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Vanillaware, Unicorn Overlord, and How We Got Here

Published on Mon, Jun 24th 2024 Gaming Rectangular HD

Instead of Elden Ring DLC, you're getting Grimgrimoire.

These alternate titles are gonna end me dude. Anyway, Vanillaware was historically famous for producing high-quality sidescrolling action rpgs, but recently made a splash in the west with some of their strategy/tactics games - 13 Sentinels and Unicorn Overlord. Both titles have significant historical lineages. 13 Sentinels is structurally based on conceptual work done for Grimgrimoire, the studio's first PUBLISHED title, even if Odin Sphere was developed first, and Fantasy Earth Zero before that. It's a long story.

Unicorn Overlord is also a significant achievement for the studio, having been in the works for a decade, but it's got an unfortunately interesting tie to the Japan-Only Grand Knights History. This video essay, or retrospective, or any number of other terms, digs into the history of Vanillaware with an eye towards its aesthetic intentions, its gameplay lineages, and the narrative work manifested in their various titles' gameplay.

*13 Sentinels is pretty spoilerific, so please use the video chapters to avoid*
This is a sequel to this video! https://youtu.be/pX-Adq0FxtE

COME CHILL:
https://www.patreon.com/kbash
https://twitter.com/KBashShow

Special thanks to my guest readers, who are, in order:
@Faerghast
@RPGaymer
@Cvit
@eurothug4000
@Foxcade
@PleaseStopTalkingPodcast (thanks to Billy specifically!!)
@GohLow
@WritingOnGames

Tracks Used:
Grimgrimoire, Grand Knights History, 13 Sentinels, and Unicorn Overlord OSTs w/ some Dragon's Crown as well.

Sources:
https://pastebin.com/i4y3KyLq
In the original vid I included things on screen, but remembered it's pointless to expect people to click through a video. YouTube doesn't have annotations anymore. I'll try this out. If you want a full and proper works cited, I'll hit you with it when my work is considered academic and I'm getting paid like one LOL til then we stay punk
Also sampled from Stu's Starcraft footage here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne3BOTSKDh0
And WC3 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmo2rqZjgKA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQIiQHvLAGQ

0:00 contextualizing vanillaware
3:30 Grimgrimoire & Art Under Capital
28:42 Grand Knights History, the budget, the war story
50:07 13 Sentinels Without Giving Too Much Away
1:06:17 spoiler segment without
1:10:00 Unicorn Overlord

Reviewing Grimgrimoire, Grand Knights History, 13 Sentinels, and Unicorn Overlord in 2024 is interesting. There's a lot to critique about Vanillaware, but it's difficult because of their unique place in the industry. From the PS2 to the Nintendo Switch, Vanillaware made incredible, boutique games that sample the classics - the vanilla ice cream of gaming - and done them up nice for the modern era. Reviewing Grand Knights History is almost unheard of - the game was released in Japan only, but with modern day translation patches, even us anglophones can take a swing at the thing. 13 Sentinels is impossible to cover in-depth without spoiling heavily, and for once I'd rather leave it to the analysis people and the hardcore video essay folks to tackle in videos tailored specifically towards the game. Unicorn Overlord's had an interesting run. It became a hotbed for criticism over its localization, and for its difficulty, but I think it deserves a more particular look at its design objectives and how it accomplishes them.