In yesterday’s post, I talked about the game, Tails of Iron (Odd Bug Studios), also known as Rat Souls. I played a few hours of it and really gave it the old college try. I mentioned what I liked about it (mainlyf the art design), and I have more to say about it. Really, it’s about soulslikes in general because I am already weary (not wary, but, I guess that, too) of the genre.
Let me take you back in time to when the first soulslike came out. That was the original Lords of the Fallen, developed by Deck13 Interactive and published by CI Games. The publisher is important in this case for reasons I’ll get to later.
Lords of the Fallen was so clunky. So clunky. It’s as if Deck13 saw only one thing as they played Dark Souls–combat is deliberate. Lords of the Fallen was nicknamed Clunky Souls, in fact. The magic was atrocious, and the melee was so unsatisfying. I played a few hours, twice, many years apart, and it did not get better with time.
There was supposed to be a sequel to the game, but that didn’t happen. It kept getting pushed back, and then Deck13 Interactive announced they were working on a different game altogether. It was called The Surge, and it became affectionately known as Junkyard Souls. Why? Because of the unique premise of cutting off your enemies’ limbs in order to strengthen yourself and get cool weapons. Your enemies are robots, by the way. I think they used to be human? I don’t quite remember.
Oh, I have to say, I’ve played it. I’ve finished it. Hey! This is the other one I finished, but did not remember before. And, controversially, it’s my favorite soulslike. I threw an RKG chat into a tizzy beacuse people were talking about the best soulslike. Most people agreed that Nioh was the best. I piped in and said that The Surge was my favorite, and, boy, did that upset people. How dare I say that The Surge was a better game than Nioh???
Except I never said that. I was very careful to say I liked it bettert than Nioh, even though I knew objectively it was not as good a game. That upset people even more! Which I thought was hilarious. I really did not do it on purpose, but, boy was it funny to watch people lose their shit. I just kept saying I had more fun with The Surge, and while they could not debate that, they still got indignant about it.
What made it fun? Cutting off limbs and collecting those limbs. The bosses were one of the weakest aspect about the game, quite frankly, which is true for many soulslikes. It still had the DNA of Clunky Souls, but it was so much more enjoyable. Was it great? No. Was it even good? Arguably, no. Was it fun? Hell, yeah! For the most part.
The reason I mentioned CI Games was because–oh, never mind. This post is not about soulslikes in general. I’ll get to that at some point. Or not.
I have included the story trailer for Tails of Iron above. It’s narrated by Doug Cockle. Always up for some Doug Cockle. Hey, Geralt, hey.
Back to the game.
Do not waste my time. At the end of the last post, I mentioned that you cannot skip NPC dialogue, which is so fucking frustrating. At least I did not find a way to do it. None of the face buttons worked–I know because I mashed them compulsively. Nor did menu. I was in such rage by the time I got there.
Oh! Another very strange decision. The inventory. You can’t access it except from an inventory box that is near some of the save points. I mean, it may be ever save point from now on (I just got through the prologue, and there was only a box after the first boss proper. Or, rather, right before that boss.) You can’t even look in your inventory when you are out in the field, nor can you change any of your gear. I realized this after that asshole NPC who would not stop talking beacuse I had my base broken sword and didn’t swap it out for the first actual sword I picked up. Instead, I sent it to the box and could not get it before the first hard encounter.
This is an odd choice to make. And frustrating. Why would you not let your player access their inventory when out on the field? If I’m fighting an enemy and want to be lighter, I certainly do not want to trek back to the last save point to dig out new armor. And, if I do make that trek back, I’m probably going to want to save…which means I will respawn the enemies. Which is fine, by the way. I’m used to that because that’s what happens in From games (of course).
What isn’t fine is that your health and estus flask don’t refill upon resting. This is one of the weirdest things about the game, by the way. It harkens back to what I’ve said before about devs wanting to put their stamp on the genre, but not understanding what makes the FromSoft games truly special.
In the menu, you can choose your difficulty–which cannot be changed. I chose normal, and the devs took great poains to emphasize that normal meant difficult combat. This is completely the wrong emphasis for these kinds of games! But it’s all many people want to talk about. Which is why so many soulslikes aren’t any fun to play.
Let’s talk combat. Ever since Sekiro did the red kanji letters flashing thing, of course other games have done that as well. This game has gone crazy with them. There’s the yellow angry squiggles that means you need to parry. There’s the red angry squiggles that means you have to roll by the enemy. Then there’s the red circle that means you have to roll twice to get by the enemy. Whether you do or not is anyone’s guess! As I said in the last post, the roll in 2D is not precise. At all. Or, again, it might be me.
Ok. Three unblockable attacks is the same as Sekiro, but it feels so much more arduous in this game–maybe because it’s different colors as well as them being symbols and not kanji.
In the end, there is heart in this game, but it’s just not there. I’ll wait for the sequel to see they improve on the basic ideas.