United Label is branching out with different games to publish, starting with the acclaimed Roki and leading all the way up to this summer's release of Eldest Souls, a game that quickly became a hit among streamers and content creators who like unforgiving Souls-like games. The publisher will now soon be releasing Odd Bug Studio's second game, called Tails of Iron, for which Game Rant was given a hands-on preview. Tails of Iron will hit the stores on September 17, and it will be packed with intense action combat, brutal difficulty typical of Souls-likes, and the somber story of the Rat kingdom.
Doug Cockle, known for the raspy dark tones of Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher, narrates the events of Tails of Iron as they unfold, starting in a jolly kingdom that's soon overthrown by the vindictive Frogs. Jack Bennett from Odd Bug Studio explained how Tails of Iron is designed to be the game that starts it all, but there will be more adventures set in this world of furry Rats, technology-savvy Moles, and belligerent Frogs. In a way, according to Bennett, it could be not too different from how the different stories set in the world of The Lord of the Rings are told, offering new perspectives in books the caliber of The Hobbit or The Silmarillion.
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The World of Tails of Iron
Tails of Iron follows the story of Redgi, a young Rat prince who has to take the kingdom back and save his brothers from the Rat-eating, bloodthirsty Frogs. The Frogs are led by Green Wart, the Warchief and leader of the United Frog Clan, who holds a grudge against Redgi's father, King Rattus. What sparks the conflicts between the two species once more is the fact that the Frogs' lands have become filled with poisonous gas that makes life hard for them, to the point that taking the Rats' Kingdom away from them is their only option.
Odd Bug Studio did a great job at making the world of Tails of Iron feel both incredibly vast and detailed, which allows for an immersive experience that's further enhanced by the narration and harsh encounters. Despite being a team of five, with only two environmental artists to work on all the various areas, Odd Bug Studio did manage to render layered items and background elements smoothly transition on screen in every scene. A popular approach among game developers is to have a series of long layers while working on a specific area, whereas in Tails of Iron each asset is individually placed merely millimeters away from one another.
This is what creates incredible scenery, with an example coming from one of the very first areas in the game, where trees and leaves feel like they are moving and intertwining, and that's what Bennett describes as a nice parallax effect. Because the world is so large, Tails of Iron features several boards that are used to be quickly transported from one place to another. That's not all, though, as the loading screen in between travels changes based on the location from which players depart and the target location, even showing different means of transport based on the areas – such as a carriage, a boat, and more.
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RPG Elements and Character Customization
Interestingly, Tails of Iron features a blend of storytelling methods, with the first being the narrator's voice accompanying players through the game, and the second being a more immediate, illustrative speech bubbles. This is to reduce the number of words on the screen so that people speaking other languages and players with all levels of reading ability can better understand what is going on, and it also adds to the RPG elements of the game.
Speaking of which, among the core RPG features in Tails of Iron there are the Chef and the Smith, two of Redgi's brothers. The Chef helps Redgi getting beefier by making special meals for him whenever the young prince comes back to his brother with ingredients found in the world, and these meals increase Redgi's health bar. The Smith, on the other hand, is where players might want to go when they find blueprints; these can be turned into actual weapons and armor by Redgi's brother, adding to the collection of unique gear pieces that gamers can obtain. It should also be noted that all of the main Rat characters – including the Chef and the Smith – are based on the pet rats that the developers owned when they started making the game, carrying over into Tails of Iron their personalities and characteristics.
While Tails of Iron consciously lacks the classic progression features of other Souls-like games and ARPGs in the form of skills and talents, it makes up for it by allowing players to customize the main character with plenty of items. The playstyle changes drastically even by equipping different weapons, and it all comes together by trying out various combinations of weapons and armor. Each piece of gear comes with its respective Weight stat that determines how fast or slow Redgi will be in and out of combat. This makes for interesting decisions on the players' part, as wearing heavier armor means taking much less damage from enemies, but it takes its toll on the overall speed of the character – including the dodge roll.
Still, there are many choices for all sorts of builds, ranging from one-handed swords to two-handed heavy hammers, all the way to rifles and bows. As such, Tails of Iron is one of those games where players can freely choose to adopt whichever playstyle that best suits them, making for a fun experience where strategic thinking is crucial. For example, one-handed swords do a bit more damage than spears, but spears are much faster and also provide some extra range on quick attacks. Bennett was happy that spears, specifically, made the final cut of the game because he always liked them, and he thinks they made for the perfect addition to the Assassin's Creed franchise as well.
Also, it should some pieces of armor come with resistance to damage dealt by specific enemy races, such as Frogs or Moles, and the creepy-looking Moxi – insects that like to crawl and fly around in the shadows or humid places. This means that while defense from armor is relevant, resistance to the damage dealt by enemies found in a set area can be much more beneficial, and that means there are even more combinations to toy with.
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The Brutality of Combat, Saving the Game, and Characters to Meet
Throughout the world, players will find several types of useful objects like the aforementioned boards, such as barrels and benches. These can be interacted with for specific purposes, with the former providing charges for the healing potion that Redgi carries around, while the latter is where players want to sit to save the game and their progress up to that point. This is critical because the game is quite hard, and dying takes players back to the last bench they visited, losing all progress in between. Killing enemy bugs also helps to collect more juice for the potion by carving their bodies, and this can be especially useful in the wilds where barrels are not easily found.
Players will meet several characters during their journey, and while some will not be as impactful in the beginning, after completing a few quests or clearing the area from enemies, they can become faction leaders and quest-givers. There will be companions during the game, and they usually are locked to a few particular quests, meaning that they cannot be selected all the time or depending on the players' preference.
As for combat mechanics, Bennett describes them as similar to God of War. There are red markers associated with attacks meant to be dodged, yellow markers for attacks to parry, white markers for ranged attacks to block, and then pink circles for area attacks, which usually need an extra dodge to be safe. While this might seem hard to handle, in Tails of Iron there is no stamina bar compared to other RPGs and Souls-like games, so players don't have to micromanage something that might distract them from the world and the combat itself. Still, enemies are tough and come with lots of attack patterns, and this highlights the resemblance between Tails of Iron and Hollow Knight.
Being a Souls-like title, there are many bosses in Tails of Iron, each with their own set of moves and arenas. For every boss, there is an execution move – a brief animation that shows what happens next and how the fight truly ends if players are victorious. In combat, some enemies will start blocking the player's attacks early on, and there is not much players can do to prevent it at that point. However, as the story progresses, they can start using two-handed weapons like broadswords to interrupt the block. Players will also get to switch between their one-handed and two-handed weapons, sort of like in The Witcher, where Geralt can switch between his silver sword and his steel sword freely.
The main campaign takes around 10 hours to complete for seasoned Souls-like players, according to Bennett, but that time increases for players new to the genre. It will take even longer for completionists who like to find every hidden area or object and complete every side-quest, especially because the world is so vast. Tails of Iron supports adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and 4k resolution, meaning that next-gen consoles should be the perfect platform to play the game.
Tails of Iron will come to PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 17, 2021.
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