Review: Etrange Overlord’s Story Is Its Strongest Element 

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with anime, manga, and light novels lately, but villainess and isekai series are big. Huge. Woman dies. Reincarnates as a villainess. Turns out she’s actually not bad and happens to be one of the nicest people ever, but ends up billed as a “villainess” for reasons. It’s a whole thing. With NIS America, Gemdrops, Superniche, and Broccoli’s Etrange Overlord, we’re seeing that sentiment carry over to a game. While the Musou-style beat’em up element isn’t all that exciting, the ambiance and story is pretty fun.

Etrange von Rosenburg is a noblewoman engaged to the prince of Edelstein. (Though royalty, he’s apparently not important enough to get a name.) Instead of a happily ever after, her tale begins with her in a guillotine and him at the side ordering her execution because she “allegedly” attempted to have him killed. She awakes in hell, even though she’s innocent, with three demons trying to torture her. Except Etrange is smart and uses her wits, money, and apparent skill with dark magic to beat them. Fortunately, this is the sort of scenario where defeat means friendship and not death! Because of her kindness and generally upstanding personality, said demons Cackie, Chuckie, and Chortie become her new minions and, with a retinue of her former followers and newfound admirers, she gradually begins to take over hell as its newest overlord. Meanwhile, we get occasional glimpses into what’s actually happening in the kingdom with those left behind and the real villains. 

I adored Etrange Overlord’s story and characters. Folks at Gemdrops, Superniche, and Broccoli clearly looked into this genre of shojo stories, as they nailed the concept, characterizations, and vibe. It’s over the top, but in an affectionate and silly way that doesn’t actually mock the genre or people who enjoy it. Etrange is a fantastic, strong, genuinely kind heroine! Some of her allies, though a bit more subdued in terms of personality and clever lines, are equally entertaining and memorable. The actual villainess is hilarious in a dastardly way. The localization’s well done. It doesn’t involve any major twists or big drama, but it reminds me of similar villainess series like Tearmoon Empire and My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom. 

That isn’t the only fun element to Etrange Overlord. Remember Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure? It was the NIS America comedic RPG with songs littered throughout. Well, Etrange Overlord is exactly like that. There are lots of music numbers with really wonderful singers involved. Since this is a comedy, they’re just as over-the-top as the adventure and delightfully silly. It’s very campy in the best way!

Unfortunately, the combat and territory management elements of Etrange Overlord aren’t as captivating. You know how Koei Tecmo and Omega Force’s Musou action-RPGs involve a lot of depth and strategy when it comes to swapping characters, handling situations, and traversing the massive maps? None of that happens here. Characters’ standard attack range and combos tends to fall into the category of fine or finicky, sometimes not having the right range or scope to properly hit enemies. For example, I found Cat-Smith, Cackie, Chuckie, and Erit to be pretty adequate and accurate early allies, but Etrange, Chortie, Scwatrz, and Sweetia’s attack range and style sometimes made it difficult to pin down opponents, even if everyone’s special attacks seemed pretty helpful.

Especially since the points of stages can get rather repetitive and usually involve beating up X amount of characters or a boss to progress. (Okay, sometimes you’ll also have to do something like get key items, survive, or keep an NPC running around with no regard for their life safe too.) It got to a point at which getting through things as quickly as possible is what mattered at most, so when I could I’d default to someone who would make that possible. Especially since stages are small and aren’t all that varied, and using someone with decent range to sweep through foes is a huge positive. Taking advantage of the RPG crafting staple, which is used here to get more powerful equipment or make food to offer your team of four characters in the fight buffs, helped with that too. Mainly for equipment, however. Since I didn’t find the enemies all that challenging, the meals didn’t matter all that much to me.

Especially since there is the lane system. To fit in with the music theme, this looks like the staff used on sheet music. These constantly runs through the area circling about, with power-ups, items that let you perform special attacks, and occasionally platforms or helpful goods on them. Depending on the area and layout, there may be one or multiple ones around. You can also use Land Selection at the start of a stage to set what you’d like to see in each lane, enabling things like attack buffs, healing items, and special support. These need to be invested in with items you’ve found via exploring when wandering the world, going through stages, using the Dispatch feature to send allies to different areas of hell you’ve visited to get new items, or dealing with revolts in past places via Recapture. Though honestly, while I appreciated the “management” element that stemmed from dealing with past areas and the extra materials, it felt like a means of padding out a pretty short game with even more of the same, repetitive fights.

Etrange Overlord is packed with personality, with a story and songs that show love for the shojo trope where the villainess is actually the good guy. Etrange herself is a standout, and it’s silly and over-the-top without being ridiculous. But as delightful and refreshing as the narrative and soundtrack can be, the battles get boring fast. It’s incredibly repetitive! But at least those stages tend to be short, so you can race through them and get back to the campy story. 

Etrange Overlord is available for the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC.