I'm glad someone is talking about the flaws in this game. I'd like to say that I strongly believe the sexist character design disparities (men completely covered, women very uncovered) go hand-in-hand with this approach. It's not only a "women must be sexy" approach, no, it's a "no-homo" approach! They sexualise female characters because at default that's fine, but they refrain from sexualising male characters because it would make them uncomfortable.
Me: It's not really an Ogre Battle 64 pastiche if there's no werewolf wedding at the end. Unicorn Overlord: What if a werewolf is naked in the hot springs with a werebear whom he asked to help run an inn with him the way his grandmother and grandfather did together? Me: ...okay, you win this round, Unicorn Overlord.
Bryce was my choice and the way I misconstrued his words when he said “I’ll run you through”. Like, yes you will thank you. Let me live my gay delusion.
When this channel eventually blows up to subscriber counts in the 5 digits and scrolling patreon credits, let this video show that I was among the first! Great video Gascon!
REAL. The way this game is so lacking in fan service for girls and gays… lmao like you can’t even see the face on some of the male generics, whereas that’s pretty much never a thing for female generics besides about 3-4 classes. Why is male Landschnect wearing a helmet now, he used to be HOT. The female version gets to keep her face, why are they doing this to us 😭 As far as male maidens go… I found it disappointing! There’s a real gameplay reason for giving any unit the ring since it has utility in battle, but they really weren’t creative with some of these endings… but the writing of this game isn’t that strong imo, besides rapport convos tbh
I made adel my maiden and it was incredibly offensive when they were just "good friends" that's what me and my partner had to be for years to certain family members lol
I actually given the ring of Maiden to Gilbert on my first time playing the game. Watched it and moved on, thinking nothing of it. And then watch all the convos later after beating the game, nice hearing your take on it. Sidenote Kinda wished you talked about Bryce more.
I won't lie, was wondering what the bi option in an explicitly monogomous relationship could be. I'm glad that Gilbert made it out on top. I was worried that his marriage to Virginia would end up disqualifying him despite how gay his rapport and covenant scenes are. And, if we allow for Gilbert's marriage to Virginia to also be romantic and not just pragmatic, then we do kinda have a bi option. We stan Gilbert, our bisexual short king, and the true winner of Unicorn Overlord.
If they're just going to do that with most of the male romances, why bother half-assing it in the game in the first place? Just remove it if they're not going to bother going through the bi-route all the way. It doesn't please people that are leaning towards homosexuality or are bisexual. Why not just go through the heteronormative route all the way rather than half-assing this part of the game that clearly look like it was just placed in there with no thought? The game interests me though, but I think if I'm gonna choose any of these people to give the ring to, I might as well just pick a female I like in the game and the ignore the male romances since they don't really make sense to me.
Travis and Gilbert have been my two favorite characters to give the ring to (that I've seen so far), though I've never seen Rolf's. I was disappointed to see that Gilbert still marries Virginia and has children with her, though...
To be fair, i would be surprised if there isn`t one such ending. Most marriages between royals and nobles were purely pragmatic with chemistry between partners being left to chance. After all, royal bloodlines must be maintained.....
Auch is probably my favorite male character in the game. I would be interested to know if you took the "there was a mistake" line for every character to see their reactions because there is some stuff worth mentioning. Most male characters don't give much of a reaction when Alian backs out, so I think the cases where there is a significant one, it deserves to be looked at. Travis gives a somewhat playful to repremanding retort to Alain backing out ("lay off the jokes") but when he leaves the alter he lets out a big sigh. I can only interpret that as disappiontment. Auch being the deeply insecure person he is, will make remark about wishing the poor soul Alain chooses luck. Kind of a "I never liked x anyway"-response and such are usually associated with a romantic context. Well that is at least my interpretation.
I'll be honest and admit that I didn't check those. Needing to beat the final map over 30 times to get all those epilogue scenes was *incredibly* mind-numbing. Thanks for pointing those out!
@@gascon-en-exil Very understandable. Should you be intrested in checking them out the channel Tejanite made a playlist off all male proposals (including the backing out).
I saw a few for the guys and Travis, Rolf, Gilbert, and Aramis were the best of the lackluster bunch. I thought Aramis actually had the most interesting epilogue, Gilbert had some of the better rapports, Rolf had one of the better ring scene, and Travis was probably the best overall with all three being decent enough to suggest something.
Well, its a pity to hear how boringly straight the game's options are, however, Im happy to hear there are SOME options atleast, color me incredibly surprised a couple of the...not as bad as it could be subtext options are with furry men and that the pretty attractive (anf built) elf man is actually pretty up there is nice. Well, loons like my Alain is gonna have a lot of fur on his bed if you know what I mean.
Thanks so much for making this video, it really bothered me when I played the game just how “no homo” so many of the gay romances were- especially after playing Fire Emblem Engage which was also bad bar a few exceptions. Unicorn Overlord takes the cake though, an immensely frustrating experience as far as queer romance goes 🦄
There's been a number of comments already expressing this same disappointment; I couldn't focus on it in the video since the Ring of the Maiden is always about Alain (and the presumed straight male player by proxy), but I wanted to point out a few bits of sapphic subtext that I found. Others have mentioned Sharon and Ochlys, who have a lot of intimate buildup but rather bland solo endings. Virginia and Leah are mired in compulsory heterosexuality, but at least a romantic reading of Alain/Gilbert allows for a politically sound open arrangement? I also want to highlight Scarlett and Umerus, because I've yet to see anyone mention them. If neither gets the ring they get a "paired" ending in the same sense as the one with Govil and Bertrand in the hot springs, as it's just them in their flower garden and their ending text at least has them meeting regularly.
yeah i really wish they put in any more effort with these. i was really charmed by aubin’s rapports, and he spent the entire game in alain’s unit, but then…their ring conversation doesnt even mention anything from their rapports? its the second shortest and it’s so impersonal. im disappointed in the writing for that one
I gave the ring to Lex because of the childhood friends thing and some of the innuendo in the early game. At least they spend the rest of their days together with their ending, making each other laugh and cooking for each other. It was cute enough. But yeah I wish there was a lot more obvious romance with the male options.
In my opinion, almost all male confessions are very gay. For instance, Adel, Travis, Magellan and many others are SO obvious. Especialy if you also watch their rejection scenes. Of course all these scenes are not on the same level as female confessions, but we are talking here about male relationships. Overoll, I think the male confessions are awesome and as they could be in real life (I am gay btw)
Only had the time to partially play through the demo of Unicorn Overlord, but I'm also a seasoned subtext hunter and delusion haver, hence the watch. I did have some hope for interesting representation in UO, but knowing how specifically gay men's relationships have been butchered in the likes of FE3H left me feeling skeptical and unsurprised about your findings. And as a lesbian it was disappointing and entirely expected that the sparse, but heavily implied dynamics between women gets thrown aside for explicit romance to the MC. I'm not interested in romancing women as a man!
With the lack if voice acting it's clear they ran out of money AND romance wasn't their focus. Let alone inclusion. Hell barely anyone gives you kids. So I wouldn't blame laziness considering the gameplay
I really don't see the point of alain having so many options for the ring thing. It's too silly because, let's be honest, why would he choose anyone besides Scarlett? You could have Rosalinde and Malisandre as optional characters for alain to romance since they are the only other characters that would make some sense, but that's about it.
If you think too deeply lore-wise Scarlett also doesn't make sense. She is the daughter of the archbishop from Albion, her duty is to remain in Albion. Just like what happens in her epilogue. At the end of the day it is all player's choice.
The exceedingly heteronormative nature of the game is honestly the main turn off from me buying Unicorn Overlord. Thanks for reaffirming that even the endings are lacking. Kinda sad when Persona 2: Innocent Sin from 1999 had better writing for their gay relationship than this.
I went into this game expecting better lgbt representation than fire emblem typically contains after hearing that it had good representation and I ended up sorely disappointed there wasn’t anything explicit. I was especially mad when Virgina, one of my favourite characters, ended up in a forced heterosexual marriage despite the fact that Leah is right there and I didn’t get a hint of romance between Virgina and Gilbert. Meanwhile, the most Sharon and Ochlys get is “your friendship means everything to me” and an ambiguous ending despite the fact that they are constantly all over each other. Learning that Sharon and Ochlys are both explicit romance options for Alain is just the nail in the coffin for me.
What kind of lie is this? She constantly made teasing jokes at Gilbert about him missing her. It wasn't forced it was hinted. Now I agree her love for Alain felt forced. I wish they kept their pairing platonic since Alain considers her like a sibling.
There is no romance between Virginia and Gilbert. If you watch their conversations, it is pretty clear Gilbert has feelings for Virgina but Virgina doesnt reciprocate. The thing is that Virginia's dream was to become like her aunt, a Queen. She was ready to become Queen of Cornia, however she realized that dream was no longer possible once she found out the true heir Alain was alive. The only way for her to become queen was if Alain married her. So in the event Alain doesnt marry her, then she will accept Gilberts proposal and become queen of Drakenhold instead. At the end of the day she is only following her ambition, the game doesn't show that she has any romantic feelings for Gilbert.
I went with Rolf because he was the best out of the ones I unlocked. UO is kind of a weird game for me because of how they handle all of this...There was suppose to only have the 6 main heroïnes for the the ring of the maiden(Scarlett, Virginia, Berengaria, Yunifi, Rosalinde, Eltolinde) then they decide to add everyone and that is the result...why waste so much time and money for so little return...even for a japanese game I'm surprise by the lack of subtext for the male characters....other game that let you only romance women but have a lot male charcters often have enough subtext with one or two of them to get the fujoshi's money ( like in persona or trails of the cold steel series)...but the subtext in that game is bottom of the barrel. There is also 13th sentinels, the game just before this one having actual same sex couple....confirm by the dev and getting a lot of fan....but they did nothing for those new fans in this game...except reusing their voice character as an homage with Santiano and Nigel....but even them have zero subtext going on except that they end up working together....if you can even call that subtext. I guess the director for that game really didn't want to have gay romance or even subtext in his game. Edit: Talking of Nigel....why did pre-release game content show him as a normal recrutable character when he is a post game charcter with 0 rapport conv...feels a bit baity with the all voice actor homage
I was really disappointed to not get Nigel, too, I wanted him on the team way more than Sanatio. Hot guy with cool armor and a unique class? Sign me up.
Someone on my blog enticed me with the prospect of Nigel/Sanatio, based on the two of them sharing Japanese VAs with a pair with a lot of subtext in an older Vanillaware project. I was displeased to discover that Nigel joins so late that he doesn't get rapport conversations, or much of anything else.
@@gascon-en-exil It was from 13th sentinels, a game that is quite the opposite of this one(more focus on a complex story line from 13 POV rather than one, less focus on unit customisation, solo combatant rather than a group of 5 etc), and It was bit more than the usual subtext, I do have few problem about it(especially about how they are show in their ending compare the straight couples, the cut content from lack of budget), but it's still a rare case of an canon gay relationship in japanese game (relationship chart release after the game came out show them as couple just like other ones in that game) They kind of are the reason why a lot of people were getting their hope up, gay romance as an option normally isn't asking a lot from dev nowdays, especially compare to official gay couple with 2 important characters....and they did that in 13th sentinel...so gay romance felt like a given for UO.
