TLDR/Closing at bottom.
Coming from Tail Concerto I can't really get over how jarring this game is, gone are the entirely character-driven story dialogue and comfy 3D world with nooks and crannies to explore with lovely flavor text that hits like chicken noodle soup on a cold winter's morn; replaced now with interaction grind akin to dating sims of all things to get any new flavor text; the characters will always be in the same little ship they command.
The game also is given a much more tonally dark story and themes, and it goes as far as to make you sacrifice a literal child in the tutorial to show you its hook (the Soul Cannon) they so proudly showed off in the trailer; except (and this is a spoiler kind of but also not really, as it's made almost immediately clear) you will never have to use it, the tutorial tells you to reload your save and then play without it, even for narrative reasons; the game is perfectly doable without it (and you're rewarded w/ an achievement for keeping all party members alive). That said, the story itself is literally only "There's a war, these kids' parents/homes were kidnapped, now they hijacked an ancient tech tank to go find them." The real meat is in their interactions but it doesn't contribute to the overall story, it's just cute, generic filler and a lot of "wow that's kinda fucked up" when they inevitably melt some totally-not-nazis "BERMAN" (or "Bermin?") soldiers and generals.
The gameplay, or rather, the half or two thirds of it that is the action queuing party combat is especially good for a JRPG, but then there's this other half or third of the game that's just doing menial chores that have a chance to fail and do nothing or explore "ruins" for materials; said ruins are generally only 4 or 5 chambers with 3-4 enemies that are insultingly easy, things like the walking and shooting animations of the child characters frankly look really bad as well.
The music is pretty solid, but it's kind of weird they felt the need to reuse the bit with the fictional language from Solatarobo during a key scene.
The 2D artstyle is great though, when the characters aren't walking sideways with their funky 3D models lol.
TLDR - - -
It feels like Fuga: Melodies of Steel completely misses what makes the previous two mainline Little Tail Bronx games have cult followings, and trades a lot of the unique gameplay mashups of those in favor of slightly above average JRPG combat based on an action queue/timeline; probably to both appeal to a wider audience, and to cut as many corners as possible (which is wild to think about since it's been 12(?) years since the last mainline title). JRPG fans will probably really enjoy it for the combat alone. Here's hoping they try to rekindle and refine the old formula, but given how much better this did financially I very much doubt they'll do that again.
Coming from Tail Concerto I can't really get over how jarring this game is, gone are the entirely character-driven story dialogue and comfy 3D world with nooks and crannies to explore with lovely flavor text that hits like chicken noodle soup on a cold winter's morn; replaced now with interaction grind akin to dating sims of all things to get any new flavor text; the characters will always be in the same little ship they command.
The game also is given a much more tonally dark story and themes, and it goes as far as to make you sacrifice a literal child in the tutorial to show you its hook (the Soul Cannon) they so proudly showed off in the trailer; except (and this is a spoiler kind of but also not really, as it's made almost immediately clear) you will never have to use it, the tutorial tells you to reload your save and then play without it, even for narrative reasons; the game is perfectly doable without it (and you're rewarded w/ an achievement for keeping all party members alive). That said, the story itself is literally only "There's a war, these kids' parents/homes were kidnapped, now they hijacked an ancient tech tank to go find them." The real meat is in their interactions but it doesn't contribute to the overall story, it's just cute, generic filler and a lot of "wow that's kinda fucked up" when they inevitably melt some totally-not-nazis "BERMAN" (or "Bermin?") soldiers and generals.
The gameplay, or rather, the half or two thirds of it that is the action queuing party combat is especially good for a JRPG, but then there's this other half or third of the game that's just doing menial chores that have a chance to fail and do nothing or explore "ruins" for materials; said ruins are generally only 4 or 5 chambers with 3-4 enemies that are insultingly easy, things like the walking and shooting animations of the child characters frankly look really bad as well.
The music is pretty solid, but it's kind of weird they felt the need to reuse the bit with the fictional language from Solatarobo during a key scene.
The 2D artstyle is great though, when the characters aren't walking sideways with their funky 3D models lol.
TLDR - - -
It feels like Fuga: Melodies of Steel completely misses what makes the previous two mainline Little Tail Bronx games have cult followings, and trades a lot of the unique gameplay mashups of those in favor of slightly above average JRPG combat based on an action queue/timeline; probably to both appeal to a wider audience, and to cut as many corners as possible (which is wild to think about since it's been 12(?) years since the last mainline title). JRPG fans will probably really enjoy it for the combat alone. Here's hoping they try to rekindle and refine the old formula, but given how much better this did financially I very much doubt they'll do that again.