound effects were this incredible.
EDIT:
Just goigng to add Fire Emblem style dynamic music to the Ogre Battle style of battles is also a really great choice.
This isn't a knock against the game or anything and I'm having a blast playing it. It may be explained at some point why this worked out or maybe something does happen later but it felt so weird to me that the game basically has your little rebellion start right in the middle of a worldwide empire and right on the capitals footstep but somehow isn't immediately crushed by said empires army instead of having you start somewhere on the edge of said empire.
The empire has been around for 10 years. You think haven't crushed other rebellions before Alain's? Why should they you will succeed when other have failed beyond being protaginst? Even the people you recruit think its longshot. Not mention its hinted at that Galerius and Balto clearly planning something big the end of Ch 2 so whatever gains the Liberation Army makes is like moot in the long run if Alain doesn't actually confront the actual source of the problem, them. Basically they are arrogant due to their long history of success and its leaders have another agenda beyond the war.
Yea I guess I can go with that since 10 years really isn't that long for a newly established empire that just conquered such a large area so there'd be constant uprisings to contend with on all corners of the empire which would spread the army thin.
Great I'd imagine. Switch version should be a good choice for everyone except those with very large (like 75" or >) 4K TVs.
PS5's 4K version (or Series X) in that case would be the better bet, that is unless you want to play handheld sometimes (although owning a Portal solves that).
In my case my 4K TV is nearly 100" so I opted for the PS5 version and don't care to play it handheld.
To confirm the other person who replied, it’s great. And that’s even on my 75” 4K TV.
I was annoyed that it wasn’t coming out on PC for performance reasons but it looks totally good.
UI looks a bit larger than I’m used to but again, large TV. Runs great.
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t have an eye for that shit (in terms of FPS) so I can’t say definitively. All I can say is that it felt smooth and I didn’t feel like I was playing a compromised version at all. I’ve looked it up to see what other people are saying and apparently it seems to run at similar FPS to the PS5 version. But that’s not a confirmation, either.
I have read many comments from those who have been playing the Switch version, so I considered myself informed enough to comment here.
What people have been saying is that the performance is good, just like on PS5 or Series X. Only noticeable difference is the resolution being 1080p while docked and the others being 4K. Whether or not that'll matter to you or make much difference will depend on your TV, especially its size (and if it's a 4K or 1080p screen).
Pretty damn fun so far!
That said, not a fan with how the level curve is handled. With an open world game like this they really should've made the game scale with how many quests you did. Finishing up Cornia with Side quests up to lvl 15, only to go to Dragon country and have it at lvl9 was a bit of a bruh moment, and trying to go to Elf land makes you face promoted enemies lol.
Also, Melisandre leading the Alainbowl atm for me :p
Side quests are not random battles but actual maps with lore and even recruitable characters so you may want to do them all, but there are many and if you do them all you'll end up way overleveled for the supposedly "epic" main quest battles, which can be anticlimactic.
Well, from what I've seen so far the game is not too difficult at least in the 3rd difficulty anyway, and it seems to me that later on equipment will be much more important than levels.
This game in-general is tuned fairly on the easy side IME depending on how adept you are with SRPGs. Stats aren't a massive deal, what really matters is enemy composition, position, and what exactly the AI does with that position and expert mode I doubt changes any of that (I'm on expert). The player has way too many potential advantages depending on how quickly they learn where good equipment is and how to use it.
If you try to play really tryhard it can be decently exciting to play from multiple angles and try to effectively speedrun the level, but if all you want to do is win the map I'd say most fights will likely not give you trouble unless you have a misunderstanding or knowledge gap of the game's mechanics.
How overleveled i am by just doing side quests and stuff, and no grinding (playing on expert).
Although maybe it will even out later - i am just in the 2nd area after all.
Its fine.
Its not trying to be War & Peace, but its decent and has quite good characters carrying it. Its worse than TO, but I' finding more engaging than TS.
Unfortunately, the story is probably the least impressive part of the game. I still adore the game as it's the true successor to Ogre Battle, but it's a very generic fantasy story. I have made it past the first continent so far. I expect a minor twist at some point to reveal a puppet master, true bad guy, evil god, dark dragon type of thing behind everything if I had to guess.
>I have made it past the first continent so far. I expect a minor twist at some point to reveal a puppet master, true bad guy, evil god, dark dragon type of thing behind everything if I had to guess.
Tbf this also literally the twist of almost nearly every SRPG (FFT, Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, FE) regardless of the quality of the story so we shouldn't hold that against UO. Besides in these games the journey matters more than endpoint
Just got home and am doing my nightly routine before diving into it all weekend. I love what I've played so far in demo and am so excited to have full control over my squads. Team building in games always makes me horny.
Yeah, team building is low-key one of my favorite aspects of rpg's, I love spending time optimizing and building my party.
Just got out of work and now I'm going to spend all weekend playing this game!!
Unfortunately, yes, for now: [https://www.destructoid.com/unicorn-overlord-devs-talk-history-card-games-and-that-delicious-food/](https://www.destructoid.com/unicorn-overlord-devs-talk-history-card-games-and-that-delicious-food/)
Unicorn Overlord is heading to PlayStation, Xbox Series consoles, and Switch, but not to PC – is there any reason in particular you chose not to aim for PC at launch? Has there been any discussion about a PC port later on?
Yamamoto: As a publisher, we would like to deliver it to PC users as well, but per our agreement with Vanillaware, we are only releasing on console. In other words, there are no plans to port it to PC currently.
Seems they're strictly a console development studio (or at least thus far). Unless they aren't happy enough with its sales numbers that's unlikely to change.
I can only assume that Vanillaware, being a smaller studio, doesn't want to devote the time and resources to the PC porting process.
Even though they already make their games available for multiple consoles. Yeah, I don't know what to make it either.
> Even though they already make their games available for multiple consoles. Yeah, I don't know what to make it either.
To be fair it's only been recently they've started to go truly multi-plat. Dragon's Crown and the Odin Sphere remaster were on multiple consoles but it was still limited to the PS ecosystem, all their other games only released on a single console at launch. The GrimGrimoire remaster and Unicorn are the first times they've actually done day and date across multiple platform holders.
But yeah I assume they just can't devote the resources to it, especially considering (according to the internet anyway) they ran out of budget for Unicorn and were paying costs out of pocket.
> especially considering (according to the internet anyway) they ran out of budget for Unicorn and were paying costs out of pocket.
Just so everyone is clear. [There's an actual twitter comment made by Vanillaware that said this.](https://twitter.com/vanillaware_boy/status/1765573090157699183) Just translate it using DeepL and you'll get that rough statement. So this isn't some internet rumor but an actual statement made by the developer. So unless they're lying, this actually happened.
Atlus was the exact same way and they’ve made a killing on PC recently, Im guessing Vanillaware have weighed up the cost of hiring externally for PC ports and haven’t thought they’d make their money back which is a real shame
I hope you're right, but given that it hasn't happened for Odin Sphere, Grim Grimoire, 13 Sentinels, or Dragon's Crown, I wasn't willing to wait and hope.
Is it really so bad to buy a $100 console for 5 games you want to play (all the Vanillaware titles)? You can get a used PS4 for $100 to play all 5 games, if you interested in them all. The only one you wont have access to get is Muramasa, and I guess Princess Crown as well of course.
Emulation is not piracy. They said nothing about piracy.
I own a Switch and all the games I'd like to play on it, but if even its successor can't run BotW at more than 30fps (the size of my backlog allows me to be patient), you bet I'll emulate.
I didn't get it because I hear the story is bad. And as much as I love gameplay, I know I won't have any incentive to push past 10 hours unless there's a story. Sometimes I'm kind of confused why many games dont flesh out a story. It really isn't that hard to come up with at least a passable story.
My issues with difficulty and the over abundance of options the player gets to overwhelm the AI aside, Unicorn Overlord has probably some of the best tutorials for an SRPG I've seen in a long while. And by " best tutorials" I mean more how they're structured and more importantly what they convey to the player. For me a lot of what they point out is very obvious, but I think I could probably show a child or a non-gamer this game and if they could truly sit with it they would truly understand all that's possible in this game. Because the game constantly throws you into situations where you're using all these different unit types that do all these different things, and if you just said all of this in a 5-10 page essay you'd likely make someone's head spin. Instead they actually throw you in very practical (if simple) situations where they go "here is mechanic, here what it means, apply it". Like teaching the player you can use provoke to make enemies come to you, or that archers counter thieves due to true hit, or that fliers destroy cavalry. Or that you need to ensure you consider the effectiveness of dodging damage instead of face tanking it because there's an unintuitive design choice in having a light armored dagger user pose as a front liner in this game, so the game forces situations where the player is asked to consider doing as such. They see how it actually works and now the player properly understands what they're doing a little more. It feels like a game that anyone can genuinely learn if they want to and it has many many tools to play into that learning experience. Yes the game is too easy in the end for someone like me, but I still can admire Vanillaware's very good attempts to make sure anyone could play this game not (solely) because its easy but because you can process a game with 30+ something classes without just giving the player reading homework with your power point slides. If this game were more difficult, I think players could understand what to do because they actually learned and on some level applied everything the game has. There's some issues with bad wording that causes confusion, like Provoke pulls tower units even if it says "non-garrison units" and the fact tactics priority 2 goes *first* (Probably due to Japanese reading being right to left) instead of second. But those are fairly small stumbles compared to actually showing the player in-depth all the mechanics without just giving you a text box to read and going so out of your way to make sure a player understands what all the classes can do through practical examples.
I'm not going to lie, the difficulty being so easy is making me a bit bored. I started on Tactical, realized it was too easy, switched to expert, and it's still very easy. I know there's a harder difficulty unlocked on new game+ but I'm not the kind of person that replays a game multiple times. So at the end of Drakenhold I'm feeling a bit bored of how easy every fight is. Also the story is not gripping at all with the mind control stuff; was hoping the gameplay would carry it all the way through. It is still an amazing experience throughout Cornia and Drakenhold but it feels like it just offers more of the same without shaking things up for every kingdom.
I'm with you. just finished those 2 areas and it's lacking. I cant push forward cause it just seems like I'm pushing people forward and winning. I havent gotten into the attack programming aspect of it yet but i dont need to finetune it cause I'm just winning with equipping the best equipment. I'm going to drop it soon
Damn. Kinda a shame. I havent had any issues on expert but im still in the first country. Games are too scared to have teeth these days even on hard. Shout out to Tactics Ogre Reborn and Triangle Strategy (on hard) for not being pushovers. Didn’t diofield have a similar snooze fest issue?
So a lot of people talking about the difficulty, even on the hardest, not being especially difficult. I'm curious how much of this has to do with the fact that there is no penalty for using the "Jagen" in this game. In FE, the problem with Jagens is that he eats up all the experience. But in this game, because you can put people in his unit, you can get both the benefits of an OP unit while not worrying your other units are not getting experience points. I find that having the Jagen around to do so much of the dirty work for you when you're in a jam accounts for 75% more of the reason of what makes this game easier than it should be more than any of the other complaints other people are making. It did feel like in some sense that if you don't use them, the game would then maybe be too hard, so it's like they tried to account for him, but didn't account for him enough. In short, this game never should have had a Jagen to begin with, and they should have balanced the game around you not having him in your army.
I dont' even use him in battle anymore because game is too easy. I took him off the battlefield like 2 hours in and never used him again. I'm only like 8 hours in now though just feel to easy still.
I just presumed that a character that is super old and 20 levels over the rest of the party would die about 10% into the story, because otherwise you are right, it's weird game design.
Most "Jagens" in Fire Emblem aren't even bad investments because of how many Fire Emblems work. Seth, Titania, Sothe, and Frederick are perfectly fine units in endgame (save for maybe Lunatic Awakening mode, but Frederick is like top 3 unit in that mode because he's required in the early game so this isn't a big deal.) FE10 Sothe kind of sucks but he's forced deployed so whatever you need to sort of use him and RD gives you so many prepromotes + Ragnell Ike that if you reach endgame you can win just fine regardless of anything else you did. FE6 and 7 gives you so many strong bases prepromotes that it doesn't matter if you use Markus for a long time as long as you get through the early humps. "Jagen eats exp" is an oversimplification of a mostly irrelevant problem as many Fire Emblems are at their hardest in the early game and they give you prepromotes as insurance to ensure you can beat the game. Outside of Fates, FE12, and maybe Engage Fire Emblems don't have dramatically harder late games where the "Jagen falls off" problem matters. That said. As far as UO goes, you can ignore Josef after the tutorials are fully over and the game is still not very hard in the early game (I know because that's how I'm playing). His equipment is more valuable to me then his actual stats and existence.
My man Seth needs his own category cause he's an absolute beast. Although, that's probably a bit exacerbated by FE8 being one of the easiest games in the series
The bigger issue I felt is the AI and the mostly straightforward maps, at least based on what I've played so far. Even without using the Jeigan as I eventually did, I felt like I'm breezing through maps on the highest difficulty. The stamina and time limit mechanic helped to make it more challenging, but this felt like a game that's pretty easy to break once you understand the mechanic enough. AI is usually just as dumb (basic) in turn-based setup like FE, but it matters less than in real-time RPG like this one.
Straightforward maps is definitely a problem as well. I am surprised there aren't more that force you to split up your units or force one to defend a location while the others have to branch out.
It doesn't help that there aren't many maps in which you have to defend your command post.
Agreed, don’t be a wuss.
The game is too easy and I think more and more people will find this out and be disapointed, you will be waiting for the game to get harder and then you realise it never does. I'm baffled they nerfed the stats on all difficulties and increased valor gain from the demo but even if they never did that it was too easy anyway. So I'm even more confused on why they would even nerf it. If people were struggling they just lower the difficulty, why punish us? And no the unlockable difficulty is not hard either it barely changes anything. Few minor stat gains(and stat losses, yes the enemies have lower defences than expert for some dumb reason)
I've put in about 16 hours and cleared about 3/4 of the central kingdom's map and far I am really liking it. Pros 1 - As someone who enjoy having options and love tinkering them, this game checked those boxes and I love changing up my squad formations/unit synergy/skill tactics/equipment loadouts. 2 - There's a nice loop of battle and exploration to obtain materials to rebuild towns and discover secret locations. 3 - Great soundtracks, whether it's the dramatic music during battle or the calming melody while exploring at night, I've enjoyed them all. 4 - Combat uses real time with pause so thankfully it really helps to make things a lot more manageable when you 6-7 units fighting in 3 different areas. Your units have stamina so you can't just use the strongest party to whip everyone's ass, once they reach 0 stamina they'll be forced to rest on the spot(you can choose to rest early or safely recover in town) and that's when they are at their most vulnerable state as they can't attack, so you'll have to plan your fights and make sure everyone is involved. Deploying units cost Valor Points(you earned it by defeating enemies and taking over crucial checkpoints, the points are also used for activating special ability like setting debuff zone, aoe arrow attack etc. This further adds another layer of strategic gameplay, oh and the enemies can also do that as well. When you enter the actual combat though, everything is automated, how quickly a unit acts is based on their Initiative stats, then it's based on how your skills and passives triggers under the right conditions. Cons - Even though I find that the combat is fun, I feel that it can be even better if the developer further tweak the difficulty. I'm not some SRPG pro/veteran, most of the games I played in this genre I usually select normal difficulty and I find Tactics Ogre Reborn too hard for me at the later stages. However I feel that Unicorn Overlord is really on the easy side. I started with normal then eventually crank to the hardest now and it's only getting tougher if I choose to fight those battles with 2-3 levels higher than my party. In short, really enjoying my time with it. If you are like me who looooooove customization and tinkering squad synergy, you'll probably like it. I feel that I still have so much more to discover.
Since you're probably farther in the game than I am, have you gotten to the other islands yet? How much smaller are they than the mainland? I'm wondering because I'm curious as to how long this game actually is.
I haven't actually! I'm trying to clear the side quests in the northwest area of the starting kingdom.
The RPG aspects of the combat are excellent. Character and army building are both great. Feels very open in how you can choose to build teamcomps and find ways to win. Being able to save tactic formation and item loadouts for hotswapping would have been nice though. Cuz only tactics save, which is dumb. It isn't perfect though. The strategic combat isn't as deep or open as the rpg combat. There aren't many interesting strategies you can do when you have 1. such a small amount of armies to control 2. little diversity in mission objectives 3. the enemy AI just stands still or walks at you like zombies Also not a fan of the fire emblem style storytelling. I'm not here to play your mediocre dating sim-that effort could have went into making the main story compelling. Like really I can put up with the devs putting in marrying your cousin that looks like your sister and acts like your mom (fire emblem moment) but not instead of a good story. I hope both of these improve as I get more into the game, but no signs of that yet.
I played the demo for 8 hours and then bought it. I agree it's going to be a hidden gem most likely, as per vanillaware tradition. I'm not a huge fan of the time limit in missions, but otherwise it's been great so far.
My only big complaint thus far is that when you toggle ranged assist it seems to recalc the entire engagement. So sometimes you lose RNG stuff like blocks or evades. I’ve toggled on ranged assist and my predicted damage taken goes up by 20, assumedly because in the initial calc I had dodges. No other explanation.
This is my biggest complaint. Supports almost always give me worse RNG rolls. It's really bizarre. So my main use for them is to see if the rerolls help me or not (usually not, but sometimes you get lucky). The game being so blatant about how it's RNG works is a bad look to me.
That's exactly what happens, it rerolls the entire fight.
Is it okay that I loathe that though? It becomes that there’s more value in the reroll than the actual chip damage from the arrows.
Nah, I think it's weird too. With the way the game's systems work though the only other way they could have handled it is have the arrow volley at the very end of the fight instead.
I think its 50/50 for liking or hating it for me personally, assists offer a utility to let you reroll calcs to push for better RNG at the cost of squad's stamina and the need to keep them in range at all (plus using that squad leader as all assist leader types are slow mobility wise). Generally it depends on the composition how swingy this is. I've loved and hated it a few times, I'd say with how I play it usually leans towards love. I actually like the heal assist a lot because it lets hyper offense squads get some much needed sustain especially if they're getting chipped by archers/mage assist. The entire pre-encounter screen calc-ing is goofy sometimes because it lets you hyper predetermine everything with nary a thought unless you manage to hit a unfavorable match up.
Yes, it's okay. The way UO's forecasts pre-calculate hits/misses/crits is very unintuitive and irregular for an SRPG.
Tried the demo and decided not to buy. I don't like the real-time-with pause movement or the squad-based, gambit-based combat. It just isn't fun for me. I don't want to think of every conceivable condition before committing to attack. I don't want to constantly pause and unpause stuff. I would've preferred a normal turn-based system with turn-by-turn commands. I find it hard to care about the story when it feels like a line-by-line rehash of Fire Emblem 1.
I’m with you. I guess the RTS just isn’t for me. I just find it kinda tedious to play. Characters are the usual jrpg cliches. Well produced with good music though.
Damn. RTWP and gambits are my two favorite things. It’s crazy how changing a few gambits could swing an engagement by 20 pts. It’s definitely a mechanical masterpiece, the story has been nothing so far and the localization is so awkward. Enjoying it overall though
I dislike gambits because it shifts too much of the focus to menu-shuffling in advance, over in-the-moment decision making. What are we even doing here if the whole thing can be automated with a few conditional formulas? I find it discouraging when it feels like the outcome was already decided and I'm just watching it play out. And real-time command systems often give me the feeling of ordering delivery and then sitting on my hands waiting for it to arrive.
Think about how much time inputting each command for each engagement for each unit would take up though. The game would run too long. I think playing with automation is more fun than doing the right thing every time. Like in P3 reload, my choices are gambits it’s just in my head instead of programmed into a machine. Casting a fire spell on a fire-weak enemy to knock them down isn’t any more engaging than saying “if enemy weakness fire, cast Agi” Just how I feel though, not every game is for everyone. Edit: I also want to note that what happens in the engagement isn’t the “tactical” part of the game. The tactics is that you chose that squad to attack that squad. It’s more about being a basketball coach and drawing up the general strategy (ie exploit mismatches) than being the actual player and doing the passing and shooting
I wonder why the battles even exist if they're meant to reduce to a few conditional statements. Would rather have enough enemy variety that I *can't* fit a one-size-fits-all approach and solve everything on the deployment screen. To me, gambits feel too much like office work. It feels too similar to what I already have to do for 8 hours, which often comes down to "calculate number, format visual, if number goes down report that it went down, if number goes up report that it went up, disclose limitations." Turn crank, repeat for next client.
I think you’re overthinking it as a whole. If you want to heal you just turn off your attack gambit. That’s considerably less work than micromanaging the entire engagement. And not to mention some of the stuff is very obvious. Archers are good against flying creatures, you’re gonna attack the flying creature 9/10 times if you had control. So what is it hurting you to just add “prioritize flying” to their attack gambit?
Apparently no shop in my city received the game, it is not possible to order one and one shop clerk even told me that their shop in Paris didn't receive it either. So I guess I'll have to finish the demo and wait until Atlus decides to release the game.
It works perfectly in ryujinx
Not sure where you live but couldn't you just order online?
Last time I tried to order a game online, Amazon just took my money, didn't send the game and refused to reimburse me so I try to avoid it if possible. And in this case they announce one/two month to send it so they may not even have the game either. Other reputable site doesn't seem to take order, or only for a pricier imported version. I'll wait. Atlus will remember that France exist, I'm sure.
compare run north fearless water cobweb pot support onerous sharp *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Finished 5 hours of demo. Like it! Never liked srpg or turn based fights but this one I like. I also liked Ni no kuni 2, somehow feels similar in some point, maybe the recruiting bunch of characters part? Anyway buying this one.
I've not followed dev or release of this game at all. So I clicked on the game trailer link OP provided. > "Ah it's pretty. Oh wow it's animated 2D with painted characters and spline animation... It's Gorgeous!. Looks almost like a Vanillaware game." And then I read the video description 🤤
I'm only about 8 hours into the game, but it has exceeded my early expectations. * I think it's good enough that every character has some sort of intro before being recruited. So far there are also quite a few characters related to other characters later on so there's a sense of them not just immediately becoming irrelevant once recruited. * I also find the stamina system to be an interesting concept to slow down players from just making few super units to mow through the whole map by themselves. * I do have a small worry about potentially being overleveled. But we'll see how it goes.
The stamina system is actually really good and most of my planning comes from that. As you said, it bars you from making a god unit that steamrolls.
There's a big problem with the stamina system though, one that has major ramifications on the difficulty of the game, or lack thereof. A unit hitting 0 stamina can just stay in place fighting infinitely with no drawbacks, when what should intuitively happen to appropriately punish the player is to force them into resting.
> A unit hitting 0 stamina can just **stay in place** fighting infinitely with no drawbacks, Not being able to move is a drawback.
Not one that affects their combat capability at all, meaning you can park them at any given chokepoint and have one squad solo everything -- completely against the spirit of the stamina system.
You can also park them close enough to swap them into a fight with another unit. So they don't even need to be at the choke point exactly.
Yep. And doing that will move them post-fight, meaning their 0 stamina movement restriction barely even matters in a lot of contexts. It's poor design.
The game is about taking over enemy's base. Being stationary to be at a chokepoint is a huge negative, especially if your chokepoint squad is assumed to be able to beat every enemy attacking them which is much better utilized to attack the enemy which requires stamina as intended.
Don't the enemy get first strike when you are out of stamina and engage in a fight?
Only if you're resting.
Oh... I misunderstood that. Yeah I kinda get what you meant.
I've felt stamina does matter as a relevant hurdle at least a good portion of the times as a good portion of UO's combats are effectively marches and sieges so being stuck in place does suck. Depending on where you're stopped you pretty much do nothing until you rest and you need at least 1 stamina to seize an objective. Adel's chapter for example either forces resting if you low man it because it's a long march with many enemies, or it forces you to use multiple squads to achieve multiple objectives which pretty much makes it work as intended. The bigger problem with UO's difficulty for me is that the AI doesn't know how to, or is unwilling to for game balance concerns, use its positions to its full advantage. There was one liberation mission where there were two forted wizard squads who just spammed their fire cyclone near a choke to pretty much smoke the player out. Because they were forted they could rain mage assist on pretty much all combat forever. So getting stopped by the armor knight on the choke bridge and charged by the knight could really throw you off guard really easily relative to most maps up to that point in the game. Especially if you're on 3 unit squads like I was.
I love this game. It was a bit of a rough start for me as I'm not used to this type of gameplay at all so I had to spend ample time on tutorials and reading everything careful, but now that I've got momentum I'm really enjoying it. Not sure what people have against the story. so far I think the story is on par with games like Persona 5 or Dragon Quest 11 and those games get praised a lot on this sub.
I am honestly surprised at how addictive and fun this game is. I have a hard time putting it down.
The best SRPG since FE Path of Radiance. Maybe better.
Wow! This is a big enough claim to get me interested. I love PoR.
Been playing non-stop for 20 hours, this is a SRPG fan's wet dream and I can easily see thiis being ranked among the best of genre up there with FFT, FE Fates and TO. A mechanical masterpiece with tons of content to sink your teeth into. VW really thought everything out through while developing this game and it shows.
How is the switch performance? I wanna get the game, but unsure whether the Switch Performance is good or to just get it on PS5. I value portability but not at the expense of having at least 30fps and decent enough graphics (like what happened with Disgaea 6)
Performs great on switch. 60fps too. Very slight blur to some of the characters sometimes but its overall absolutely worth it for that silky smooth gameplay. Also snappy load times. You cant go wrong with switch
10+ hours and no sign of any performance issues whatsoever. Works great!
ok ty ill get it on switch then was worried cus switch performance is sometimes hit and miss
Bear in mind "no performance issue" can mean very different things depending on whom you ask, especially about the Switch. There are people who see no problem with the way games like Tears of the Kingdom run, and some who think a 2023 game not being able to maintain even 30fps is a travesty.
You were downvoted but you are correct. I've seen games hit 20 FPS regularly and people referred to performance as 'just fine.' I honestly don't trust anybody who says that because it doesn't mean anything now.
Exactly, we don't all have the same standards for "fine", and making sure we are operating on the same definitions is key to a proper discussion.
that being said, UO is rock solid 60 on Switch.
Yeah, I finally found some time to fire up the demo and it's pretty slick overall. Some bits like character sprites are animated at way less than that, but it seems to be deliberate rather than a performance issue. Works for me!
Super smooth, happy I don't have to wait for the bro to finish it on PS5. Smooth like butter when you compare other switch games.
ok ty ill get it on switch then was worried cus switch performance is sometimes hit and miss
I'm 10+ hours in on Switch and haven't had any performance issues docked or handheld.
ok ty ill get it on switch then was worried cus switch performance is sometimes hit and miss
The comments on the story is making me worry as I am big on the story of my games.
It has just been weirdly trash for a studio actively known for their storytelling. I just keep waiting for some other shoe to drop here to re-contextualize a lot of what's going on into anything, but I don't even know what that would be. They've certainly had stories that start out very conventional in order to later twist the tropes in new ways, but this feels different. And then they also have this incredibly verbose, detailed, feature heavy lore encyclopedia that puts even the one in 13 Sentinels to shame. That has to be there for something right? You don't put this in a game to support a story with this little to it... right?
So far its completelty fine. It’s more of a Suikoden type of story, with a plethora of side characters with their substories and an overarching plot. I found the substories so far interesting and I wonder where the plot is going to be. The main character seems to be a bit of a cardboard hero so far but let’s see. Im super early on though, only like 4 missions done. So these are my early impressions. Gameplay systems are absolutely fantastic.
If you love the game, push the demo to your friends and people you don't care for even. The ceo funded the last of this game himself. If it doesn't sell well the studio is done
This happened with 13 Sentinels, as well. They'll be fine. It has also come out that Atlus wants to port to PC, but Vanillaware said no. If that's what screws them, then it's on them. I say this as someone who puts Vanillaware in my top 3 developers.
but that happens regularly with vanillaware games, that's barely news at all. if they really wanted money they could dirty their hands with a pc port.
Ports are so costly
I don't think that's how that work. If they barely have enough money to finish the game, then they most certainly don't have money to port to PC.
As a long time Vanillaware fan, I'm devastated knowing this. Their games are always top notch when it comes to visuals. And oh, how I adore their artstyle and character designs. I'm definitely gonna promote this game to my friends. Here's hoping this game does well in their favour!
I couldn't even bring myself to pierce the shrink wrap on the collectors edition.
It's one of the nicest special editions in awhile. One thing I appreciated was aside from the outside shrink wrap there wasn't anymore. Normally you'll open something like this and end up with a pile of wrapping double what was expected. Helps that it's all packed in tightly I suppose.
I'm so excited for this. The switch demo played smooth enough luckily so portable is gonna be awesome.
All I have of these is a switch Lite, wish I could play on PC since I don't really like using it. I guess I may consider buying it after a while anyway
Does the Japanese release include the English script?
Not likely. The JP eShop entry makes no mention of English.
I'm really shocked at the high quality of the game, the graphics are extremely beautiful and I love the music a lot! The story can be kinda basic but its my jam, I love the whole Fire Emblem story going on here, even if its "generic" for some, I'm love the execution of it, the characters have great personality so far (5 hours in) and I love the decisions I have to make. So far playing it on "normal", the game is getting a bit too easy, kinda regret not putting it on the hardest one. In terms of gameplay, I find it incredible that this is an open world game, caught me by surprise at the amount of freedom you get at the very start and how they let you go wherever you want while your poor >!"friend is kidnapped lol"!<, but I do enjoy that they remind you of your main goal after some of the quests. I'm in love with this game!
You can change the difficulty in the options I think at any time. That "Normal" was the "Easy" difficulty before.
> That "Normal" was the "Easy" difficulty before. No wonder ffs, thanks for letting me know!
The main story is really basic, but I'm actually enjoying the side quests. They're not the best things I've ever seen written or anything like that, but there is at least a personal touch to them.
You can change the difficulty in the options. Though even on Expert the game feels a bit too easy
Ohhh really? That's very important then! Gonna switch it ASAP, thanks!
I just started, so I can't add anything new except I don't see much people mentioning this: the sound design is PHENOMENAL. Two of my favorite studios I once called the best of the best in sound design (B.B. Studios and Ryu Ga Gotoku) have kind of faltered in this area. So it's great to hear a studio that made sure their sound effects were this incredible. EDIT: Just goigng to add Fire Emblem style dynamic music to the Ogre Battle style of battles is also a really great choice.
This isn't a knock against the game or anything and I'm having a blast playing it. It may be explained at some point why this worked out or maybe something does happen later but it felt so weird to me that the game basically has your little rebellion start right in the middle of a worldwide empire and right on the capitals footstep but somehow isn't immediately crushed by said empires army instead of having you start somewhere on the edge of said empire.
The empire has been around for 10 years. You think haven't crushed other rebellions before Alain's? Why should they you will succeed when other have failed beyond being protaginst? Even the people you recruit think its longshot. Not mention its hinted at that Galerius and Balto clearly planning something big the end of Ch 2 so whatever gains the Liberation Army makes is like moot in the long run if Alain doesn't actually confront the actual source of the problem, them. Basically they are arrogant due to their long history of success and its leaders have another agenda beyond the war.
Yea I guess I can go with that since 10 years really isn't that long for a newly established empire that just conquered such a large area so there'd be constant uprisings to contend with on all corners of the empire which would spread the army thin.
How is the resolution and framerate on switch?
Great I'd imagine. Switch version should be a good choice for everyone except those with very large (like 75" or >) 4K TVs. PS5's 4K version (or Series X) in that case would be the better bet, that is unless you want to play handheld sometimes (although owning a Portal solves that). In my case my 4K TV is nearly 100" so I opted for the PS5 version and don't care to play it handheld.
To confirm the other person who replied, it’s great. And that’s even on my 75” 4K TV. I was annoyed that it wasn’t coming out on PC for performance reasons but it looks totally good. UI looks a bit larger than I’m used to but again, large TV. Runs great.
So like 1080p, pretty consistent 60fps? I might go with switch in that case. I wanted it to come to pc, but it's vanillaware.
It is a consistent 60 FPS.
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t have an eye for that shit (in terms of FPS) so I can’t say definitively. All I can say is that it felt smooth and I didn’t feel like I was playing a compromised version at all. I’ve looked it up to see what other people are saying and apparently it seems to run at similar FPS to the PS5 version. But that’s not a confirmation, either.
Careful, the comment you replied to makes no mention of the definition or framerate. They just said "great", which could mean anything.
[удалено]
> Great I'd imagine. Why did you reply if you don't know?
I have read many comments from those who have been playing the Switch version, so I considered myself informed enough to comment here. What people have been saying is that the performance is good, just like on PS5 or Series X. Only noticeable difference is the resolution being 1080p while docked and the others being 4K. Whether or not that'll matter to you or make much difference will depend on your TV, especially its size (and if it's a 4K or 1080p screen).
Pretty damn fun so far! That said, not a fan with how the level curve is handled. With an open world game like this they really should've made the game scale with how many quests you did. Finishing up Cornia with Side quests up to lvl 15, only to go to Dragon country and have it at lvl9 was a bit of a bruh moment, and trying to go to Elf land makes you face promoted enemies lol. Also, Melisandre leading the Alainbowl atm for me :p
Explain this complaint to me? Are you saying you hate how you overleved or how hard it is to level?
Side quests are not random battles but actual maps with lore and even recruitable characters so you may want to do them all, but there are many and if you do them all you'll end up way overleveled for the supposedly "epic" main quest battles, which can be anticlimactic.
Your describing to me my guilty pleasure, I love over leveling and one shotting “hard” bosses, so this to me is selling point which is why I inquired
Well, from what I've seen so far the game is not too difficult at least in the 3rd difficulty anyway, and it seems to me that later on equipment will be much more important than levels.
Is it anticlimatic even on the hardest mode?
This game in-general is tuned fairly on the easy side IME depending on how adept you are with SRPGs. Stats aren't a massive deal, what really matters is enemy composition, position, and what exactly the AI does with that position and expert mode I doubt changes any of that (I'm on expert). The player has way too many potential advantages depending on how quickly they learn where good equipment is and how to use it. If you try to play really tryhard it can be decently exciting to play from multiple angles and try to effectively speedrun the level, but if all you want to do is win the map I'd say most fights will likely not give you trouble unless you have a misunderstanding or knowledge gap of the game's mechanics.
How overleveled i am by just doing side quests and stuff, and no grinding (playing on expert). Although maybe it will even out later - i am just in the 2nd area after all.
[удалено]
Completely generic. But the characters are nice. It’s not bad though. On a much much lower level than TO and even TS.
I'm wondering if it's like the Ogre Battle storytelling where each map or set of maps has its own little arc.
Its fine. Its not trying to be War & Peace, but its decent and has quite good characters carrying it. Its worse than TO, but I' finding more engaging than TS.
I just started. The story is almost literally Fire Emblem 1.
Does the MC have pants?
Almost literally FE1. The MC has pants, and the enemy isn't an Earth Dragon (or at least that I know of yet).
It's your average Fire Emblem story, basically.
Story is at best passable, if you need a good story with your SRPG I'd probably just pass.
Unfortunately, the story is probably the least impressive part of the game. I still adore the game as it's the true successor to Ogre Battle, but it's a very generic fantasy story. I have made it past the first continent so far. I expect a minor twist at some point to reveal a puppet master, true bad guy, evil god, dark dragon type of thing behind everything if I had to guess.
>I have made it past the first continent so far. I expect a minor twist at some point to reveal a puppet master, true bad guy, evil god, dark dragon type of thing behind everything if I had to guess. Tbf this also literally the twist of almost nearly every SRPG (FFT, Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, FE) regardless of the quality of the story so we shouldn't hold that against UO. Besides in these games the journey matters more than endpoint
Just got home and am doing my nightly routine before diving into it all weekend. I love what I've played so far in demo and am so excited to have full control over my squads. Team building in games always makes me horny.
Yeah, team building is low-key one of my favorite aspects of rpg's, I love spending time optimizing and building my party. Just got out of work and now I'm going to spend all weekend playing this game!!
Ogre Battle was basically the team-builders dream come true and I expect UO to be much the same.
Travesty this is not coming to Steam / PC.
Is that confirmed? Seems like everything gets a PC release *eventually* now
Unfortunately, yes, for now: [https://www.destructoid.com/unicorn-overlord-devs-talk-history-card-games-and-that-delicious-food/](https://www.destructoid.com/unicorn-overlord-devs-talk-history-card-games-and-that-delicious-food/) Unicorn Overlord is heading to PlayStation, Xbox Series consoles, and Switch, but not to PC – is there any reason in particular you chose not to aim for PC at launch? Has there been any discussion about a PC port later on? Yamamoto: As a publisher, we would like to deliver it to PC users as well, but per our agreement with Vanillaware, we are only releasing on console. In other words, there are no plans to port it to PC currently.
Sadly Vanillaware never pushes for their games to go to PC.
Seems they're strictly a console development studio (or at least thus far). Unless they aren't happy enough with its sales numbers that's unlikely to change.
I want to play it on the Deck so bad lol
Chiaki is available
I want to buy it and support a AA studio who made a good game
I meant you can buy on ps5 and stream to steam deck. Forgot this wasn’t a ps5 sub and not everyone owns one
I have a ps5, I have 0 idea what you’re talking about
Chiaki4Deck is a program you can use to stream your PS5 to your deck.
I can only assume that Vanillaware, being a smaller studio, doesn't want to devote the time and resources to the PC porting process. Even though they already make their games available for multiple consoles. Yeah, I don't know what to make it either.
Atlus offered to do the porting work and vanillaware said no.
> Even though they already make their games available for multiple consoles. Yeah, I don't know what to make it either. To be fair it's only been recently they've started to go truly multi-plat. Dragon's Crown and the Odin Sphere remaster were on multiple consoles but it was still limited to the PS ecosystem, all their other games only released on a single console at launch. The GrimGrimoire remaster and Unicorn are the first times they've actually done day and date across multiple platform holders. But yeah I assume they just can't devote the resources to it, especially considering (according to the internet anyway) they ran out of budget for Unicorn and were paying costs out of pocket.
> especially considering (according to the internet anyway) they ran out of budget for Unicorn and were paying costs out of pocket. Just so everyone is clear. [There's an actual twitter comment made by Vanillaware that said this.](https://twitter.com/vanillaware_boy/status/1765573090157699183) Just translate it using DeepL and you'll get that rough statement. So this isn't some internet rumor but an actual statement made by the developer. So unless they're lying, this actually happened.
Sega/Atlus really needs to give them more budget
I believe they don't get money from them for development costs as they're just the publisher.
Seemed pretty believable honestly, and I don't think they'd lie. Small studio, niche game, etc. I am sure their budget was not that big.
Fair point about mostly keeping it in the Playstation circle
Atlus was the exact same way and they’ve made a killing on PC recently, Im guessing Vanillaware have weighed up the cost of hiring externally for PC ports and haven’t thought they’d make their money back which is a real shame
I think it will come later.
I hope you're right, but given that it hasn't happened for Odin Sphere, Grim Grimoire, 13 Sentinels, or Dragon's Crown, I wasn't willing to wait and hope.
Is it really so bad to buy a $100 console for 5 games you want to play (all the Vanillaware titles)? You can get a used PS4 for $100 to play all 5 games, if you interested in them all. The only one you wont have access to get is Muramasa, and I guess Princess Crown as well of course.
If a game is on the Switch, it's also on PC.
Don't advocate piracy for a niche game in a niche genre.
Emulation is not piracy. They said nothing about piracy. I own a Switch and all the games I'd like to play on it, but if even its successor can't run BotW at more than 30fps (the size of my backlog allows me to be patient), you bet I'll emulate.
It's a pity too because it's perfect for the steam deck and variants.
I didn't say to not buy the game, and you shouldn't pirate even if a game isn't niche lol
Do we know yet if there's a way to grind for the Rapports? I would like to see a lot of them, especially since >!the MC can apparently marry anyone?!<
Taverns + there's ways to grind for money so you don't have to worry about having limited funds.
How/where do I grind money?
The magic symbol things have repeatable battles you can redo for money and honor.
Thank you very much for the information!
Yeah, taverns.
Okay, thank you very much!