(Originally posted on Cohost March 21st, 2024)
I finished Unicorn Overlord late last night and I’m trying to sort out my feelings for the game. On the one hand, my inner media critic feels unsatisfied with the shallow narrative, devoid of anything meaningful to say beyond “be nice to people”. Even the crunchy mechanics were starting to get a little stale once I had a few really powerful units.
On the other hand, sometimes it just feels good to rise up and defeat the bad guys, to be rewarded for being a kind person that helps other people. I felt emotionally invested. I felt triumphant. A lot of this is the amazing artwork, music, and some good title drops. They also manage to squeeze enough out of the small bits of non-plot related dialogue to make the characters endearing.
Particularly in the final encounter, I was surprised how much more I was getting out of the emotional experience than the mechanical aspects of the game. I would not have expected that with a game that gives you so little to work with in terms of plot and dialogue. Nevertheless, I love my army of criminals and lesbians and criminal lesbians, and I’m going to miss them.
My only regret is this game will not be popular enough to start any waifu/husbando wars and I will never get the chance to defend Melisandre as The Best choice to marry. So if anyone wants to try (and fail) to fight me on that, feel free.