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I like Unicorn Overlord, but I'm also a bit torn on it as well.
The gameplay is the one major aspect of the game which I don't have much to criticize - it's just great in general. The map design is very solid but the highlight of Unicorn Overlord's gameplay the sheer breadth of options that the game gives the player, making it the closest thing the genre really has to a sandbox. It goes beyond just having - the gambit system that Unicorn Overlord has also allows players to customize their gameplay experience through creating formations of units and a wide variety of ways to micromanage how units act - and a skilled player can utilize the gambit system and clever formations to completely break the game wide open in a way that feels incredibly fun. The time limit and valor points being gained by defeating enemies is a great way to encourage aggression from the player, and the latter being capped at 10 points encourages the careful use of Valor skills. The game isn't especially difficult (outside of the final boss which is a pretty absurd difficulty spike), but it is challenging enough (on Expert) to demand that the player respect its mechanics.
I'm far less fond of Unicorn Overlord's story and characters, though. I'd say that the story is slightly below passable - there's nothing in the game's writing that's egregiously awful like Fire Emblem: Fates or Engage, but on the flip side there's not that much of Unicorn Overlord's main plot that rises above mediocrity. The core conflict is between a blue-haired lord who might as well have come from Fire Emblem fighting to liberate his homeland against a generic evil empire with very little nuance. Outside of the main villains which are generically evil, enemy motivations generally boil down to either mind control or a half-hearted attempt at giving the enemies a sympathetic motivation (if I have to hear another backstory about how the enemy enslaved an entire village to get money for their sister or something else like it I'm going to scream). Whilst a simple fantasy story isn't inherently an issue in of itself, it still has to provide a reason for the player to care about what is happening - comparing Unicorn Overlord's story to Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and the motivation of it's main villain really shows how much this game's plot falls short.
The character writing is a little better, but I think it's still only passable at best. In general, whilst I think the rapport system is great conceptually, both with it utilizing rapports that aren't constrained to three conversations each and having the rapports occur in a wide variety of locations, which are both things that Fire Emblem's support system could benefit from, I feel that Unicorn Overlord's character writing is spread very thinly, both due to it having a very large cast and from most of its rapports (outside of Alain who has the personality of stale bread) only being one conversation long. Many rapports have a decent hook, but then ends abruptly before the conversation can explore both its ideas and the characters' worldviews in further detail or escalate any interpersonal conflicts - a good example of this is with the rapport chain between Berengaria and Virginia, where Berengaria sneaks off to hunt bandits, Virginia chastises her for doing so which leads to a very short debate, and the rapport just ends without much in the way of escalation. As such, the characters end up being fairly charming but also pretty shallow.
All in all, the best way I'd describe Unicorn Overlord is that it's the SRPG equivalent to a Mario game or Breath of the Wild - the story does its job of facilitating great gameplay, but if one's looking for a compelling narrative or deep characters, then they'll probably be disappointed.
The gameplay is the one major aspect of the game which I don't have much to criticize - it's just great in general. The map design is very solid but the highlight of Unicorn Overlord's gameplay the sheer breadth of options that the game gives the player, making it the closest thing the genre really has to a sandbox. It goes beyond just having - the gambit system that Unicorn Overlord has also allows players to customize their gameplay experience through creating formations of units and a wide variety of ways to micromanage how units act - and a skilled player can utilize the gambit system and clever formations to completely break the game wide open in a way that feels incredibly fun. The time limit and valor points being gained by defeating enemies is a great way to encourage aggression from the player, and the latter being capped at 10 points encourages the careful use of Valor skills. The game isn't especially difficult (outside of the final boss which is a pretty absurd difficulty spike), but it is challenging enough (on Expert) to demand that the player respect its mechanics.
I'm far less fond of Unicorn Overlord's story and characters, though. I'd say that the story is slightly below passable - there's nothing in the game's writing that's egregiously awful like Fire Emblem: Fates or Engage, but on the flip side there's not that much of Unicorn Overlord's main plot that rises above mediocrity. The core conflict is between a blue-haired lord who might as well have come from Fire Emblem fighting to liberate his homeland against a generic evil empire with very little nuance. Outside of the main villains which are generically evil, enemy motivations generally boil down to either mind control or a half-hearted attempt at giving the enemies a sympathetic motivation (if I have to hear another backstory about how the enemy enslaved an entire village to get money for their sister or something else like it I'm going to scream). Whilst a simple fantasy story isn't inherently an issue in of itself, it still has to provide a reason for the player to care about what is happening - comparing Unicorn Overlord's story to Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and the motivation of it's main villain really shows how much this game's plot falls short.
The character writing is a little better, but I think it's still only passable at best. In general, whilst I think the rapport system is great conceptually, both with it utilizing rapports that aren't constrained to three conversations each and having the rapports occur in a wide variety of locations, which are both things that Fire Emblem's support system could benefit from, I feel that Unicorn Overlord's character writing is spread very thinly, both due to it having a very large cast and from most of its rapports (outside of Alain who has the personality of stale bread) only being one conversation long. Many rapports have a decent hook, but then ends abruptly before the conversation can explore both its ideas and the characters' worldviews in further detail or escalate any interpersonal conflicts - a good example of this is with the rapport chain between Berengaria and Virginia, where Berengaria sneaks off to hunt bandits, Virginia chastises her for doing so which leads to a very short debate, and the rapport just ends without much in the way of escalation. As such, the characters end up being fairly charming but also pretty shallow.
All in all, the best way I'd describe Unicorn Overlord is that it's the SRPG equivalent to a Mario game or Breath of the Wild - the story does its job of facilitating great gameplay, but if one's looking for a compelling narrative or deep characters, then they'll probably be disappointed.
"Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead..." - Joyce Messier
Brilliant, witty, captivating, cruel, and above all else - human. There is no shortage of superlatives I can levy at Disco Elysium's storytelling.
Perhaps the best written video game, period.
Finally, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Disco Elysium was stolen from its original creators by its publishers, who were unjustly fired from ZA/UM and no longer receive any money from its sales. If you want to play (and I highly recommend that you do), sailing the high seas is the way to go.
Brilliant, witty, captivating, cruel, and above all else - human. There is no shortage of superlatives I can levy at Disco Elysium's storytelling.
Perhaps the best written video game, period.
Finally, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Disco Elysium was stolen from its original creators by its publishers, who were unjustly fired from ZA/UM and no longer receive any money from its sales. If you want to play (and I highly recommend that you do), sailing the high seas is the way to go.
This review contains spoilers
It's not terrible, per se, but it's a tremendous disappointment.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story after the intro sequence, I would have been ecstatic. The intro is honestly one of the best intro sequences ever put into a JRPG.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story at the halfway point, I would have said that its story is good but it had the potential to be something legendary and it's being held back quite a bit. There are quite a few scenes at this point which I really didn't like - Benedikta was done really, really dirty, Hugo as the game's early villain is disappointing and felt painfully one-dimensional and the slavery allegories with the Bearers felt really hamfisted. Still, I was still satisfied at this point - the worldbuilding still seemed layered, the nations and the conflict at hand was still interesting, and the politics compelling. The thematic core at this point is compelling, the emotional core at this point is compelling - FFXVI had the setup to be an amazing, grounded political drama - if it wanted to, which makes the subsequent disappointment all the more crushing.
Unfortunately, the earlygame's thematic core of a cutthroat political drama revolving around conflicts over diminishing resources disintegrates completely at around the halfway mark. Having Joshua get revived was an utterly baffling decision when the emotional core of the earlygame was Joshua's death and Clive's attempts to get revenge for it. Instead, both the game's emotional and thematic cores are completely squandered for a nonsensical "attack and dethrone Ultima" plot. Even disregarding the disappointment I had at the genre shift, the second half of the game isn't compelling in the slightest - Ultima is a bland, generic evil JRPG god archetype with very little to differentiate itself from the legion of bland, generic JRPG gods - I honestly think he is the single worst villain out of any Final Fantasy game which I've played. He's not compelling and he has the charisma of a wooden plank.
Worse yet, almost everything wrong in FFXVI's plot can be blamed on Ultima:
The Mothercrystals? Ultima created them.
The Blight? The Mothercrystals pumping aether to Ultima is what causes it to spread.
Sanbreque? Whilst Sylvestre is initially in charge, he abdicates in favor of Olivier - who is possessed by Ultima.
Waloed? Barnabas is Ultima's lieutenant.
Dhalmekia? Hugo goes on his rampage because Barnabas (read: Ultima's agent) tells him that Benedikta was killed by Cid.
For as hamfisted and poorly executed the slavery analogies with the Bearers were, at the very least it's the one problem that Ultima didn't have that much of a hand in. FFXVI tries to make a climate change analogy with the Mothercrystals and the blight but because Ultima is behind the existence of the Mothercrystals and the blight, it is completely invalidated. It tries to say something about the impact of flawed nations and institutions, but these nations and institutions are influenced by Ultima, and defeating Ultima is enough to solve everything. The responsibility of humans in spreading the blight is severely downplayed, the human aspect of the wars that arise and the flawed institutions that govern Valisthea are equally downplayed as well. Because FFXVI's plot tries to blame Ultima for everything bad in the world, it ends up feeling incredibly hollow and refuses to say something meaningful.
IMO, the only major redeeming factor of the story's second half is the spectacle - and I have to admit that the fights against Titan and Bahamut are absolutely spectacular (though Odin was underwhelming) - but that can't redeem the plot when everything surrounding the second half is so underwhelming. If you asked me about my thoughts on the story now, I think it's mediocre. I think the first third to half of the game's plot saves it from being the worst Final Fantasy plot - but I think the second half of the plot is very much awful. I honestly think Yoshi-P and the writers didn't know what game they wanted to make - they tried to go for both an anime attack and dethrone Ultima plot and a gritty political drama - and I think they failed at both.
The removal of a party in FFXVI cripples its character writing - whilst Clive does get some interactions with other characters, they are for most part sparse and uninteresting. As such, whilst Clive is a compelling character on paper with a good arc, he has barely anyone to bounce off of and gets very few interesting character interactions. Jill freaking sucks - for the game's female lead she is incredibly underwhelming. She barely has anything interesting to say or do other than pine for and blandly support Clive, she gets sidelined way too often and she gets kidnapped multiple times. The other side characters are better, but aside from Dion who is excellent, I don't think they are anything particularly special.
It's a shame, because whilst the FFVII remake also had action combat similarly to FFXVI, it still managed to have a party and the character writing was far stronger as a result.
As an RPG, FFXVI's combat completely fails - levels are meaningless, new weapons and armor have very little impact and pretty much every RPG element has been stripped from the game entirely. As an action game, FFXVI fares better - the combat system is really flashy and really engaging on paper - but one major issue that I had is that very few enemies put up any sort of meaningful resistance to force the player to change their tactics, and instead act like pinatas to bash. Whilst this might have worked for a DMC or Bayonetta game where the game lasts 15 hours, FFXVI lasts around 50 hours - and as such, the combat gets very repetitive towards the end.
I think Jason Schreier put it best - "Final Fantasy XVI is truly inspired by Game of Thrones: medieval politics, brutal violence, and a terrible ending".
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story after the intro sequence, I would have been ecstatic. The intro is honestly one of the best intro sequences ever put into a JRPG.
If you asked me about my thoughts on the story at the halfway point, I would have said that its story is good but it had the potential to be something legendary and it's being held back quite a bit. There are quite a few scenes at this point which I really didn't like - Benedikta was done really, really dirty, Hugo as the game's early villain is disappointing and felt painfully one-dimensional and the slavery allegories with the Bearers felt really hamfisted. Still, I was still satisfied at this point - the worldbuilding still seemed layered, the nations and the conflict at hand was still interesting, and the politics compelling. The thematic core at this point is compelling, the emotional core at this point is compelling - FFXVI had the setup to be an amazing, grounded political drama - if it wanted to, which makes the subsequent disappointment all the more crushing.
Unfortunately, the earlygame's thematic core of a cutthroat political drama revolving around conflicts over diminishing resources disintegrates completely at around the halfway mark. Having Joshua get revived was an utterly baffling decision when the emotional core of the earlygame was Joshua's death and Clive's attempts to get revenge for it. Instead, both the game's emotional and thematic cores are completely squandered for a nonsensical "attack and dethrone Ultima" plot. Even disregarding the disappointment I had at the genre shift, the second half of the game isn't compelling in the slightest - Ultima is a bland, generic evil JRPG god archetype with very little to differentiate itself from the legion of bland, generic JRPG gods - I honestly think he is the single worst villain out of any Final Fantasy game which I've played. He's not compelling and he has the charisma of a wooden plank.
Worse yet, almost everything wrong in FFXVI's plot can be blamed on Ultima:
The Mothercrystals? Ultima created them.
The Blight? The Mothercrystals pumping aether to Ultima is what causes it to spread.
Sanbreque? Whilst Sylvestre is initially in charge, he abdicates in favor of Olivier - who is possessed by Ultima.
Waloed? Barnabas is Ultima's lieutenant.
Dhalmekia? Hugo goes on his rampage because Barnabas (read: Ultima's agent) tells him that Benedikta was killed by Cid.
For as hamfisted and poorly executed the slavery analogies with the Bearers were, at the very least it's the one problem that Ultima didn't have that much of a hand in. FFXVI tries to make a climate change analogy with the Mothercrystals and the blight but because Ultima is behind the existence of the Mothercrystals and the blight, it is completely invalidated. It tries to say something about the impact of flawed nations and institutions, but these nations and institutions are influenced by Ultima, and defeating Ultima is enough to solve everything. The responsibility of humans in spreading the blight is severely downplayed, the human aspect of the wars that arise and the flawed institutions that govern Valisthea are equally downplayed as well. Because FFXVI's plot tries to blame Ultima for everything bad in the world, it ends up feeling incredibly hollow and refuses to say something meaningful.
IMO, the only major redeeming factor of the story's second half is the spectacle - and I have to admit that the fights against Titan and Bahamut are absolutely spectacular (though Odin was underwhelming) - but that can't redeem the plot when everything surrounding the second half is so underwhelming. If you asked me about my thoughts on the story now, I think it's mediocre. I think the first third to half of the game's plot saves it from being the worst Final Fantasy plot - but I think the second half of the plot is very much awful. I honestly think Yoshi-P and the writers didn't know what game they wanted to make - they tried to go for both an anime attack and dethrone Ultima plot and a gritty political drama - and I think they failed at both.
The removal of a party in FFXVI cripples its character writing - whilst Clive does get some interactions with other characters, they are for most part sparse and uninteresting. As such, whilst Clive is a compelling character on paper with a good arc, he has barely anyone to bounce off of and gets very few interesting character interactions. Jill freaking sucks - for the game's female lead she is incredibly underwhelming. She barely has anything interesting to say or do other than pine for and blandly support Clive, she gets sidelined way too often and she gets kidnapped multiple times. The other side characters are better, but aside from Dion who is excellent, I don't think they are anything particularly special.
It's a shame, because whilst the FFVII remake also had action combat similarly to FFXVI, it still managed to have a party and the character writing was far stronger as a result.
As an RPG, FFXVI's combat completely fails - levels are meaningless, new weapons and armor have very little impact and pretty much every RPG element has been stripped from the game entirely. As an action game, FFXVI fares better - the combat system is really flashy and really engaging on paper - but one major issue that I had is that very few enemies put up any sort of meaningful resistance to force the player to change their tactics, and instead act like pinatas to bash. Whilst this might have worked for a DMC or Bayonetta game where the game lasts 15 hours, FFXVI lasts around 50 hours - and as such, the combat gets very repetitive towards the end.
I think Jason Schreier put it best - "Final Fantasy XVI is truly inspired by Game of Thrones: medieval politics, brutal violence, and a terrible ending".