Quarantine Control #210: The Invincible Unicorn Song
It says a lot about how divided the United States is, to a dangerous degree, that it takes an event like the solar eclipse to do something as ostensibly sappy as bringing the country somewhat closer together. That unity was inevitably fleeting and only lasted for moments, but the eclipse was nice to observe. Most of the country didn’t get to see the total eclipse, but the partial one and associated darkness was fun to experience. It was a neat once-in-a-generation event, considering we won’t have another one for a little over 20 years.
Well, unless you’re willing to travel outside the US. That’s an option too.
Geoffrey Barnes
Invincible — Season 2 (2023-2024)
Source: Amazon Prime Video
Episodes: 8
It was always clear that Invincible would be a subversion of the usual superhero fare on par with fellow Amazon Prime show The Boys, albeit in a primarily animated form. This was evident before the show aired considering its nature as a comic book adaptation, with Invincible taking fewer liberties with the source material than The Boys did. This couldn’t have been more on display from the very first episode, which saw initial Superman epilogue Omni-Man (voiced by JK Simmons) brutally murder most of his supposed teammates. The scene seemed more like something out of a “What If?” fever dream before subsequent episodes confirmed that it was very real. It showed how high the stakes would be for Invincible’s first season, which never let up.
This all led to another question: How the heck were they going to keep this up and match it with the second season? It somewhat does and does not.
Omni-Man’s actions have changed how society views superheroes despite his defeat by his son Invincible/Mark Grayson (voice of Steven Yeun). This has, of course, changed the lives of Mark and his mother Deborah Grayson (voice of Sandra Oh) the most, as something they’ll never be able to move past and get over despite their attempts to do so. This is the way in which Invincible’s second season approaches a superhero world from the micro level, as an antithesis to the macro level like the first season. The focus here is on Mark’s character development, and how the world’s events have affected those around him.
This ended up largely being a subversion compared to teases at the start of this season, after hints regarding how this would be a multiverse tale. With Marvel and DC to a lesser extent (the latter through animated films) tackling those concepts, we really didn’t need a third superhero work doing the same right now. But that’s merely a backdrop to the full story of the changed world and lives of the Graysons and their affiliates, which also affects Mark’s girlfriend Amber Bennett (voice of Zazie Beetz) and good superhero friend Sam Wilkins/Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs). That’s, of course, not the entire focus either, with several threats coming after the heroes. But there’s absolutely more of a character development focus here.
Not to say that’s bad, of course. The events of the first season were shocking enough that they were bound to have a significant effect on the characters themselves, which needed to be explored in detail. The first season was only the start of how the Graysons’ lives would be flipped, beyond Mark trying to live his life as a college student with a social life and a superhero. This is helped by stellar writing, achieved by only making minor and necessary changes compared to the comics, while teasing events to come.
The great voicework does the job too. In fact, I’m still shocked at how ridiculously stacked the cast is, which also includes the likes of Walton Goggins, Seth Rogen, Peter Cullen, Tatiana Maslany, Mark Hamill, Kevin Michael Richardson, Clancy Brown, Sterling K. Brown, Mahershala Ali, Mae Whitman, and too many more. It feels like this should be more of a talking point.
The focus on character development led to fewer memorable moments on par with the first season, though that’s not to say there weren’t any of them. Again, the season needed to play out this way after what happened in the first season, meaning this feeling was inevitable. It’s also unfortunate that this came with iffier animation, especially with the fight sequences. I’d hate to think that Amazon might have dropped the budget for the series, but this doesn’t get too in the way. It sticks out compared to the other animated superhero content airing right now.
Invincible’s second season is well worth watching alongside the first, or finishing for anyone who hasn’t gotten around to going through the rest of it. It’s also unfortunate that Amazon had this show take a break midway through, likely to have more content over a longer period following the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. This was an antithesis to the first season, for which all episodes were dropped at once for binging. Amazon likely wasn’t going to stick with that, as they tend to flip between release formats for multiple shows. But it was very clear that the season wasn’t made with the intention of there being a break in the middle, and doing so might have killed the buzz around social media.
Fortunately, the Invincible animated adaptation will continue based on the recent leaks (which are BIG — you’ve been warned), considering this season was hardly conclusive. But this should teach them not to ruin the tempo of the discussions again. Well, hopefully. This season was still memorable enough that I didn’t need a refresher when it returned, but let’s not do this again.
Angela Moseley
Unicorn Overlord demo (2024)
Source: Nintendo Switch
Episodes: One 7-hour long demo
Unicorn Overlord is one of my most highly anticipated 2024 games. While I have largely given up on the practice of pre-ordering games, I made an exception for this Vanillaware developed title. I noticed the collector’s edition, aka the Monarch Edition go up for sale in late 2023. Even though the collection itself was over $100, I decided to drop the cash. Part of my reasoning was that in addition to wanting the game for myself, my husband would also enjoy having a collector’s edition. I opted for the PS4 version of the game, which at some point became a digital-only release. I was quietly given a PS5 version of the game.
In the meantime, I downloaded the demo which was released a few weeks before Unicorn Overlord’s official debut. I figured it couldn’t hurt to play the demo on the Switch while I waited for my collector’s edition to ship. It turns out the demo was way more comprehensive than I was expecting. As a pleasant surprise, the game ran much better than I anticipated on the Switch, and it looked fantastic on the OLED screen. Before I knew it, I’d sunk about seven hours into the demo and found myself wondering if it was feasible to buy the game on Switch despite owning a copy on PS5 (a system I don’t own).
The Kingdom of Cornia is under attack when General Valmore heads a rebellion against Queen Ilenia. The monarch stands fast, but discovers most of her army has joined Valmore. Before taking a final stand, she urges Josef, a Paladin and her personal guard to take her young son, Alain to safety. She also gives him the Ring of the Unicorn, a family heirloom and symbol of the kingdom. Ilenia and her loyal troops face Valmore in order to buy more time for Josef and Alain to escape. Unfortunately, the Queen of Cornia is unable to best Valmore and the kingdom is lost with her demise.
A decade passes, and Valmore has changed his name to Galerius. He’s also renamed the kingdom to Zenoiria. Not satisfied with just Cornia, he’s placed every neighboring kingdom under his rule. All hope isn’t lost yet, as Alain (now a young adult) along with Josef and a few comrades are building a resistance known as the Liberation Army. Finally leaving the remote island of Palevia, Alain leads the Liberation Army in search of more allies and recruits. However, Galerius strikes first and kidnaps Palevia’s priestess and Alain’s friend, Scarlett. As Alain takes his small army to march on lands controlled by Zenoiria, and to rescue Scarlett, he learns that not all of Cornia’s former generals willingly sided with Galerius a decade earlier. Some members of the royal guard were placed under mind control, and the Ring of the Unicorn can undo this spell.
From the promotional material released for Unicorn Overlord, I was immediately reminded of various Fire Emblem games. Those initial impressions were incorrect, as savvier fans of tactics games pointed to Ogre Battle the true inspiration. Not having ever played Ogre Battle, but being familiar with Fire Emblem, and now having sunk about seven hours into Unicorn Overlord, I’ll take their word for it. The battle system certainly isn’t like any FE game I’ve ever played. There’s a lot more going on under the hood, as individual characters aren’t controlled directly. Instead, characters move as a unit on the field, and players can command multiple units. Each unit starts with two character slots, but can be expanded up to six slots. I was able to unlock three slots for four units in the demo. Characters within each unit can be placed anywhere on a three-by-two grid.
The obvious configuration would be tanks and high defense (or shield bearing) characters in the front. Lower defense characters in the back rows. (Though as a fun subversion of this general rule, thieves can be placed in the front row as their high evasion makes them difficult for most units to hit.) This general rule isn’t set in stone, and you’re free to mix and match your character configurations. Other factors to keep in mind when placing characters include taking slashing damage that can hurt multiple characters in the front row, or piercing damage that can strike characters in the front and back rows. The combinations and unit formations are fun to tinker with, though I ran out of time in the demo just as I recruited a bunch of new characters.
As for actions in battle, they are queued up ahead of time including the order of execution. This has to be done before a battle starts, as character actions cannot be changed in the middle of a battle. This system reminds me of the Gambit system in Final Fantasy XII. Because of the time limit in the demo, it’s not possible to really customize a character, as you’re bound to their starting moves. During my playtime, I didn’t feel the need to reorder any character actions. That said, I only had three actions per character. Josef was the sole exception and he was overpowered in the early game.
The Unicorn Overlord demo is less of a finite selection of the early game, and more of the full game behind a set number of hours. Conveniently, it means anyone purchasing the full game can just keep playing where they left off on the same console. It also means players have the ability to have a completely unique experience once the world map opens up, as there are lots of places to explore, and characters to recruit within the seven-hour limit. For example, I settled on doing as many side quests as I could, versus seeing more of the main game’s story. That meant I didn’t reach Scarlett’s location despite getting close. However, I was able to recruit a Gladiator and a Witch in their own side quests. I also discovered random enemy encounters on the map that can either be taken head-on or completely avoided. Unlike full battles on the map, these scuffles aren’t timed. I also made progress in finding materials and rebuilding numerous towns.
The part of the game that very much reminded me of Fire Emblem was the Rapport system. When several characters are placed in the same unit and battle together frequently, they gain rapport. Gain enough of it, and conversation will unlock where these two characters talk and get to know each other better. This is very similar to Fire Emblem’s Support Conversations. I didn’t get far enough into the demo to appreciate Unicorn Overlord’s spin on the system, though.
I purchased Unicorn Overlord sight unseen, and the demo reaffirms the game was worth pre-ordering. In fact, my only regret is perhaps not getting the Monarch Edition on Switch instead of PS5. If you’re curious about Vanillaware’s latest game, or you like tactical RPGs in general, the demo is worth checking out to see if the full game is to your liking. After all, a beefy length of seven hours is plenty of time to make a judgment.
Joseph Daniels
In recent weeks, I finally felt my drive return to resume working on the video game retrospective articles I started doing in 2020. As such, I’ve currently got several in progress. I don’t always make time to watch or listen to anything while working on them, though. Especially since certain games like Final Fantasy VI are story heavy games, with not a lot of time spent grinding or navigating elaborate dungeons. Even the Floating Continent takes less than an hour to get through, it’s pretty well paced.
It’s not like I play games such as Lunar: Dragon Song all the time, where at least half of the game’s run time consists of running dungeon after dungeon just to take the four dragon trials in order to become a Dragonmaster. Even having played the game twice now, I still don’t accept Dragonmaster Jian or Dragonmaster Ignatius as canon.
So this week, I have nothing I want to talk about yet. There’s one show that I’m hesitant to talk about after only one episode because stuff happens at the end that makes me wonder if it’s really just a cozy, Ghibli-esque slice of life anime or if it’s going to surprise me with plot twists the size of Odd Taxi’s that they’ve yet to reveal.
One thing I’d like to say, though, is that I know life can be difficult, but one of the best things you can do for yourself is to celebrate little victories, even if you don’t feel like you’ve won the war, yet. So to speak, anyway. You might choose to think of winning the war as some high bar of success you’ve not met, but every day is a battle that you win by surviving. No matter what you think about yourself and no matter what your goals are, if you wake up the next day, that’s another battle you’ve won. You are a winner. You are awesome.
I’ll see you all next week.
Not to say we were entirely united when the solar eclipse happened, because you knew there were going to be people saying the Woke Mind Virus™ didn’t want you staring directly into it. These are the same people wondering why they’re having vision issues now. Until next week, folks, assuming you can read this.
About The Author
dcstaff
The collective will of the Damage Control staff combined into a single article.
