Who needs Bloodborne on PC when you already have Tails of Iron?

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☑ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Masterpice
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ If it's on sale
☐ Worth the price
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

I have mixed feelings about this Tails of Iron, but ultimately I cannot recommend it as a 2D souls-like. It's very cute and I was genuinely enjoying it until after defeating Bloki Magu and rescuing the blacksmith , but then the pacing really hits the breaks.

You're tasked with performing underwhelming side quests that the game even lampshades with a line from the narrator, observing how normally kings send their subjects to run these errands. Questing is made all the worse by the baffling limitation of only being allowed to accept 1 at a time. You'll be running in circles between the same bounty board and dungeon until you have enough currency to progress the story. Shortcuts, a beloved feature of better souls-like games, are absent from Tails of Iron.

The above wouldn't necessarily be bad if the gameplay loop was fun, but I grew to dislike combat after the admittedly strong beginning. You're frequently trapped in arenas, forced to clear an entire horde of damage sponge enemies (usually only 2 at a time) with your single-target attacks as they enter from both sides of the screen. This sometimes happens in places you've previously explored. Enemies are invincible until they've finished walking into the arena and some of their attacks have no telegraph. Even telegraphs can be so short that you might not have time to respond if you've already committed your own attack and have to wait to recover. Also, dodging doesn't have i frames that I could notice; instead, its purpose is to preemptively flee incoming damage zones.

I'm not thrilled about leaving this negative review, but I can't help but think how much better Tails of Iron would be if it were a 2.5D hack-n-slash/beat-em-up, fully embracing linear levels, fast pacing, and interesting set-pieces to stop and fight in. Instead, we're left with a fundamentally flawed 2D metroidvania that feels almost ashamed of being a souls-like. I truly wish Odd Bug Studio luck going forward, but this game has soured me, so I'm taking my leave from this series.