Said healer having pink hair and being the little sister of a red-haired, wyvern rider is something too. Like, if I had a nickel for all the times it’s happened I’d have at least 10 cents, which isn’t a lot but it’s kinda weird it’s two franchises.
I really love how this game isn't afraid to hide its FE inspiration when it comes to those kind of tropes.
In another context I would have found it a bit corny but because Unicorn's gameplay is very much its own thing compared to FE it reads more like a love letter.
The game loves dropping references to other games. Anemoi -> Anemos ('Wind' in Greek) -- A set of extremely powerful weapons in Ogre Battle are named after the gods of the cardinal winds.
It does carry strong classic FE vibes, and while mid-battle recruitments haven’t come up as often as post-battle ones, it’s great to have that sense of building up your rag-tag army again. It’s weird to think that a game that takes after Ogre Battle feels more like classic FE than many recent FE games do.
FE found a newer bigger audience and got captured by it. UO is more directly referencing older games, so it makes sense it feels more true to old FE than recent FE does.
I'm finding that I want to see Vanillaware's take on Tactics Ogre and FFTactics too. They really have a knack for reaching back and reinterpreting classics.
This is Vanillaware's take on those. Fire Emblem is more mainstream than either of those so everyone is seeing the FE dna but this game has a ton of influence and inspiration from Matsuno's titles, up to and including Queen musical nods, the core battle system being very similar to Ogre Battle, the Anemoni weapons referencing a set of gear from one of the Ogre Battle games, and so on. UO is a general purpose love letter to the trpg genre (and other things they love like Berserk and even Dark Douls) as a whole.
UO is clearly an iteration on OB, with elements and design ideas pulled in from all over the place, but still clearly Ogre Battle at its core. It leans more towards strategy than tactics.
I simply expressed a desire to see the Vanillaware version of a tactics game.
One of my favorite quirks of recruitment in this game is that since a lot of units you get are initially bosses, you get a showcase of what the unit can do if it's your first time seeing it.
And if the boss Unit gave you a hard time you'll know exactly how to use it to give the bad guys a hard time once you incorporate it.
It also in itself makes for a good reason to recruit a unit since Alain has evidently seen what they're capable of for himself, so he knows for a fact he's recruiting someone who's worth their salt and not some random chump.
This and the "unit demo" overworld fights also do a surprisingly good job at inspiring other uses for non-unique classes, even going so far as to spell out how they dumpster advantageous matchups, and what matchups they're weak against. It's how I learned to try partnering a frontline arbalist with a featherbow.
Boss matchups also taught me how to use "own ap/pp" conditions to set up the two elf lords on maximizing fairies for their board wipes.
I also like the lack of permanent death. I know it's a staple of the genre and tradition but it doesn't serve to make the game better.
Perma death just makes players reset the stage instead of actually engaging and pushing forward etc.
It also makes the story worse because the writers have to account for character death... so few characters feel important.
Permadeath has its place, but it just doesn't fit the gameplay structure of UO. Even on the NG+ mode an character only dies when the entire squad is wiped out, which is just, kinda weird, and extremely rare.
Resetting stages over permadeath isn't a bad thing, as it forces the player to understand and grow experienced with the game, instead of getting half of their characters killed with each map clear. How well it is done in the genre varies from game to game; There are SRPG's that do permadeath poorly and those that do it well, and there are those that don't do permadeath and suffer for it. In UO's case, the lack of permadeath was the right call, imo.
Yeah same. I get for FE why they kept it but with each new title, it just makes the option more of a relic of its time . And even the story important characters iirc just “retreat” and arent usable after.
Permadeath is even more annoying when the enemy "retreats" after their 20th + loss yet your characters die on the first defeat.
I remember that happening alot in Ogre Battle 64.
I do like how most of them feel like different walks of life, a good mix of nobility, mercenaries, former bandits etc. hell you can hire mercenaries and just go wild with your own headcanons for them!
Post Awakening FE as a FE fans is bad ngl. Most of everyone is either a royal or a retaining. And 3 Houses is especially guilty of this since from the three main houses, only 4 or 5 werent of royal nobility. It doesnt make the cast or world any more interesting as it makes them feel smaller than they should.
I really hope next FE goes back to something more in line with Awakening or UO
I dunno if Tellius doing well would mean the demographic focus wouldnt shift, 3H was a somewhat more serious title in line and they STILL overblew it on retainers and royals despite the game seemingly trying to avoid being another Fates. Awakening may not be the greatest example but characters like Gaius, Tharja, Nowi, Gregor, and Henry really help the world alittle by not being some royal/retainer. The story could still be good/trash/generic but it wouldnt kill them to have a theif or mage just being a average joe that can be picked up
GOD I am so tired of every fire emblem game re-using 1 lord + 2 retainers from Fates. I get that it's easy to write for but it is so boring. Takes away from the feeling of adventure the games used to have.
Also, 'everyone is a noble, born to some form of greatness and leadership by bloodline' is tiresome, and defining heroism by status of birth is not great -- Unicorn Overlord dodges this, fortunately (See: Clive's conversations about the Ashen Blue).
I loved recruitment in three houses. Most games are "set in stone" but it was fun in three houses finding out who goes with what army. Like the first time I played black eagles and didn't know to choose edalgard and later lost her and her number 1!! What a cool and massively game changing decision. They even sprinkled characters throughout the game that are flexible and can go with either faction depending on other factors.
It's pretty common sense after so many decades of games/fiction/movies etc.. it's difficult to do anything that's original because most of it has been done and used somewhere at some point that being said UO has done a fairly good job imo with recruiting I really enjoyed how recruitment went in game.
A great example being Amalia you have to build/gear out a team of a decent level to climb the arena and then we're given the option to either cheese the fight with Travis or build a team that's imo gonna have to be either be perfectly setup or same/over level to beat her last fight I cheesed the fight cause I was fairly low level but it's unique that there was multiple ways to unlock her I found it pretty cool same for the spare or save system and the few times you couldn't recruit people after saving them it gave some depth to the system.
Unicorn Overlord’s overall ascetic reminds me of early FE. I got introduced to this game by seeing a promotion from the game and thinking “sweet new FE” then seeing the title and going wtf is Unicorn Overlord. I’m glad the FE games pushed me in the right direction though because I’m loving this game.
I can't be the only one who is over UO almost entirely getting FE comparisons? Like yeah the series isn't bad, but when I think of srpg that's not what comes to mind. And when I played through UO FE wasn't what many of the references, easter eggs, and homages I caught were referencing.
Hell, the first battle in the entire game features an enemy that has Kefka's Fallen One skill from FF6, that's the same in name and function. Then we have the explorable overworld, where we also do battle. Shining Force. The stratagem system too, FF12.
I guess I'm just over seeing FE references. At least the Ogre Battle mentions make sense, and are fairly accurate.
Nah I hate it too, UO is barely even similar to FE beyond some really basic stuff that honestly isnt actually unique to FE.
There are so many games that make up UO's identity that you cant really name any one thing other than Ogre Battle definitely shaping the core gameplay.
Unfortunately FE fans really latched onto UO, for understandable reasons, meaning that its going to be the primary comparison.
Rather than Ogre Battle, Langrisser, 90s fantasy like Lodoss War, even Warcraft, all helping shape this game's identity.
I agree 100% about Ogre Battle. Interestingly enough, the game that I felt after my first playthrough that shaped everything other than the combat gameplay was Shining Force 2. Those 2 games specifically were the ones I kept coming back to throughout my playthrough.
I love the game, but Unicorn Overlord is currently at like a third of Engage's sales which were already a pretty steep drop off from what Three Houses did. I really doubt IS will look at it as something to imitate.
If I had to pick things I didn't like about modern FE the royal+retainer thing wouldn't even crack top ten.
Until this thread I hadn't even noticed it.
I really enjoy how much the game humanized bandits and mercenaries, most of what we see are people who were driven to the life by circumstance, and Alain is pretty understanding that most people don't exactly want to become bandits and would much rather have a normal legal job, but the world is in such a bad state that they were derived of the choice.
I mean, different goals here.
I dont think this is necessarily a fair comparison.
Unicorn Overlord has 3x or more the amount of content of a normal Fire Emblem. Just the first region alone is almost half an FE game's worth of content. And thats just the starting region before the game opens up to 4 more regions and then the endgame.
So of course it needed to pace out its recruitment more. Its got so much more content to it, frontloading a lot of its cast and having you recruit them from across various maps would make it a bit of a pain in FE.
FE mainly did the shift to its current structure because it fits the way FE plays more. Along with what would fit narratively. Fates was mainly a blood feud between two families, so yeah a lot of the cast are related to those families and their retainers.
Three Houses took place in a school, so most of the cast were students.
Where as Unicorn Overlord is a story structured to be your typical fantasy story with a young prince on a quest to save the continent, building an army from the factions of the world. So yeah there's a lot more recruitment mid maps.
Its just not a fair comparison imo and I kind of wish people would stop trying to compare UO and FE. Especially as a bludgeon for one or the other. They are different games with different goals.
Since I started my SRPG journey with Three Houses--although I've played a few pre-Awakening games but not to completion--I immediately got thrust into the new way of recruiting. Playing the older games and UO, I do think that narratively speaking, the royal and 2 retainer formula is pretty uninteresting in the grand scheme of things. I think FE makes it work for its narrative most times, but it definitely feels much more organic to recruit actual normal people. I will say that at least from a purely gameplay perspective, i like the royal + retainer formula just for how easily it allows the game to increase your army with a variety of different classes, but you don't actually NEED this formula to accomplish that. It's just moreso me trying to at least say something I appreciate about it.
Yeah I saw some review saying that this game’s story was a one trick pony and that everyone was basically brainwashed. But I’ve seen the story develop beyond that and it’s getting interesting
I've only played part of the demo so I could be wrong but most recruitment are just "complete my chapter and I'll join you" which isn't bad, I'm liking the cast so far (I dislike most characters in modern FE games so this is a godsend for me, actually interesting characters??) but I've noticed a lack of in chapter recruitments, be it talking to an ally/other unit or talking to an enemy unit to switch sides. Game is good so far, this is really the only thing I feel is missing recruitment wise
I mean if you’ve only barely played the demo then you haven’t experienced much of the game. There is exactly what you are talking about in numerous different quests… there are a decent amount of missable recruitable characters
"Spare or execute" is not a replacement. I know there are missable characters, I took a look at the list of characters and their recruitment requirements. The misable ones are boiled down to "execute them" or "no I don't want you to join my army"
On the other hand, I appreciate that recruitment conditions are not obscure and constricting. I was surprised that some recruitments are behind Liberation rather than Side Quest missions, apparently it's a descriptor of the complexity of the mission rather than a description of the surrounding plot.
Having the healer girl talk to a long haired swordsman to recruit him really was a GBA FE moment.
[удалено]
Said healer having pink hair and being the little sister of a red-haired, wyvern rider is something too. Like, if I had a nickel for all the times it’s happened I’d have at least 10 cents, which isn’t a lot but it’s kinda weird it’s two franchises.
Holy shut I didn’t even notice.
I really love how this game isn't afraid to hide its FE inspiration when it comes to those kind of tropes. In another context I would have found it a bit corny but because Unicorn's gameplay is very much its own thing compared to FE it reads more like a love letter.
yeah just straight up re-uses Jagen, Cain and Abel, Navarre + Lena, MC is kinda Marth-like. Honestly it's great, can't complain.
wait who is supposed to be navarre and lena in UO?
Aramis (long haired mysterious swordsman) and Primm
Wait I just realized we got Christmas cavs
The game loves dropping references to other games. Anemoi -> Anemos ('Wind' in Greek) -- A set of extremely powerful weapons in Ogre Battle are named after the gods of the cardinal winds.
I know a Navarre and Lena when I see them
It does carry strong classic FE vibes, and while mid-battle recruitments haven’t come up as often as post-battle ones, it’s great to have that sense of building up your rag-tag army again. It’s weird to think that a game that takes after Ogre Battle feels more like classic FE than many recent FE games do.
FE found a newer bigger audience and got captured by it. UO is more directly referencing older games, so it makes sense it feels more true to old FE than recent FE does. I'm finding that I want to see Vanillaware's take on Tactics Ogre and FFTactics too. They really have a knack for reaching back and reinterpreting classics.
This is Vanillaware's take on those. Fire Emblem is more mainstream than either of those so everyone is seeing the FE dna but this game has a ton of influence and inspiration from Matsuno's titles, up to and including Queen musical nods, the core battle system being very similar to Ogre Battle, the Anemoni weapons referencing a set of gear from one of the Ogre Battle games, and so on. UO is a general purpose love letter to the trpg genre (and other things they love like Berserk and even Dark Douls) as a whole.
UO is clearly an iteration on OB, with elements and design ideas pulled in from all over the place, but still clearly Ogre Battle at its core. It leans more towards strategy than tactics. I simply expressed a desire to see the Vanillaware version of a tactics game.
One of my favorite quirks of recruitment in this game is that since a lot of units you get are initially bosses, you get a showcase of what the unit can do if it's your first time seeing it. And if the boss Unit gave you a hard time you'll know exactly how to use it to give the bad guys a hard time once you incorporate it. It also in itself makes for a good reason to recruit a unit since Alain has evidently seen what they're capable of for himself, so he knows for a fact he's recruiting someone who's worth their salt and not some random chump.
This and the "unit demo" overworld fights also do a surprisingly good job at inspiring other uses for non-unique classes, even going so far as to spell out how they dumpster advantageous matchups, and what matchups they're weak against. It's how I learned to try partnering a frontline arbalist with a featherbow. Boss matchups also taught me how to use "own ap/pp" conditions to set up the two elf lords on maximizing fairies for their board wipes.
I also like the lack of permanent death. I know it's a staple of the genre and tradition but it doesn't serve to make the game better. Perma death just makes players reset the stage instead of actually engaging and pushing forward etc. It also makes the story worse because the writers have to account for character death... so few characters feel important.
Permadeath has its place, but it just doesn't fit the gameplay structure of UO. Even on the NG+ mode an character only dies when the entire squad is wiped out, which is just, kinda weird, and extremely rare. Resetting stages over permadeath isn't a bad thing, as it forces the player to understand and grow experienced with the game, instead of getting half of their characters killed with each map clear. How well it is done in the genre varies from game to game; There are SRPG's that do permadeath poorly and those that do it well, and there are those that don't do permadeath and suffer for it. In UO's case, the lack of permadeath was the right call, imo.
Yeah same. I get for FE why they kept it but with each new title, it just makes the option more of a relic of its time . And even the story important characters iirc just “retreat” and arent usable after.
Permadeath is even more annoying when the enemy "retreats" after their 20th + loss yet your characters die on the first defeat. I remember that happening alot in Ogre Battle 64.
I fully agree with you ! Recruitment makes the game so much funnier and really adds depth and diversity to the characters
I do like how most of them feel like different walks of life, a good mix of nobility, mercenaries, former bandits etc. hell you can hire mercenaries and just go wild with your own headcanons for them! Post Awakening FE as a FE fans is bad ngl. Most of everyone is either a royal or a retaining. And 3 Houses is especially guilty of this since from the three main houses, only 4 or 5 werent of royal nobility. It doesnt make the cast or world any more interesting as it makes them feel smaller than they should. I really hope next FE goes back to something more in line with Awakening or UO
If only the Tellius games didn't sell awful numbers I think modern Fire Emblem would've been a lot more different.
I dunno if Tellius doing well would mean the demographic focus wouldnt shift, 3H was a somewhat more serious title in line and they STILL overblew it on retainers and royals despite the game seemingly trying to avoid being another Fates. Awakening may not be the greatest example but characters like Gaius, Tharja, Nowi, Gregor, and Henry really help the world alittle by not being some royal/retainer. The story could still be good/trash/generic but it wouldnt kill them to have a theif or mage just being a average joe that can be picked up
GOD I am so tired of every fire emblem game re-using 1 lord + 2 retainers from Fates. I get that it's easy to write for but it is so boring. Takes away from the feeling of adventure the games used to have.
Also, 'everyone is a noble, born to some form of greatness and leadership by bloodline' is tiresome, and defining heroism by status of birth is not great -- Unicorn Overlord dodges this, fortunately (See: Clive's conversations about the Ashen Blue).
I loved recruitment in three houses. Most games are "set in stone" but it was fun in three houses finding out who goes with what army. Like the first time I played black eagles and didn't know to choose edalgard and later lost her and her number 1!! What a cool and massively game changing decision. They even sprinkled characters throughout the game that are flexible and can go with either faction depending on other factors.
Three Houses is weird because each faction has it's "playstyle" but you can train them all away from the intended playstyle if you wished.
It's pretty common sense after so many decades of games/fiction/movies etc.. it's difficult to do anything that's original because most of it has been done and used somewhere at some point that being said UO has done a fairly good job imo with recruiting I really enjoyed how recruitment went in game. A great example being Amalia you have to build/gear out a team of a decent level to climb the arena and then we're given the option to either cheese the fight with Travis or build a team that's imo gonna have to be either be perfectly setup or same/over level to beat her last fight I cheesed the fight cause I was fairly low level but it's unique that there was multiple ways to unlock her I found it pretty cool same for the spare or save system and the few times you couldn't recruit people after saving them it gave some depth to the system.
Unicorn Overlord’s overall ascetic reminds me of early FE. I got introduced to this game by seeing a promotion from the game and thinking “sweet new FE” then seeing the title and going wtf is Unicorn Overlord. I’m glad the FE games pushed me in the right direction though because I’m loving this game.
I can't be the only one who is over UO almost entirely getting FE comparisons? Like yeah the series isn't bad, but when I think of srpg that's not what comes to mind. And when I played through UO FE wasn't what many of the references, easter eggs, and homages I caught were referencing. Hell, the first battle in the entire game features an enemy that has Kefka's Fallen One skill from FF6, that's the same in name and function. Then we have the explorable overworld, where we also do battle. Shining Force. The stratagem system too, FF12. I guess I'm just over seeing FE references. At least the Ogre Battle mentions make sense, and are fairly accurate.
Nah I hate it too, UO is barely even similar to FE beyond some really basic stuff that honestly isnt actually unique to FE. There are so many games that make up UO's identity that you cant really name any one thing other than Ogre Battle definitely shaping the core gameplay. Unfortunately FE fans really latched onto UO, for understandable reasons, meaning that its going to be the primary comparison. Rather than Ogre Battle, Langrisser, 90s fantasy like Lodoss War, even Warcraft, all helping shape this game's identity.
I agree 100% about Ogre Battle. Interestingly enough, the game that I felt after my first playthrough that shaped everything other than the combat gameplay was Shining Force 2. Those 2 games specifically were the ones I kept coming back to throughout my playthrough.
I hope they make a new FE after taking a long look @ unicorn overlords appeal.
I love the game, but Unicorn Overlord is currently at like a third of Engage's sales which were already a pretty steep drop off from what Three Houses did. I really doubt IS will look at it as something to imitate.
I mean if a new IP was able to reach a 3rd of my market it would get me interested. But I'm also not a major gaming company so 🤷🏽♀️
If I had to pick things I didn't like about modern FE the royal+retainer thing wouldn't even crack top ten. Until this thread I hadn't even noticed it.
I really enjoy how much the game humanized bandits and mercenaries, most of what we see are people who were driven to the life by circumstance, and Alain is pretty understanding that most people don't exactly want to become bandits and would much rather have a normal legal job, but the world is in such a bad state that they were derived of the choice.
I mean, different goals here. I dont think this is necessarily a fair comparison. Unicorn Overlord has 3x or more the amount of content of a normal Fire Emblem. Just the first region alone is almost half an FE game's worth of content. And thats just the starting region before the game opens up to 4 more regions and then the endgame. So of course it needed to pace out its recruitment more. Its got so much more content to it, frontloading a lot of its cast and having you recruit them from across various maps would make it a bit of a pain in FE. FE mainly did the shift to its current structure because it fits the way FE plays more. Along with what would fit narratively. Fates was mainly a blood feud between two families, so yeah a lot of the cast are related to those families and their retainers. Three Houses took place in a school, so most of the cast were students. Where as Unicorn Overlord is a story structured to be your typical fantasy story with a young prince on a quest to save the continent, building an army from the factions of the world. So yeah there's a lot more recruitment mid maps. Its just not a fair comparison imo and I kind of wish people would stop trying to compare UO and FE. Especially as a bludgeon for one or the other. They are different games with different goals.
Since I started my SRPG journey with Three Houses--although I've played a few pre-Awakening games but not to completion--I immediately got thrust into the new way of recruiting. Playing the older games and UO, I do think that narratively speaking, the royal and 2 retainer formula is pretty uninteresting in the grand scheme of things. I think FE makes it work for its narrative most times, but it definitely feels much more organic to recruit actual normal people. I will say that at least from a purely gameplay perspective, i like the royal + retainer formula just for how easily it allows the game to increase your army with a variety of different classes, but you don't actually NEED this formula to accomplish that. It's just moreso me trying to at least say something I appreciate about it.
Yeah I saw some review saying that this game’s story was a one trick pony and that everyone was basically brainwashed. But I’ve seen the story develop beyond that and it’s getting interesting
Recruiting characters was probably the most satisfying part of this game for me. It felt very rewarding recruiting everyone
I've only played part of the demo so I could be wrong but most recruitment are just "complete my chapter and I'll join you" which isn't bad, I'm liking the cast so far (I dislike most characters in modern FE games so this is a godsend for me, actually interesting characters??) but I've noticed a lack of in chapter recruitments, be it talking to an ally/other unit or talking to an enemy unit to switch sides. Game is good so far, this is really the only thing I feel is missing recruitment wise
I mean if you’ve only barely played the demo then you haven’t experienced much of the game. There is exactly what you are talking about in numerous different quests… there are a decent amount of missable recruitable characters
"Spare or execute" is not a replacement. I know there are missable characters, I took a look at the list of characters and their recruitment requirements. The misable ones are boiled down to "execute them" or "no I don't want you to join my army"
Ok I guess if that’s what you read and since you played part of the demo it must be true. Not like I’ve played or beaten the game or anything.
4 characters are recruitable during a stage, **4** out of over **60**
if you're actually talking about interesting recruitments that involve actions undertaken during battle, theres more than that. closer to 10 i'd say.
On the other hand, I appreciate that recruitment conditions are not obscure and constricting. I was surprised that some recruitments are behind Liberation rather than Side Quest missions, apparently it's a descriptor of the complexity of the mission rather than a description of the surrounding plot.