Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter

十分迷惑的判定范围

SPOILERS (of course) Playing this right after Tails of Iron 1 sadly made me have to leave a negative review. Loved Tails of Iron, and this game would've been a "Good" one in my books if it wasn't a sequel to one I liked much more. I have to say that the design department really knew what they were doing: all that was good before, became MUCH BETTER than it already was. The new "powers" mechanic had potential, I'll tell you that for now, and more two-handed weapon usage was encouraged since the beginning. And the introduction to brand new species was a great decision, as to expand the world of Tails of Iron; although it wasn't as fleshed out as one would wish. After the good points, I hate to admit that most things were downgrades. The combat in this one, forgetting completely about the unique dance of positioning that the first game presented and which elevated it's depth tremendously (although it had shortcomings, I would argue it was mostly perfect), resorted to i-frames dodging that it NEVER even used correctly except for the final boss of the free DLC (The Kraken, hardest and best designed fight for this new mechanics by a long shot), as you never needed to truly use it and only served to forgive horrible mistakes I made in fights. The difficulty of the game is a joke: most bosses were a first try even when done "on tier" (as I avoided min-maxxing) and without power usage (except for making flying bosses grounded, as waiting is literally a time waste), doing a minimal amount of damage to a player who was "Light" weight the whole playthrough and played Bloody Whiskers through and through speaks volumes. I will say the DLC boss fights in general felt like a step in the right direction, and boss movesets improved DRAMATICALLY from the first game in terms of originality and variety, but the lack of an extra difficulty or a true Bloody Whiskers hurt the game and made other aspects of it weaker. Something I needed to say: PLEASE never do such an easy and dissapointing fight such as the rune tomb one again... I left that place in shambles after having expectations build up over the first hours of gameplay the rune collecting neeeded for the fight to be so regular. As for worldbuilding, we are in nose dive territory. Using the same scheme as the first game, which covered a single region with a more restricted amount of characters and stories that connected with the player through a quest system and through exploration said quests required made you intertwine with each element deeply, even developing some sort of bond (of hate) with the frog villains; for an enormous world with FOUR main species and civilizations but almost the same amount of true content as the first game makes for four bland stories. I would've LOVED to learn about the story of the Hares, the Owls, the Toads, the Merfolk, the Crow people (who you see once btw)... it was all abandoned as soon as the main quest brought you to a new location, instead of fleshing out every culture and tradition the game teased you with (one, two or three quests that explained and showed stuff would have been enough, just something to chew on...). Only ones that were close to being good was the Owl cult and the comments about the "Eight armed deity" from our smith, which gives you SOMETHING to start connecting dots and actually thinking about their societies as more than glorified quest boards. Main story was weak. Good intro? Yeah, although it was the same as the first game's but with more polish. The rest? Quest to quest chores, only truly feeling progress with the town building segment (which is VERY short, as the material requirements and actual choices you have are laughing matter) and when being introduced to new areas. The main enemy of the game, the bats, mostly felt like a side objective until the very end, as they show up, terrorize some random critter's home and then are defeated: no connection to the rats, no further explanations, no NOTHING. The first game made you be interested about toads, about the conflict, about how both sides had villains (King Rattus being a shady character really helped the narrative) and made mistakes... and although they could've been more developed, they were a formidable and present threat which wasn't just "we are evil": they had civilians, they used the enchancing substances as a last resort, we were able to see their actual houses, they even cared about family (Yellow tongue seeking revenge was the proof of that). Bats are evil and that's it, nothing else of note. Moreover, the ending was anticlimatic (obvious spoilers coming up): Redgi "dies" (but not really, guess we'll know next game/DLC) and YOU (the guy the Crimson Keep just met btw) become king because of having royal blood, leaving Dennis as the bum he was before instead of actually developing his character and making him be more responsible, learn from his brother's actions and become an inspiration to all who he protected as the Captain of the Royal Guard with everything he learned throughout the years and letting the Warden of the North to reign over EVERYTHING, I suppose. The traps and elements system was so unimportant it hurt. Being able to just block status effects with vials makes the easy combat MORE of a joke (only used antidotes for the Kraken, so just imagine how easy the rest of fights would be with their only chance of fighting back gone...), and traps aren't really worth the hassle (as combat is easy, as discussed before). I'm very dissapointed, but what is even stronger is the feeling of guilt that invades me while writing this review: I want to love this game to death, as I adore what feeling is behind it and the world it tries to show me... but I can't do that if I truly want it to be an awesome game series, something Tails of Iron CAN be. The devs have the tools to do great: they demonstrated it with the first game and with the DLC boss fights (mostly the fish ones and the venus flytrap), and I'm sure they learned from this experience (as it would explain why the DLC made said fights worth it). Developers, I'm sure you guys can do something even better than Tails of Iron 1, using elements from both games that work. With a proper "sequel mindset" and appropiate time, I'm sure we can get a masterpiece. Thanks and see you next time.

a big letdown. why ruin something working almost perfectly?

After the free DLC I just had to write something about this beautiful game (and its prequel). It's just incredible, please support this team in anyway you can, they deserve every single beautiful thing.

Tails of Iron 2 es una secuela que mejora la fórmula del primero y demuestra que más no siempre significa peor. El apartado artístico sigue siendo sobresaliente, con ese estilo visual en 2D que parece un teatro de marionetas oscuro y lleno de detalles. Cada escenario tiene una personalidad increíble. El combate vuelve a ser pesado, exigente y satisfactorio. Pero esta vez las armas con daño elemental añaden una capa de estrategia que me ha gustado incluso más que en el primero. Elegir el arma adecuada para cada enemigo y aprovechar sus debilidades hace que los combates sean mucho más interesantes. Si te gustó el primero, este es una compra obligatoria.

peak tambien, nada mal, ya saquen el 3

nothing new from the previous one, besides of the spells. art direction seems less inspired The game's content is basically non-existent, the story is really banal, and you can't even understand what the point is in turning it into a tedious tale of constant losses and apparent comebacks that just end up going from point A to point B and kill some monsters.

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