Tech: Unicorn Overlord

I remember reading about Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen in Nintendo Power magazine back in the '90s. At the time, Ogre Battle was one of the only Japanese strategy RPGs out there, and it was a huge step up in complexity from the battle systems of other 16-bit RPGs.  Instead of controlling a handful of characters, you managed an entire army, and factors like the day/night cycle, terrain, and even moral alignment affected the outcome of battles. 

Ogre Battle became a classic, and the developers made several sequels (Square Enix eventually bought their studio), but true strategy RPGs are still hard to find nowadays.  Vanillaware's Unicorn Overlord is one of the best ones in years:

There's a lot of strategy goodness here - your army consists of up to ten units of five characters each, and there are dozens of classes to choose from.  The start of the game features standard fighters, archers, and knights, but in the back half, you'll recruit and battle against elves, werewolves, and angels.  Most importantly, while battles between units run automatically with no opportunity for player input, you can tweak the individual tactics of each character beforehand, a la Final Fantasy XII's "gambit" system.  That can lead to powerful combos, like having some of your characters buff the initiative of your glass cannon so she can nuke the enemy unit before they have a chance to respond.

Unicorn Overlord's main weakness is its story; you're playing the same blue-haired earnest swordsman you've played in umpteen Fire Emblem games.  While there are some choices to be made (you can recruit or execute certain characters along the way), there aren't any big twists or memorable moments.  The overworld sidequests are also boring and repetitive, though they do provide your brain some "down time" between number crunching and theorycrafting.  If you can deal with those flaws, then this is a must-play for strategy gamers,

Rating: 85/100