Unicorn Overlord (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, £54.99)
Verdict: Brilliant battling
Here’s a game called Unicorn Overlord, although it doesn’t actually put you in charge of all the cutesy critters in Rainbowland.
Instead, it’s a meaty tactical RPG in the spirit of, say, the Fire Emblem games. Just like those, you’re the hero of some fantasy kingdom or other, moving your little soldiers across little maps in order to outmaneuver and outpunch the evil forces of the inevitable dark lord.
Underneath that standard facade, however, Unicorn Overlord does some rather special things. One is the freedom it gives you to move around its open world — beautifully rendered in a half-modern, half-retro-pixellated style — and liberate its put-upon villagers howsoever you see fit.
Unicorn Overlord is a meaty tactical RPG in the spirit of, say, the Fire Emblem games
There is a glorious pacing of its main narrative and the numerous enjoyable side-stories
Another is the glorious pacing of its main narrative and the numerous enjoyable side-stories.
But the best thing is something that’s crucial to tactical RPGs: the battles. Unicorn Overlord’s start with you moving your troops around that open world, targeting the enemies you want to attack, and pausing frequently to adapt your plan.
Then, when you do reach your target, and the fight begins… …the game takes over for you, resolving that fight automatically in an animated sequence.
This might sound like a let-down to those who are used to picking individual attacks and spells in other tactical RPGs, though rest assured: it’s not. This is a game where all the action comes in the planning: picking different combinations of fighters, placing them in different arrangements, and seeing what happens. When it all comes together, it’s amazingly satisfying.
So don’t be put off by Unicorn Overlord’s name. Nor its standard fantasy veneer. Nor even the over-the-top, er, bounciness of some of its female characters. This is one of the year’s best.
The game resolves the fights automatically in an animated sequence – you do the tactics
The Lost Legends Of Redwall: The Scout Anthology (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £20.99)
Verdict: An enjoyable tail
The Lost Legends Of Redwall: Feasts & Friends (PC, £4.29)
Verdict: There’s a whisker in my soup
Before Hogwarts, there was Redwall: an abbey, not a school, populated by mice and badgers and other talking woodland creatures from the imagination of the author Brian Jacques. I spent many hours wandering through its medieval arches, in my head, as a child.
And now I can go back! Sort of. A pair of games have just been released that are set in the world of Redwall — even if they mostly take place on the periphery of the abbey itself.
Before Hogwarts, there was Redwall: an abbey, not a school, populated by mice and badgers
You, as a mouse ranger with a slingshot and a cheery disposition, clamber over things, discover little secrets, try to avoid enemies. It’s all fairly straightforward
The first, with the unwieldy title of The Lost Legends Of Redwall: The Scout Anthology, is by far the more ambitious release. It’s an adventure game that plays a little like… I don’t know… a cartoony, child-friendly, pastoral Tomb Raider? You, as a mouse ranger with a slingshot and a cheery disposition, clamber over things, discover little secrets, try to avoid enemies. It’s all fairly straightforward.
Although it does have one lovely innovation: smells. Lots of objects — including your fellow mice and the baddie rats — give off scents that you can literally see blowing in the wind. Sometimes you need to follow them, sometimes you need to avoid them. Pee-ew!
It’s clear that The Scout Anthology’s ambitions stretch beyond its budget, however. There’s much here — from the often sketchily drawn cut-scenes to the limited character animations — that seems quite cheap.
Still, it gets the main thing, the feel of Jacques’ world, pretty much spot on. Eight-year-old me would have loved this one — and I dare say I’ll try it on my two boys in future, when they’ve gained a few years.
It’s clear that The Scout Anthology’s ambitions stretch beyond its budget
Still, it gets the main thing, the feel of Jacques’ world, pretty much spot on
But what of its companion game, The Lost Legends Of Redwall: Feasts & Friends? Hmm. Less so. This one takes one of the side characters of The Scout Anthology, a chef by the name of Rootsworth, and sets him — you — a series of cooking challenges.
Slice this fish by pulling your (computer!) mouse down in the right place. Dice some veg by clicking at the right moment. Stir the pan in time with the on-screen instructions. Then get rated for your efforts, by an exacting otter or some other creature-turned-food critic, at the end.
It’s a lesser game in scope and price — but also in achievement. The visual feedback from your successful slices and dices is so underwhelming that it doesn’t really stir any sense of triumph. The whole thing looks as though it were made for beige-coloured PCs from the 1990s.
Still, seeing as the Redwall books were at the height of their popularity then, I suppose that’s kind of fitting. Let’s go back to the 1990s, I say. Let’s go back to Jacques.
