[h1]Tails of Iron[/h1]
[h2]Regal Rat Repels Wrathful Ribbiting Reprobates[/h2]
[h2]-Overview:[/h2]
Tails of Iron is an action combat exploration game where you take control of Redgi, the freshly crowned king of the Rat Kingdom. When frog barbarians launch an invasion, you must rebuild from the ashes and defeat the vile attackers once and for all. Doing so requires funding and resources, requiring you to take on various quests from your townsfolk. In doing so, you will slowly rebuild the kingdom piece by piece. Accompanying this is a soulsborne style combat system, pitting you against all sorts of dangerous foes that must be defeated with well timed dodges and parries.
[h2]-The Good:[/h2]
[h3]-The Art Direction:[/h3]
It would be an insult to not talk about the visuals in Tails of Iron. Every sprite and background is gorgeously drawn, a veritable feast for the eyes. From the art alone, the world feels alive. It creates an enthralling atmosphere of somber comfort that I fell in love with immediately. The character sprites have struck a good balance between gritty and cute, which I am a huge fan of. The art is so wonderful that whenever I'd walk into a new location, I'd accidentally walk off ledges or into enemies due to my eyes being affixed on the gorgeous backgrounds.
[h3]-The Narrator:[/h3]
I love narrators with personality, and was very pleasantly surprised to find one in this game! Many actions are accompanied by little quips or remarks from the narrator, spaced out just enough to not become tiring. Your character's thoughts are also spoken aloud by the narrator at times, which helps tremendously in characterizing Redgi.
[h2]-The Bad:[/h2]
[h3]-The Bloat:[/h3]
This game is filled with meaningless, time wasting quests. I would be alright with this, if they had some variance, but they all boil down to; Go to an area you've already explored, fight two small enemy gauntlets, then fight a boss made with primarily reused animations and attacks. As a reward you'll typically get an entire armor and weapon set, (I will speak more on this in a moment) and a small amount of resources. I understand that sometimes side quests have to be added to pad playtime, but these all feel the same, and there are so many that I can't overlook it.
[h3]-The Gear System:[/h3]
My biggest gripe with this game is it's gear system. Firstly, the various weapon types do not feel different at all, with the small exception of spears. Every weapon feels as if it does the same amount of damage, and attacks at the same speed, with spears being ever so slightly faster. I never had to think about what type of weaponry I wanted to equip, just what had the highest numbers. Secondly, this game drowns you with so many new weapons that they start feeling worthless. You'll repeatedly find a sword or hammer that is very slightly better than the one you have. This makes every weapon feel like glorified stat sticks, rather than unique and interesting items. I can count on one hand the amount of times I was excited finding a new weapon, which is a terrible feeling. Finally, the gear overload only increases as you get into the endgame. There are many, many bloat quests that reward you with entire weapon and gear sets, with very small differences between them all statwise. This was the point were my gear felt entirely worthless, as the game does not hold back on dumping five new items on you with every boss kill.
[h2]-The... Confused?[/h2]
[h3]-The Combat:[/h3]
Whilst I did have fun with the combat at times, It is incredibly barebones. Every enemy can slot into two categories, unblockable aoe spam, or the type that throws parryable attacks and dies instantly as a result. The first category does have a subcategory in big guy or small guy, the only difference being health. I really wished that we'd find some kind of enemy variety, but the best we get are enemies that explode on death, introduced at the very end of the game. The thing that irritated me the most however, were the painstakingly slow gauntlets. The game loves to lock you in an area and force you to fight waves of enemies, but the pacing of these encounters is terrible. Once you clear a wave, enemies walk in from offscreen to about a fourth of the way into the arena, and only then are you allowed to attack them. Near the end of the game, I'd spend more time waiting around for the enemy to slowly waltz in than doing any actual fighting. This killed my momentum, and really impacted my fun.
Whilst I complain about a lot of the combat, it was fairly fun at times, such as a few of the bosses being rather enjoyable fights. I loved seeing the finishing move animations, they added a great sense of grittiness to the world that contrasted with the cute animal folk. I must give props to the parry as well, it feels incredibly weighty and powerful. I loved launching back an enemy with a well timed parry, and being rewarded with a bit of time to land a few hits or heal.
[h2]-Closing Remarks:[/h2]
Despite my gripes and issues, I still recommend picking up Tails of Iron. The combat is incredibly flawed, the gear is very bland, and plenty of filler exists solely to bloat your playtime, but underneath all of that lies a very novel game. The visuals alone make up for many of my problems, and the charming writing pushes this game back into my good graces. If these issues seem too glaring, I recommend waiting until a sale to pick this up, as it is a very charming adventure I enjoyed going on.
