Iron Danger review

Video games are one of the most complex and complex objects of creativity. They consist of many separate elements: plot, gameplay, graphics, music, etc. Moreover, games are rarely equal to the sum of their parts – one always outweighs the other depending on the genre, mechanic, or even the general style. This fact leads to two questions: what component of video games is the main one and can it alone justify all the disadvantages? We will deal with the example of tactical RPG Iron Danger, which even with a lot of minuses can surprise the player.

Banal tale and clichéd heroes

Iron Danger is based on Finnish mythology, but if you always wanted to get to know the legends of the northern peoples, then look for some book. It’s not even that in the game legends are mixed with steampunk, and forest spirits are adjacent to mechanical bears – it’s just that the story is spelled out very poorly.

After passing, you ask yourself the question: “What and why, in fact, happened?”. The authors clearly had many different ideas for the plot, and for some reason they decided to implement them all. That’s just because of the lack of resources and experience from the authors, the ideas did not receive proper elaboration.

In the plot, the army of northerners attack the village of the main character Kipuna. Who they are and what goals (besides world domination) they pursue will not be told to us. Running away from enemies, the girl will fall into the cave, where her heart is pierced by a magic crystal. After that, she will become the chosen one and will be able to control time, and then will master other magical abilities.

It is clear that then she will set the task alone to save everyone from the forces of evil. The local wise ruler will decide that the fisherman’s daughter and the village blacksmith will be an excellent team for finding the ultimate weapons, and it would be better for professional soldiers to stay behind the strong city walls.

In the course of the plot, a mysterious wise mentor and a rogue who considers himself irresistible will join the chosen one and her faithful thug. If on the way they still saved the rebellious prince from the captivity of the northerners, it would be generally ideal. Fortunately, against the background of a totally boring story, you don’t even notice that Kipuna is the banal Mary Sue, and her partners are no less clichéd archetypes. The rest of the characters do not even have a couple of lines of dialogue to impress them.

Strange doesn’t mean original

In addition to the weak plot, Iron Danger has other disadvantages. The design of the levels in it is very far from ideal – the whole game is made according to one template, which changes only at the very end. Heroes sail on a boat to a location, destroy all opponents in it, then go to the temple, take the crystal and do the same on the way back to the boat. At the same time, you are not even allowed to choose which heroes to complete the mission, which fundamentally undermines replayability.

Pumping is done in a very strange way. Instead of the usual skill tree and experience system, once every several levels, you are offered to choose a new ability for one of the characters. Because of this, you cannot plan and track your development. Instead of a logical system of progression and rewards, the player is offered to wait for irregular handouts.

However, the most dubious game design decision in pumping is the mechanics of training. The main character will receive new spell packs five times during the passage, and each time the authors of the game will consider it necessary to launch a rather long training level in which only these very abilities can be applied. If the spells were a little more original, such a decision might seem justified, but any player can launch fireballs without a half-hour training session.

The world of cons cannot be recorded. It is not a corridor, and many locations outside the dungeons in it are moderately spacious. You can walk along them and even go into houses, but there’s absolutely nothing to do there. There is only one or two notes for the whole game – there is no question of any scenes-installations that would be interesting to search and consider.

Loot in Iron Danger is not there either. You can pick up grenades and barrels, which is useful in battle, and food that replenishes health and for which for some reason there are three whole separate cells on the control panel. It would be better if the developers cut off all these useless and empty locations in order to finalize the optimization. For cartoon graphics with a minimum of detail and very modest locations, Iron Danger is unreasonably demanding on system resources.

Turn back time to save the life and appreciation of the game

Against the background of all of the above, Iron Danger already causes little sympathy, but the gameplay saves her. Apparently, the authors spent all their efforts on a time management system that stands out against the background of similar games. At any moment of the battle, the user can move a few seconds back or forward, which allows him to predict the actions of opponents and quickly respond to them. You can read more about this mechanic in our preview.

At the beginning of the battle, time stops and a scale appears with 14 divisions – one for half a second. Within it, you are completely free and you can plan and distribute actions as you like. Striking with a sword takes one second, dodging half, casting three fireballs, etc.

The shot didn’t hit the target? It does not matter, rewind, wait a moment and shoot the arrow for sure. The enemy killed a partner? Calm We remember at what step the blow fell, and the next time we put the block at this moment. Or even better – back in time a little further and hit the lead.

In such conditions, each battle turns into a puzzle, where the user goes through different solutions in constantly changing conditions. After all, the enemies, although they do not sparkle with particularly sharp intellect, are quite capable of changing tactics and adjusting to your new decisions.

Unfortunately, even such a fresh and original idea will not necessarily please everyone. First of all, it is aimed at puzzle lovers. But for fans of action, leisurely combat mechanics may seem tedious, because it is built according to the same scheme: hit – take damage – rewind – block or dodge – hit.

Not a single time machine

A wide gameplay variety is called upon to smooth these corners. First of all, this concerns the mechanic of time management. In addition to open battle, they are used in some simple puzzles, and also help to survive when escaping from too strong bosses.

Iron Danger boasts a wide range of all kinds of opponents: people, mechanisms, mythical creatures and animals. Most often, ordinary melee, grenadiers and archers are found. Some of them are not afraid of poison, but someone, on the contrary, can be killed only by them. They are accompanied by elite fighters who are able to resurrect the dead and have a large stock of health. Closer to the finale, huge bellows, giant birds and invulnerable automatons appear – the latter will even be given control.

The interactivity of the environment also adds fun. It is not as rich as in Divinity: Original Sin 2, but still very interesting – in tactical terms. If enemies stand in the field, it can be set on fire. Add a couple of barrels of oil there – and the sight will become even brighter. There is still the opportunity to fell trees on opponents and set traps.

Three levels of assessment Iron Danger

So how do you evaluate Iron Danger? How is a whole product, considering all the components? How is a pure game in which everything but the gameplay is secondary and optional? Or as an idea, not paying attention to its implementation?

The key idea of ​​Iron Danger is great. We saw many applications of time management in different genres: from action games to car simulators. But for tactical RPGs this is a novelty, the game literally made the save gameplay mechanics.

In terms of pure gameplay, Iron Danger looks like a solid set of tactical puzzles with a wide variety of game situations. Not the most dynamic entertainment, but it will find its audience.