Unicorn Overlord

A battle encounter in Unicorn Overlord.

Unicorn Overlord is a tactical role-playing game set on the fantasy continent of Fevrith; the plot follows the exiled prince Alain as he gathers an army from across Fevrith's five kingdoms to reclaim his throne from the rogue General Valmore.[1] During exploration, the player guides Alain across an overworld to enter towns, use services such as blacksmiths and merchants to outfit his army, and engage in story or optional battles. In areas not controlled by Alain or his allies, enemies represented with sprites also wander the overworld. All the characters, locations and sprites are displayed using 2D art.[1][2] The overworld is freely explorable, allowing players to tackle some events in different orders.[3]

Combat is split between movement of troops across large battlefields, and combat when two units meet.[1] All combat takes place in real time, but the player can pause to change their strategy and check on units.[3] Battlefield settings include open field areas, and urban environments such as towns and cities which alter gameplay. Combat parties are formed from multiple units with assigned character classes, with their arrangement on a grid influencing their abilities and combat efficiency.[1][2] There are three difficulties which players can select, and after a certain point an online multiplayer arena is unlocked separate from the main story.[2]

The design concept for Unicorn Overlord was created by Takafumi Noma of Vanillaware in 2014, almost exactly ten years prior to release. Noma had been approached by company founder George Kamitani after production ended on Dragon's Crown (2013) to create a new fantasy-themed video game. With Kamitani's encouragement, Noma led the project and acted as director, character designer, and lead programmer.[4] The designer was Wataru Nakanishi, while Akiyasu Yamamoto of Atlus was producer.[3] Production moved slowly due to Vanillaware working in parallel on other projects including ports of earlier titles, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Noma needed to personally join the 13 Sentinels team to help with programming.[4]

Noma created the gameplay concepts with Nakanishi, who described the process as the two making things up as they went and receiving advice from Kamitani.[4] As Vanillaware had emulated the arcade beat em' up design for Dragon's Crown, Noma wanted Unicorn Overlord to emulate the classic tactical RPG titles of the 1990s without drawing specific inspiration from any of them.[3] The gameplay was designed to give a sense of speed, focusing on an overhead perspective, player freedom, and real-time movement and combat.[4] While Noma had mostly been a programmer with Vanillaware, he was also a keen illustrator, and took the opportunity to lead character design for Unicorn Overlord.[3] The illustrations were completed early on, and helped get the project approved by Atlus. Noma noted that some of his design priorities had changed, with the key art focusing less on key characters and more on the common soldiers in the final version. As with other Vanillware projects, the art focused on 2D designs, contrasting against the 3D graphics dominating the games industry. He described the world design as inspired by 14th Century Europe blended with Japanese fantasy elements.[4]

Unicorn Overlord was first teased with a short movie included in the commercial demo disc 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Prologue.[4][5] Kamitani confirmed that the project was nearing completion in January 2023, calling it Vanillaware's biggest project to date.[6] The game was officially announced, together with Japanese and Western special editions, in September. The special editions include an art book and soundtrack disc with music by Hitoshi Sakimoto's music studio, Basiscape.[7][8] It is to be published by Atlus in Japan, and parent company Sega worldwide.[2][9]

• Official website