Did you ever read Redwall books as a kid?

Tails of Iron absolutely RIPS. What an incredible little adventure! I didn't expect it to be what it was, and only tried it because it was a PS Plus monthly game. It's not a full-blown Metroidvania, but it borrows enough from the genre that, when combined with its solid combat-focused gameplay, it scratched the Silksong itch quite nicely.

I loved the setting and aesthetic, the art is perfectly grotty and messy, with rats, frogs, bugs, and moles cleaving heads and covering each other in viscera. The narration is also incredibly well-done, reminding me a lot of Bastion. Everything works together beautifully to create a compelling experience from start to finish, as you fight off invaders in your kingdom and rebuild what they've destroyed. The narration does a great job of describing everything from the rat protagonist's POV, and I couldn't have been more engrossed by the end.

Playing on PS5 was the right move as well, as the game makes great use of the Dualsense's adaptive triggers, and allows map navigation via the touch controls. I was a little annoyed by the rumble, however, as the intensity doesn't differentiate between getting struck by a massive boss or landing after a standing jump. But that was honestly my only negative of the entire experience, and at just under 5 hours to 100%, I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys challenging combat.

Playtime: 8.5 Hours
Score: 8/10

A great little indie ARPG! So I heard about this game when it came out and it’s been in the backlog for a while until recently I picked it up. These last few weeks have been very hard for me on a personal level, with my mom being in hospital and her recently passing away. This game, though simple, provided a nice distraction from all the bad and for that I will always be grateful for it. But what is the game all about?

The story is pretty simple with you being a prince whose father is killed by some evil Frogs and now you need to rebuild the kingdom and get your revenge. The story was nothing to write home about, but it was enough to keep me going and I felt it had some good moments throughout. While the characters aren’t voiced the game is narrated by actor Doug Cockle, who of course voices Geralt in the Witcher games, and as someone who is a big fan of that series it was a real treat to get his VO here! The man could read the phone book to me and I would be captivated the whole way through!

Combat has that souls-like feel of dodging, blocking and parrying but thankfully there are difficulty settings which is great for me since I’m not that into challenging games. The easy difficulty felt good for me in that it was more forgiving but not brain dead easy and I did die a few times to bosses. The combat does feel very good though, with the hits feeling weighty and satisfying to perform and your character will even perform executions on bigger enemies which are fun to see. Alongside that you get a pretty nice variety of weapons and armors to find which always makes completing quests or defeating bosses satisfying since you get that great reward at the end of it.

The game can be a bit on the shorter side, but it's a satisfying campaign and you do unlock new side quests after the main story, so it's got a bit of an endgame to get through as well. Overall though, I loved this game and I look forward to the sequel!

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

🕗 Total time played (approx.): 12h
🏆 Completion: 100% Base Game (27/27 Trophies), 80% Bloody Whisker DLC (2/3 Trophies)

REVIEW:

"Tails of Iron" is an absolute gem that took me by surprise and left me thoroughly impressed. As an avid gamer, I'm always on the lookout for new experiences that captivate and challenge me, and this game did just that.

From the moment I stepped into its beautifully crafted world, I was immediately drawn in by the stunning visuals and attention to detail. The art style is a perfect blend of dark fantasy and whimsical charm, creating an atmosphere that's both captivating and immersive. The level design is nothing short of fantastic, with each area offering a unique aesthetic and a sense of wonder as I explored its hidden corners and secrets. But what truly sets "Tails of Iron" apart is its combat system. It's easy to pick up and play, yet surprisingly deep and strategic. The combination of swordplay and various weapons, along with the skillful dodging and blocking mechanics, kept every battle engaging and exciting. The enemy variety is impressive, each requiring a slightly different approach, which kept me on my toes and prevented the combat from feeling repetitive.

The storytelling in "Tails of Iron" is another highlight. The narrative is cleverly woven, combining elements of tragedy and humor to create a memorable and emotional experience. The characters, including our rodent protagonist, are surprisingly well-developed and endearing. I found myself genuinely invested in their journey, eager to see how their story unfolded.

Furthermore, the RPG elements added depth to the gameplay. The progression system allowed me to tailor my character's abilities to my preferred playstyle, which added a layer of personalization that I greatly appreciated. The crafting system was also a pleasant surprise, as it encouraged me to explore every nook and cranny of the world in search of materials to enhance my gear. One aspect that truly stood out to me was the soundtrack. The music perfectly complemented the game's atmosphere, enhancing the emotional impact of key moments and making the world feel even more alive. Whether I was battling formidable foes or simply exploring, the soundtrack never failed to immerse me in the experience.

In conclusion, "Tails of Iron" for the PS5 is a delightful surprise that has left a lasting impression on me. Its captivating visuals, engaging combat, compelling storytelling, and well-implemented RPG mechanics make it a must-play for fans of action RPGs. This game proves that even in a sea of titles, there are still hidden gems waiting to be discovered, and "Tails of Iron" is undoubtedly one of them.

⭐ Rating: 4/5

Amazing soulslike experience. The artsytle is amazing and the uses of parallax is amazing, I think it's lower point is both the mission system and the gameplay in general. It feels a bit slow and sometimes unfair hitboxes, and the middle of the game is filled with side quests that you can't accept all at once and has to go one by one. After finishing that middle part of the game, it gains a lot in the last sequence.

If the team learns from this, and pollish a bit more the pace of the game and improve the combat system, they can do a really amazing sequel

Análise em PT-BR.
Quando fui jogar esse jogo eu não sabia de basicamente nada e nem como ele era, vi uma promoção na steam por um preço acessível e decidi comprar. Foi uma decisão bem legal, pelo fato do jogo não ser tão reconhecido e ter um estilo de jogo bem diferente, isso me divertiu bastante na jornada.

Gameplay
Um dos pontos legais que eu acho nesse jogo, algo simples e prático, legal de jogar e que vc acaba ficando preso na gameplay. Gostei bastante do estilo de luta com os bosses, o jogo é bem rápido na movimentação e também é bem fácil contra atacar e usar o Parry. Bem relaxante e gostosinho de jogar.

Dificuldade
Na época em que terminei o game, tinha jogado ele pelo normal, foi uma experiência legal e bem equilibrada, não passava sufoco mas tinha que dar um pouco de esforço para passar os bosses. Tem bastante inimigos dentro do jogo e apenas no começo que é um pouco chato, pelo fato de vc não estar upado e os bosses conseguirem te matar rápido. Mas depois disso, quando vc consegue mais vida, o jogo se torna relativamente fácil e bem tranquilo de jogar. Uma das partes mais difíceis do jogo são as arenas e os bosses secretos, sim tem boss secreto e vários deles são difíceis e interessante de lutar. Recomendaria jogar na dificuldade mais difícil para quem tem um pouco mais de habilidade. Caso vc queira fazer 100% do jogo na steam, vc iria precisar zerar no modo maís difícil.

História
História um pouco clichê, mas divertida de qualquer jeito, é bem legal a rivalidade dos ratos com os sapos e a proporção que a guerra vai tomando ao longo do jogo, onde vc se torna o rei dos ratos e procura vingança. A história é legal e vale a pena o tempo gasto.

Conteúdo
Esse jogo contém muito conteúdo extra, DLC e as missões secundárias que o jogo proporciona, dentro do jogo vc vai descobrindo vários locais e neles contém missões secundárias diferentes. Fiz muita delas durante o jogo e foi uma experiência normal, as missões na maioria das vezes era para matar um inimigo em alguma área e você receberia a recompensa por isso, bem simples mas divertido pela recompensa que pode deixar seu personagem mais forte. Também existe diversas armaduras e armas durante o jogo, essa para mim é uma das partes mais legais pela variedade de coisas que o jogo proporciona. Lanças, machados, espadas, capacetes, roupas, e etc. Bastante coisa mesmo que pode ser utilizada na gameplay, e na maioria das vezes elas não são difíceis de conseguir. O mapa do jogo também é bem legal de explorar e vale muito a pena o tempo gasto nele, ele é curto mas existe várias vilas no jogo que contém muitos ítens secretos e bosses.

Desenvolvimento de personagens
O desenvolvimento do personagem principal é bastante legal, mas o resto acaba que é meio deixado de lado, o jogo foca muito apenas no personagem principal e acaba esquecendo de um Coprotagonista na saga, único ponto que achei decepcionante não terem desenvolvido outros personagens, mas claro que tem alguns personagens importantes para história mas nada de mais.

Vale a pena jogar?
Vale o dinheiro gasto, zerei e foi uma experiência bem legal, e me diverti bastante no jogo. Gastei apenas 20 reais, preço bem acessível, e estarei tentando terminar a DLC em 2024. Recomendo Muito.

Tails of Iron has a wonderful art style and clean mechanics, but the pacing suffers from multiple quests that have you going back and forth between areas. There is no way to, for instance, activate multiple side quests in an area so you can go do them all at once. You have to complete one, go back to the quest board and select another, then go do that one, then repeat. Still giving this 3.5 rather than 3 because I enjoyed it thoroughly (even with some frustration at the back and forth) and plan on playing it through again on the Hard Mode. If you see the "difficult game" tag or something like it, yes this has souls-like mechanics to it, but the normal mode is actually very forgiving (and there is an easier story mode if you want to play just for that). I am very new to souls likes, and most bosses did not cause me too much difficulty. You become more powerful very quickly, and the enemies' moves are pretty well-telegraphed, and there are color queues for when to dodge or parry (which has the most generous window I've ever played with). If you want to play for the lovely art, music, and more, don't be intimidated by the standard normal mode difficulty. Powered through this game in about 10 hours (all achievements except the one you need to do in Bloody Whiskers - hard - mode).

TLDR: Recommended

A simplified 2D souls like experience, combat is responsive and the art is notable. My main issues revolve around equipment topping out, where the only real reason to change it depends on what boss you are fighting at the time. This doesn't apply to the weapons are there are absolute best weapons to find, and you can acquire early if you know where to look.

The most unsatisfying portion to me was creating story threads but not developing them more. Without creating spoilers, the history of your father was interesting but not fulfilling, the squirrel DLC brings up a bunch of questions that get "answered" but only so far as kill boss.

Otherwise, the motivation for the king to go out and rebuild/reclaim his kingdom is enough.

Rat souls! Rat souls Rat souls!

A 2D action RPG that is brief on runtime (for the genre...7-8 hours) and features super compelling soulsy action as well as a gorgeously presented narrative with narration by The Witcher's Doug Cockle. Looks like a storybook in motion...there were a few times where the camera was zoomed in and I thought I was still in a cutscene until I realized my character wasn't doing anything.

Super fun combat, good pattern recognition bosses. A smidge of metroidvania but it's more to make the world readable than to be an actual search-action game.

It falters in a bunch of small areas rather than in any one particular major aspect. Issues include:
-Forces you to backtrack somewhat regularly, though thankfully the map is small
-You sometimes have to save more often than you want to because the game will make you do every encounter and watch every cutscene without skipping every time you die. There would be times where I beat a few enemies and watched a cutscene, and then spent a minute backtracking so I wouldn't have to watch it again
-A bit of slowdown and a few crashes on Switch
-The story may expand somewhat in the DLC, but I was kind of disappointed that the villains lacked much in the way of depth. The frogs were basically orc-style "we are the evil race who does evil things." The rest of the story is SO well done that this one bit sticks out
-Some very obvious forced side quest padding

Even still, had a great time. The sequel has immediately jumped up to one of my most anticipated games, and I fully recommend this to anyone who likes their soulsy metroidvanias and wants something a little different.

Skaven vs Lizardmen

Challenging 2D Souls-lite, with beautiful medieval art. Feels like an old-timey fairy tale picture book. But that's not all - the environments constantly change as you turn the tide against the Frog invaders. Towns get repaired, NPCs come and do stuff, junk gets cleared, and new structures show up. It's great, running through a town over and over seeing it look different every time.

Highly recommend it.

Wer an dem Spiel auch nur einen Hauch Lob zuschreibt ist mitverantwortlich, warum hauptsächlich Mist produziert wird.

Die erste PSN Trophäe kam nach ca. 5 Spielminuten. Diese haben nur 75% der Spieler erreicht.
Und der Gund dafür ist, dass bereits in diesem 5 Minuten klar wird, was für ein Haufen Schrott das Spiel ist.
Die Steuerung ist ungenau, die Kämpfe dauern EWIG, sind dabei aber nicht fordernd.
Gegner töten bringt rein gar nichts, keine Erfahrungspunkte ab und an ein Item, das wars.
Gegenstände looten dauert 3 Sekunden!!! jedes Mal.
"Gespräche" mit anderen Mäusen sind ~suuuper tollig kreativ~.. man hat in den Sprechblasen Bilder statt Worten..~uhhh~ .. nur dauern die Gespräche eine Ewigkeit und den Soundeffekt dazu muss man ausstellen, denn der ist ne Zumutung. Die Maus sagt die, dass du runter in den Keller musst. "Du musst runter in den Keller" Wie lange habt ihr gebraucht das zu lesen? 0,5 Sekunden?
In Tails of Iron dauert der Spaß 15 Sekunden.
15 Sekunden für 3 Bilder, keine Möglichkeit das zu skippen.
Danach folgt man ohnehin einem Icon, das Gespräch war daher nicht mal nötig.

Die nächste Trophäe kam nach ca. 10 weiteren Minuten und hier haben schon 50% aller PSN Spieler aufgegeben und ich kann es nachvollziehen.

Tails of Iron is kind of a chill soulsborne influenced side-scrolling action game.

The story is simple, but effective. The dialogue does basically boil down to characters showing 2 or 3 icons (out of about 10) in a speech bubble and Geralt of Rivia translating it for the player. Probably could’ve done without the speech bubbles in my opinion. There’s also a quite a bit of mandatory side quests and constant backtracking, which only exists to drag out the gameplay and is pretty annoying.

The combat is a simplified version of soulsborne games modified for a 2-D plane. It’s mostly fun, but can get a bit repetitive after a while. My biggest gripe is that enemies can take forever to shuffle themselves into combat.

If you’re wanting to get into the soulsborne genre, I think Tails of Iron is a good first step to ease you into it.