Tails of Iron - Review @ Gamingbolt

Tails of Iron Review - Functional, but Forgettable

Sometimes beautiful - sometimes boring.

Tails of Iron Review - Functional, but Forgettable

It's not every day that you come across a game that juxtaposes a whimsical story-book art style full of forest animals with a brutal weapon-based combat system. It's also equally uncommon for such ideas to blend together in a seamless way that doesn't feel forced or inorganic. Tails of Iron strives to be a game that accomplishes all of this with its light emphasis on RPG mechanics and a rather bleak, somber overall tone. While it does seem to check a lot of the boxes that a game like this should, I still never quite felt all of its pieces click into place in a consistently satisfying way.

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Tails of Iron never quite falls flat on its face. It's a functional and serviceable addition to its genre that gives players a well-realized world to experience and can provide some meaningful challenge all while running respectably well. But with its somewhat wooden combat being the centerpiece, garnished with generic platforming and small handful of other slip-ups, it can sometimes be too much for its glimmers of inventiveness to overcome. The game's friendly price and obvious triumphs in art style and music might be enough for some to see it through, but as far as side-scrolling action RPG's go, there are just too many other ones that do much better what Tails of Iron is aiming at for me to recommend it broadly. You can certainly tell that there's a lot of heart behind the game's general concept, and I'm always down for a dark rodent-themed adventure. But the fact that almost none of the game's ideas ever reach any notable heights, creates an unfortunately low ceiling for the overall experience.

Score: 6/10