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In many ways, Unicorn Overlord is the perfect embodiment of the Shakespearean classic, Hamlet. The young heir to the throne, Alain, is forced to flee his home as it falls into treacherous hands, returning at a later date to reclaim what is rightfully his. It’s great fun and really tests your mettle on the battlefield as you assemble your units with utmost care. Big, armored lad with a shield the size of his torso? Best to stick him on the frontline. Frail cleric incapable of defending herself? Let’s put her on the frontline, too — toughen her up a little.
Without the risk of permadeath looming over your every move, you’re free to operate with a modicum of whimsy, so long as your home base doesn’t get poached. That’s all well and good, but it’s the post-battle decisions that can really mess up your perfect army if you’re not careful.
Leave Luck to Heaven
Occasionally, following a skirmish, you will capture the opposing general, leaving them to plead for mercy as you hold a blade to their throat. And now your tactical brilliance takes on a new challenge: one of pure morality.
The first time this happens, you’re almost certain to believe it’s some kind of trick. Gammel, leader of the Black Talons, is a ruthless thief who cuts down the town guard without a moment’s hesitation. He even snidely comments that his victims can take up their grievances with the Father himself before murdering them in cold blood.
Clearly, this is not the Man of the Year we’re dealing with here.
When cornered, however, he begins spouting some nonsense about a sick sister and a desperation to save her through any means necessary, begging that you let him go free. Surely, the moment you lower your weapon, he’ll thrust a dagger directly into your sternum, right? So I made the only logical choice, and handed him in to the local authorities.
Any issues, Gammel, and you can take that up with the Father yourself. The Unicorn Overlord has spoken!!
Now I Am Become Death
A job well done, and my prize was a tidy sum of 10,000 gold added to the war chest. Not sure whether that was the reward for his capture or if I literally stole that from Gammel’s purse, but I’m not here to split hairs. Splitting heads will do.
And so it would continue in this manner, with blood spilt all across the plains of Fevrith. Some would accept their execution with quiet dignity, others would curse my name with their dying breath. Then, it happened: one of them requested only that I spare their men, as the wrongdoing was theirs alone.
At last, it dawned on me that each and every one of these characters was telling the truth, and all of them were recruitable characters that I had hastily sentenced to perdition. With that in mind, my save file was well and truly broken beyond repair.
Yes, the brutal assassinations will yield some kind of bonus item, however none of these are unique or entirely valuable, and in turn, you will lose out on nearly a third of your potential workforce. You can be excused for making that mistake with Gammel — he looks gross, surely he won’t be playable — but eventually you’ll just become a vengeful wraith with fewer friends to hang out with.
Unicorn Overlord Turned Unicorn Maniac
Many tactical RPG aficionados are completionists by nature, so learning that you can recruit every available character in one playthrough effectively becomes a mandatory endeavor. Unicorn Overlord doesn’t deign with shades of gray by locking some units behind tough choices; you’re not weighing up who is worthy of reprieve at the cost of another, you are killing some people for cool prizes.
In effect, I had rendered the altruistic Alain into the very tyrant he was seeking to overthrow, and I was seriously beginning to question whether I was actually the protagonist here. As a side effect, whenever an enemy with a name and a voice actor fell in battle without offering me a choice of their fate, I had henceforth become conditioned to panic over why that happened.
So what, the gluttonous oppressor Gaston doesn’t deserve a second chance? Despite the fact that no one fights like him, douses lights like him? Why not try flashing your mythical MacGuffin ring in his direction, prince?!
Perhaps in the end, Unicorn Overlord’s true intent is to act as a perverse experiment of situational variables. There could be an underlying message that perceived power can send otherwise good men down a path of wickedness. — to execute thine foes is to execute thine soul.
In hindsight, though, I did elect to kill Shura in Fire Emblem Fates in exchange for a nice pair of boots… so it’s quite possible that I’m just a jerk.
