YMMV / Unicorn Overlord

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Scarlett complains to Alain about him and Lex "banging swords together" on the beach, which Alain follows up by sheepishly asking if she's seen them. Their casually intimate dialogue in the following scene doesn't help.
  • Whenever the game uses the abbreviation for Passive Points - PP. The description of Shaman class's gimmick is a prime example. PP down, indeed.
    Boasts the power to enfeeble foes. Can sap enemy PP to restrict their actions.
  • This pre-battle quote in a favorable matchup in which Hilda is the leader:
    Hilda: If you want me then have me!
  • This pre-battle quote from Adel is one thing, but the fact that he might sigh in relief if he wipes out the enemy after sends it over:
    Adel: One thrust of the lance is all I need!
  • During Dinah and Railanor's Rapport scene, they both are complaining about the desert heat. At one point, Dinah asks her compatriot to not stand so close to her, since her armor is "hot enough to grill a steak on". Of course, that's due to the desert climate, but considering we're talking about an Elf Fencer here...
• Awesome Art: In typical Vanillaware fashion, the game's sprite artwork is gorgeous and has arguably the most detailed animation in the company's history. The game's higher budget as a result from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim selling so good overseas shows from the much more vibrant colors to the incredibly visual gameplay effects.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • That Elgor is a Bestral is rather obvious from just looking at him. He has a weird hunched over stance unlike any human character in the game, stands on his toes, and wears an animalistic helmet. Yet somehow this is a surprise to his boss. This is somewhat handwaved by the Bestral characters explaining Elgor is far larger than a normal rat Bestral, but everyone being surprised he was a Bestral at all is odd.
  • That Ilenia survived the prologue, considering that literally everyone else in her party shows up alive throughout the game. Though the reveal of what actually happened to her is far less obvious.
• Cliché Storm: In a very positive case, the basic plot and character archetypes are very familiar to Strategy RPG fans: exiled royalty with deceased parents, who must topple The Empire which is led by a Tin Tyrant Big Bad who is undead, and manipulated by an even worse Evil Sorcerer. Where it works is that these basic tropes are used very effectively, the characters are deeply likable, and the nuanced gameplay holds it all together.
• Complete Monster: Baltro is responsible for most of the troubles in the game by being the one who killed the Unicorn in a rite thousands of years ago, causing its curse to wipe out the ancient Zenoirans and leave their souls unable to proceed to the afterlife. Not content with this, Baltro manipulates Galerius into opening the Gate to the Beyond, intending to use the ancient Zenoiran souls as fuel for his own magic, and he disposes of Galerius the moment the latter accomplishes this. Throughout the game, Baltro commits atrocity after atrocity, such as creating the plague that ravages Cornia and Drakenhold; raising the dead of Elheim to fight against their kin; performing inhumane experiments on the bestrals; and turning Pontifex Arant into a zombie, which forced Sanatio to maintain a conspiracy to keep the Orthodoxy from collapsing. Baltro also developed the spell that allowed the Zenoiran souls to possess people and used it on several noble characters throughout the story, including Hodrick, Renault, Gloucester, Magellan, Berengaria, Railanor, and even Queen Ilenia herself. And while some of the villains throughout the game might've had a Freudian Excuse or something else to justify their actions, Baltro has nothing to justify his heinous crimes, doing everything just to sate his own lust for power.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Swordfighters and their promoted class, Swordmasters, are dangerous and difficult foes. They're a high-initiative, hard-hitting Critical Hit Class with Always Accurate Attacks, their skills are geared toward enabling them to attack repeatedly, they have naturally high evasion allowing them to dodge easily, and their defensive Parry skill allows them to negate melee attacks that do hit them. Their strongest offensive counters, such as multi-hitting (to get around Parry) Thieves/Rogues, tend to be themselves vulnerable to the Swordfighter's accurate strikes while their strongest defensive counters, Hoplites, can only block so many times. Your best bet is a ranged unit with Eagle Eye (archers namely).
  • Catapults and Ballistas in the hands of enemy units can dish out massive damage if you aren't careful. Catapults are at least slow to fire, there is a delay for their projectiles to make contact, and highlight the area of impact so you can move units away, but on complex maps with a lot of action ("Blooming Rose on Bare Rock" being a prime example), it's easy to miss them and lose an entire unit to their powerful fire. Ballistas don't hit as hard, but lack most of those weaknesses and are all but guaranteed to get at least one shot off once your unit enters range before they can be attacked, hitting your flyers and squishier classes especially hard. Hoplites' anti-field damage skills are effective for dealing with them, but eat a Valor point the player might not have to spare, especially early in a level. On the plus side, after defeating the enemy unit controlling them, you can turn them around and use them on the enemy right back. Your best bet is to make calvary units your leader and charge the siege weapons. This greatly reduces the damage they suffer on the charge and makes them very hard to hit with catapults.
• Difficulty Spike: Bastorias has giant maps, strong enemies that require new unit compositions and more attention paid to the day/night mechanics, and map levels that go up at an average of 1-2 apiece. The giant maps also ensure there're fewer levels overall, so the only realistic way to advance is Level Grinding, and it doesn't help that it comes on the heels of eating up all your Honors to Promote your units while requiring at least 200 to go from four unit squads to five. On the upside, a player can hire Prestige Class mercenaries in this region like Vikings and Great Knights to plug any holes in their strategies.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Amalia, the Coliseum champion who is only involved with a single main quest mission, immediately drew to herself a huge following thanks to her build, choice of weaponry, and the challenge she presents in order to recruit her. It's not hard to find people that were convinced to get this game because of her. The Futurama jokes made about her certainly helped.
  • The "Desert Kids" (named after Aubin's level-up quote) - Aubin, Magellan, Liza, and Gloucester - have attracted a sizeable fanbase despite only factoring in a short part of the main quest taking place in Drakenhold's southern desert. Aubin's Loveable Rogue tendencies, his subtly romantic Rapport conversations with Liza, Liza and Magellan's mild Sibling Rivalry with the latter as an Aloof Big Brother, and Gloucester as a knight who became something like a Parental Substitute bringing them together as a Family of Choice all factor in to their popularity. In terms of gameplay, if grouped into the same party, they make for a surprisingly effective Glass Cannon squad who can dish out serious damage; after Promotion several of them capably cover one anothers' weaknesses.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Lex and Chloe have a platonic relationship, don't even end up in the same part of Fevrith if neither of them gets the Ring of the Maiden, and Chloe is implied to have feelings for Alain even if the player does not pick her to give the Ring of the Maiden to. However, a lot of players prefer to ship them together because their interactions come across as Belligerent Sexual Tension, and their Rapport having somewhat flirty undertones in it. It also helps that the game gives the two unique dialogue referencing the other on level up, making it easier to ship them together.
• Game-Breaker:
  • No skill will carry you further than the Sellswords' Summon Warriors, or the Landsknecht's additional sister ability Summon Archers. On a map you're reasonably leveled for they're simply useful and efficient ways to soften bosses up, save stamina cleaning up enemy parties, or stop reinforcements by forcing a garrisoned enemy into recovery instead. The "problem" is that the summoned helpers scale to the map's level, not their summoner. A level 5 Sellsword on a level 38 map will call in a squad of 5 level 38 juggernauts to lay waste to their enemies, which can be used to easily beat maps or to power level much weaker characters by bringing them in to finish off a map's boss. It is especially useful for Sequence Breaking, as you can access any part of the world map whenever you want by exploiting it, which makes seeing Norbelle, the Zenoiran who steals Scarlett's body and the worst possible ending, both of which restrict you to staying within Cornia to witness, that much easier.
  • There are a number of ability combinations that, when properly set up (and you'll probably need to consult a guide to pull it off), can bypass the Charged Attack nature of certain Herd-Hitting abilities to devastate enemy units with very little difficulty. Combining, for example, the Celestial Talisman (causes the equipped unit to start charging an attack at the beginning of the battle) with an ally's Hastened Cover or Hastened Action can allow you to start launching powerful attacks likes Trinity Rain (magickal multi-hit attack on all enemy units) before most enemies can even react. Those that aren't immediately killed will be left as easy pickings for the rest of your party.
  • Frostbrand Tome (typically equipped on Scarlett) combined with Rosalinde gives rise to the game’s most powerful lockdown team. Make Rosalinde your fastest party member so she can use her start of battle ability Rage of the Fairies, which does moderate damage and stuns enemies in a row (you typically want to prioritize the back row to shut down annoying enemy start of battle abilities and counter measures to stun). Do it right and Rosalinde will immediately follow this up with Elemental Roar which is a Herd-Hitting Attack. Frostbrand Tome will give Ice Conferral to it, causing both heavy damage and freeze to the entire squad. This combo is game breaking because many of the game’s most difficult battles don’t have Contractual Boss Immunity to stun or freeze. This includes Galerius (this will block him from using his start of battle shield) and True Final Boss Baltro and his entire squad. Give Scarlett Purifier and debuffs won’t be able to counter the alpha strike.
  • Of all things, Passive Steal. This deceptively simple attack is available from near the beginning of the game, costs a single AP, and won't provide its most useful function if an enemy guards or dodges it... which would be a problem were it not for a Rogue's start of battle passive Sneaking Edge inflicting Guard Seal and Passive Seal on potential prey. It's especially potent because it steals all of a target's Passive Points if it's successful, which not only deprives the enemy but can also keep the Rogue's PP consistently higher than any other class in the game, enabling a variety of useful ways to spend it that many other classes simply can't afford to invest. Even better, in any scenario where only a single, powerful foe is being fought, Rogues can completely shut down their often times overwhelming passive abilities with it, even if they're otherwise immune to Passive Seal. Possessed Amelia is a lot less effective without Truestrike guaranteed critical hits and an end of battle party nuke, for example.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • Shamans. While they can be killed pretty easily on account of having low HP, they make up for it by inflicting harsh debuffs on their enemies and can turn what should otherwise be an easy fight into an annoying slough that will drain your unit's stamina. One enemy party in the coliseum are particularly annoying to deal with as they have two of them.
  • Featherbows have a passive (that activates whenever an enemy attacks) that blinds that enemy. Or rather, the whole row of enemies. Father forgive you have to fight multiple at once, which is a common occurrence in Albion.
  • Radiant Knight and their promoted class Sainted Knight. They don't do a lot of damage, and their cavalry typing makes them vulnerable to a lot of attacks, but they have the ability to heal a row and can counter magic by giving a shield to someone when attacked with magic. That itself makes them annoying, but the game tends to have them accompanied by another Radiant/Sainted Knight, meaning if you can't kill one quick enough, they tend to spam their row healing on themselves and ensure the player can't take them out, especially if the player doesn't have a formation that can attack the backrow without it being magical. On top of that, if combined with a witch, they can become full blown Demonic Spiders thanks to the witch's Magic Conferral letting them offset their low damage with magik damage. Magic Conferral is especially effective on Radiant/Sainted Knights because of their B rank magic attack proficiency, resulting in much higher damage output bonuses than most other classes get.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The ending of "The Priestess, Abducted" ends up having disturbing implications after The Reveal that "Galerius" is actually a possessed Queen Ilenia, meaning Alain unknowingly killed his own mother before Baltro revived her.
• He's Just Hiding: Fans were speculating that Queen Ilenia survived the actionized opening before the game even came out, arguing that between her interesting design, the intrinsic storytelling possibilities, and the fact that we never actually see the fatal blow, she was going to show up as a late-game boss, taken over by the dark mind-control magic that ensnared many of her knights. This is partially correct; she became Galerius' host body after successfully killing his previous one. She is unlockable as a Secret Character, but only once the player has completed the post-story mission.
• Ho Yay: Alain can give the Ring of the Maiden to male characters, and the story states that the person receiving the ring does not have to be a "maiden," but rather someone he trusts above all else. Few of these exchanges with male characters have romantic implications when compared to interactions with female characters, but even his decision to eternally bind himself to his closest male companion over a potential female romantic partner reveals a lot about him. Even Lex calls him out for having the love life of a doorknob by choosing him over a girl. As well, even in non-romantic encounters, many of the male characters assume Alain means it romantically until he specifies otherwise, with Adel in particular seemingly not being against it, but surprised because he'd never been suddenly asked such a thing by another man.
• Les Yay:
  • Sharon and Ochlys's relationship takes the Pseudo-Romantic Friendship and runs with it to the point it's barely subtext.
  • Ridiel grows really attached to Chloe after she convinced her to fight against Zenoira.
  • When Scarlett visits her stall in Baumratte, Liza teases her a bit, since she can't help herself when a "cute girl comes walkin". And then there's their reaction to seeing Amalia.
    Scarlett: What a woman.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Unicorn Overlord is a very difficult game to be outright useless in; even weaker units and classes can excel under the right circumstances and with the right team comps or setups. But with that said...
  • Gladiators/Berserkers have good damage and high hitpoints, but between their very low accuracy and initiative, weak defense, and not really having a unit type they really excel against, they trade poorly against most of their competitors. Enemy Gladiator and Berserker units are frequently less dangerous than other enemies, even into the late game.
  • On the opposite end of the stat spectrum, werewolves have very good accuracy and little else. They're light on defense, have a lot less evasion than other Fragile Speedster classes, and their damage output is mediocre. They don't really have a gimmick that sets them apart from the other Bestral units that share their nighttime stat boost (werefoxes in particular have a better follow-up-attack game), and their team support is weak and doesn't stack with itself. Like Berserkers, even later-game enemy werewolves are easier to handle than most other classes.

• Memetic Mutation:
  • Snu Snu^ExplanationAmong western audiences, Amalia is a frequent target of Futurama jokes, especially her romance option.
  • Sorceress is a downgrade^ExplanationA viral Reddit joke post making fun of the promoted Witch since, while still wearing an extremely flattering outfit, their idle pose no longer involves actively leaning over to give the camera a look down their cleavage while shaking their hips, and they do wear a slightly longer skirt over their bikini bottoms.
  • "Keeping the bloodline pure"^ExplanationThe fact Alain can give the Ring of the Maiden to his cousin Virginia, and the game treats it as romantic, and has the two get together in the ending, has been pointed to as being a weird choice but an extremely funny one. Many thus make the joke that Alain is trying to keep "the bloodline pure" by doing this, hearkening back to infamous cases of Royal Inbreeding in real life.
• Narm: When units are stunned or low on health, they'll enter a stance that shows them being in pain, such as infantry units leaning against their weapons like crutches. It works most of the time... but a few units look laughably ridiculous in this state. Dark Knights lean their heads unnaturally far back, looking more like they're passed out drunk while still sitting on horseback. Feathershields are still flying in this state despite their heads leaning as well.
• Popular with Furries: The bestrals of Bastorias, being beast folk, are unsurprisingly popular within the furry fandom. Ramona the owl bestral has the most attention and largest fanbase amongst furries interested in the game not unlike fellow beloved birds Kass and Tulin, with Dinah and the other werefoxes following in her footsteps.
• Scrappy Mechanic: On paper, Promotion is an interesting new wrinkle in the game's intricate system of classes and formations and yet another interesting use for Honors. In practice, it's absent from every non-human class in the game and most of the unique human classes, it doesn't really change how any classes play (with the rule-proving exception of the main character's High Lord promotion getting a horse), and it's a huge Honors sink when it's arguably better to save up for unlocking a fifth slot in units. Since Promotion offers a big boost in combat effectiveness and is required to access new skills and abilities after level 20, it's all-but necessary for any character a player intends to keep using past a certain point in the game, meaning the player needs to spend a lot of time grinding for those Honors in a game that mostly doesn't need much grinding. Worse, the game just lets the player recruit pre-promoted human mercenaries past a certain point in the story for cheaper than promoting existing characters, actually disincentivizing the fun Rapport system for the only time in the game's lifespan, and once the player's already Promoted all of the Cornian and Drakenhold characters who benefit the mechanic is basically phased out for the rest of the game. In a well-designed game with a well-polished customization and progression system on almost every level, Promotion is the major point where it all clunks a bit. At least the updated character sprites uniformly look amazing.
• Spiritual Successor: The game is billed as a return of the real time strategy of the 90s, and bears a strong similarity to Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen in particular. Gameplay wise, you have an overland map in real time where player-controlled and AI squads move, the player tasked with liberating towns and objectives. Squads that fight automatically using a limited set of actions based on player-assigned tactics. Formations involving a front row and a back row. Hero characters are unique variants of generic units used to fill out squads. The main character's class is "lord". There's even comparison story-wise, with an empire formed from five formerly independent kingdoms using magic and the player leading a faction called the "Liberation Army".
• Strangled by the Red String: Alain can basically offer the Maiden's ring to any recruitable character. With a few exceptions, when he gives it to a man it plays out as him affirming their close bond of trust and support (which in itself may seem a bit strange, given his limited interaction with some of them), with no implication of marriage. For most female characters, Alain will declare his love for them, which they will reciprocate. This leads to odd pairings, like Virginia, whose conversations with Alain paint her as a Cool Big Sis, only for them to then declare their love for one another (never mind that Virginia is both his much older cousin and also a splitting image of Alain's dead mother). The game somewhat lampshades this, as several characters comment on the oddity of being chosen.
• Superlative Dubbing: A lot of the English voice acting has gotten high praise, with many players often choosing to stick with the English dub rather than the Japanese one. Notable standouts include Kylen Deporter (Alain), Elizabeth Maxwell (Virginia), Evan Micheal Lee (Hodrick), Rachelle Heger (Ochlys), Luis Bermudez (Galerius), Frank Todaro (Baltro), and so forth.
• That One Sidequest:
  • While not an official sidequest, recruiting Amalia is one of the most tedious and frustrating tasks in the game. While the majority of the coliseum is easy to deal with, the same can't be said about the top ten rankings. Even if your level is roughly equal, you're still in for a tough time. And that's to say nothing of Amalia herself, who hits like a goddamn truck. That's not even going into her second fight where she's briefly possessed by her ancestor and is somehow even worse, despite fighting alone. The only saving grace to the coliseum is that you don't have to kill all the enemies, you just need to make sure their collective HP is lower than yours.
  • The second tournament that unlocks once Amalia is beaten. It features even tougher enemy compositions that will laugh at your strategies that you used to get the Dreadnaught, with the top spots being level 50. Moreover, while the original trek through the rankings was sweetened by pieces of really good equipment as rewards, this one will offer you nothing but Coliseum Coins and not even in large quantities. And the reward for this arduous climb through the rankings? The Onyx Pendant, an accessory that gives impressive 2 points to both active and passive points, but also cuts all stats by 15.
  • "Uprooting the Rock Rats" is an early sidequest tasking you with defeating the eponymous group of thieves who've taken over a town. The map time limit is shockingly short, it is likely the first time the player encounters barricades (and certainly the first time with so many), heavily armored Hoplites are one of the main enemy types, and there are multiple watchtowers garrisoned by Hunters who will spam Arrow Rain as soon as your units are within range while providing ranged assists to their allies. It is meant to be a showcase of the Warrior class, both their barrier busting Heavy Swing ability and their attacks being Anti-Armor, but even then it's a significant challenge to overcome.
  • All of the "Memories of the Anemoi" battles are tough, but the similar (if technically distinct) "The Royal Mausoleum" quest, unlocked when reaching max Renown, is the toughest. Each of them requires you to battle a well-constructed team and defeat Gerard in an overworld battle. The issue comes in the fact that you have to "kill" the opponent to win, a la the mercenary challenges, as simply having a higher collective HP won't cut it. Expect to fiddle with your party layout to try and get things just right. But it's worth it to get the strongest weapons in the game.
• Woolseyism:
  • Although such a liberal translation has attracted some grumblings, the dub script takes the Beige Prose of the original Japanese, which the source material used to impart an old-fashioned, archaic feel, and renders it in readable, flavorful medieval dialogue that conveys personality and charm with the characters and the setting, while, for the most part, leaving the original meaning largely intact.
  • Some aspects of the localization are made up entirely to lend the game a bit of flavor. Much of the Elven language is entirely an invention of the English localization, for example, as are a few minor character ticks, like Lex and Chloe referencing one another when they level up.

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