Unicorn Overlord - Tactical RPG by Vanillaware

[Talby]

I'm amazed anyone managed to complete this, it's so boring and easy to just smash through every encounter with no strategy. Gameplay has never been Vanillaware's strong point, but holy shit this game is a waste of time.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

boring and easy

How far did you get? Cornia is heavily tutorialized but you do have to build your units well later on.

 

[Jermu]

find save file and start with ng+ difficulty

lovely game but the difficulty was the worst thing with my first playthrough

 

[Grunker]

So I’m playing this because it received a lot praise here and elsewhere and I feel like I gotta ask… what’s the point of this game?

I’ve thrown together units willy nilly, I don’t understand the system or have made any effort to do anything tactical or interesting with my forces beyond the most obvious synergies, yet I win everything so far by just throwing whatever units seem to be most fit at the objective as fast as possible… as a result there also seems to be little point in ever watching a fight play out.

Being easy is one thing, but basically autowinning everything on expert makes me question if there’s even a game here?

Is it just an issue in the beginning?

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah it is pretty forgiving early on tbf

 

[Crayll]

So I’m playing this because it received a lot praise here and elsewhere and I feel like I gotta ask… what’s the point of this game?

I’ve thrown together units willy nilly, I don’t understand the system or have made any effort to do anything tactical or interesting with my forces beyond the most obvious synergies, yet I win everything so far by just throwing whatever units seem to be most fit at the objective as fast as possible… as a result there also seems to be little point in ever watching a fight play out.

Being easy is one thing, but basically autowinning everything on expert makes me question if there’s even a game here?

Is it just an issue in the beginning?

As you get out of the early-early game the maps get more interesting tactically, your and the enemy's unit options get expanded, and you'll start running into groups that will dumpster the starter obvious synergy squads. You'll need to sit and think for a bit about the best way to counter those. It never becomes truly difficult though.

Some self-imposed challenges can also help, I went with no generic mercs, no items, and a limited number of map-actions allowed per battle. Some people limit the amount of equipment they use, but that takes the fun out of the game in my opinion.

 

[Yosharian]

Maybe I'm just bad, but there was a certain boss encounter shortly after the mid-game started that I found quite challenging.

 

[Grunker]

Maybe I'm just bad, but there was a certain boss encounter shortly after the mid-game started that I found quite challenging.

I’m very bad at managing the movement part of the battles, so if the game gets more difficulty later I should be fine. Right now I haven’t even as much as peeked at the Tactics system though and it’s still just auto pilot. Early days though, we’ll see.

 

[Grunker]

OK so I just learned that what Jermu was referring to in terms of ng+ isn't actually a typical ng+, you just unlock a whole new difficulty. This honestly feels very, very enticing to me at this stage of my playthrough - I'm still early enough that starting over wouldn't feel that bad.

The problem is I'm playing on Switch. How fast could I potentially rush the main quest if I turned everything down to easy?

How fucking annoying is it we can't just pick that difficulty from the beginning.

 

[Yosharian]

Bro just play the game lol

 

[Jaedar]

The problem is I'm playing on Switch. How fast could I potentially rush the main quest if I turned everything down to easy?

Not very fast I don't think, it's a pretty huge game.
I've never tried, does the switch not have a way to share saves between people?

Is it just an issue in the beginning?

It's more of an issue in the beginning, but you pretty much never have to have a super optimized strategy, at least in my experience. Sometimes the final encounter in the map can be tricky as their bonuses can mean you have to rely on wave tactics. Otherwise the only thing preventing you from building a single deathsquad and mowing everything down is the limited fights per rest.

 

[Reinhardt]

you can bumrush bad ending - killing big bad without saving girl. it will unlock hardest difficulty iirc.
but you NEED some understanding of system for this.

 

[Grunker]

you can bumrush bad ending - killing big bad without saving girl. it will unlock hardest difficulty iirc.
but you NEED some understanding of system for this.

Yeah I read up on it and it actually seems quite easy since the final battle is available pretty much at the beginning. I'll give it a go on the easiest difficulty.

 

[Reinhardt]

it's not THAT easy, simply because enemies have full squads of upgraded warriors.

 

[Jaedar]

it's not THAT easy, simply because enemies have full squads of upgraded warriors.

yeah, and they're all level 40 so have megastats?

Also, does the ng+ difficulty even make the game harder aside from permakilling your dudes when their formation dies?

 

[Reinhardt]

you can't spam items anymore. iirc you can use 5 items per mission.

 

[Crayll]

From what I've read the highest difficulty doesn't add anything outside of the item limit, a permadeath feature, and some very minor stat upgrades on enemies. It's not worth fucking your playthrough to try and unlock it.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I forget which mission it was, but if you pick bad matchups and have to heal up and recover, with the time limit it became unwinnable. Some maps have a very low margin for errors, and the build variety is huge.

 

[Talby]

Unibored Oversnore might have been salvagable if it had an interesting story like 13 Sentinels did to make up for the tepid gameplay, but outside of the pretty art it really has nothing going for it. The tactical aspect never really comes alive due to the low difficulty and how little your tactics in battle affect the outcome vs your preparation with squad composition. It's not like X-Com where you can get into a bad situation but snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with clever tactics, you're just going to be restarting over and over until you get the correct combination of units to solve the level.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

muh difficulty

 

[flyingjohn]

and how little your tactics in battle affect the outcome vs your preparation with squad composition.

Almost a universal problem with vn games.

 

[Reinhardt]

if it had an interesting story

it has gud enough classic story. i'll take it any day of the week over all shit that passes as "fantasy" in the west these days, where everything must be smeared with shit and no heroes allowed.

 

[Abu Antar]

1 million units sold. I wonder what's up next for VW.

 

[Yuber]

Chance for an even harder difficulty mode as patch???