Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord has managed to carve out a niche amongst the larger releases of 2024 so far. The game offers tactics and strategy fans one of the best experiences they’ve had in years. One of the game’s most vocal fans is Yasumi Matsuno, best known for directing the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics, often considered one of the best Final Fantasy installments and one of the best tactics games ever made. In singing the game’s praises on social media, people have been quick to ask for a FF Tactics remake, and Matsuno has one response for them—just go play Unicorn Overlord!
After posting a picture of his physical copy of Unicorn Overlord on social media, Matsuno was quickly met with comments about his own games. Some users replied asking for Matsuno to work on a new game, with one saying it has been a long time since Final Fantasy XII (which he was a writer and the original director on), to which Matsuno responded by telling the fan to “calm down” and go play Unicorn Overlord instead. In another reply, Matsuno urges fans to help sales of Unicorn Overlord to exceed one million copies. That might not be out of reach, as Atlus had to release an apology to fans only four days after launch, due to physical copies of the game selling out in Japan.
This fondness goes both ways, and it’s evident the team behind Unicorn Overlord are big fans of Matsuno’s work. Vanillaware’s tactics RPG takes major influence from the Ogre Battle series of games created by Matsuno, as well as including a Final Fantasy XII gambit system-like mechanic. Fans were quick to point out these influences on Unicorn Overlord in response to Matsuno’s tweet about the game, which resulted in Matsuno telling players to “discard memories of past games” and play the game with a fresh perspective.
When it came to comments asking for a FF Tactics remake, Matsuno said that decision is up to Square Enix and not him.
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