Iron Danger review

I guarantee that any of you at least once dreamed of being able to turn back time. For minutes, hours, days or even years. The reasons are different - from the need to fix something and to the desire to repeat the memorable moments of life. Iron Danger is a game that allows you to control time. Instead of having to load the latest saves or undo actions, in case of an error (and you will have a lot of them), the RPG offers to simply rewind time a few seconds back, changing the course of actions and, accordingly, turning the outcome of the battle. We could see something similar in the film and the video game of the same name "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time".

I would liken this process to using a "photoshop editor". No girl will post a photo of herself beloved without passing it through several filters (if there is such a need). At the exit, she gets, in her opinion, the ideal option. It's the same in Iron Danger - you try to adjust the use of combat and magic skills, evasions and other movements so that your battle turns out to be as perfect as possible, with minimal damage and penalties.

The main character of the game is Kupina, a girl whose groupstruck by a mysterious magical Shard. Instead of dying, the Shard granted its wearer the ability to control time, namely to rewind the last few seconds of his life. She will travel not alone, but in a pair with one of her companions - the blacksmith Topi, the Healer or the brave warrior Lemiken. Unfortunately, the game does not provide the ability to choose who to take on the passage of the next task. You are simply confronted with the fact that in the next few missions, instead of Swamp, which you so diligently and thoughtfully strengthened with new skills, Lemiken will appear, unable, for example, to block. This is a little disappointing.

We will not go into the details of the plot, since the main emphasis in the game is still placed on its unique combat system. We can say that we have a turn-based role-playing strategy, but with an improved combat management system. As soon as the enemy notices your hero (or he attacks him), the game goes into trance mode. A huge number of icons appear at the bottom (and the further you progress through the story, the more there will be) allowing you to choose the next action. A window with frames (frames) also appears there. Each action takes a certain number of frames (think of them as action points). In this case, you can only change the last 14 francs??ims, each of which corresponds to 0.5 seconds.

Again, frames (or heartbeats, as they are called in the game) are ordinary action points with their own specifics. That is, the developers did not offer us something radically new. However, this does not prevent this mechanic from conveying to the gamer the feeling of something new. And if in the first few minutes you will puzzle over how exactly it works, then after an hour of playing time you will bring your actions to automatism.

For those who like to do everything perfectly, the Shift key is provided, which allows you to schedule all 14 actions for each character without triggering them in real time. That is, you can first set everything up, and after that start the time and enjoy the result. And again I repeat: at first everything looks difficult, but in order to enjoy the process, you need to practice properly.

In the picture, it all looks something like this: you order Kupina to slow down one of the opponents (for example, freeze him), while Topi approaches him in parallel, who then attacks the enemy with his huge ax. But the further you advance in the story, the more opportunities will appear for both the young Kupina and her companions. The girl can create thick grass to hide from enemies, ice walls,blocking the path of projectiles, imbue a companion's weapons with fire or ice magic, enhance their defenses, and much more. In turn, Topi will have the opportunity to carry out AoE attacks, rush through opponents, scattering everyone around, make point strikes or knock down villains.

To make everything look realistic, the developers decided not to turn off friendly fire. For example, if Kupina throws a fireball at an enemy, and Topi is a couple of meters away, he will also receive damage from him. This will be a little annoying, but at the same time it complicates the battles, makes you think through your actions even more carefully. Sometimes you will rewind time not 2-3 steps back, but to the maximum, 14 frames. By the way, the same nonsense can happen to Topi, who with his huge ax is able to harm the fragile Kupina.

Speaking of inconvenience, it is worth noting the lack of saves during the task. All saves are made manually, and only at the end of the mission. That is, if you completed half of the task, having successfully killed many opponents, but you were stupid in one of the last battles, leaving 14 frames with unsuccessful actions, which is difficult?? turn back (for example, they tried to run through a clearing, but were ambushed by a dozen opponents), you will have to start the task again. It is easy to calculate that rewinding time allows you to change the actions in the last 7 seconds.

The moment with a change in camera angle looks a little awkward. The mouse wheel will not allow you to control the zoom, but will instead enable turn-by-turn mode. And to move the picture away, you have to play with the mouse while holding down the RMB. And the camera is always centered on the selected hero. You cannot move it left, right, up or down.

Unfortunately, we are forced to continue the story about the shortcomings, because a game positioned as an RPG should contain much more features than the ability to select active skills and use several consumable items, the varieties of which can be counted on the fingers of both hands. You won't even be able to find a new weapon for Topi or upgrade the most basic hero stats, such as health, armor, or strength. Although, for example, the possibility of increasing intelligence for Kupina or strength for Topi would look very logical.

In order to flatten the downward curve, I will return to history. Those 10-12 hours that you spend in battles are intertwined with a pretty good plot idea.The story is really engaging, but as an RPG Iron Danger lacks branching dialogue or unnecessary conversations. More interaction with the outside world. The first time I visited Kalevala, I really wanted to communicate with local merchants, find out the latest news, buy / sell items of equipment. But all this, alas, is not in the game.

Iron Danger is a project with a good idea, which the authors implemented in full. But in their quest to do something really fresh, they forgot about the more squat aspects of RPGs. However, if you like to think and puzzle a lot, are fond of turn-based games and strategies, it's still worth a try.