Fuga: Melodies of Steel

Genre: Turn-Based RPG

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This review has been directly sponsored by a kind donation from Jamie and His Cats. Thanks again for your generous contribution!)

Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a Turn-Based RPG released in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox one, and Nintendo Switch. Set in what appears to be an alternate-universe take on World War II in a world people by anthropomorphic “furry”-style animals, players follow a group of children whose peaceful French-like town is invaded by the Berman (sic) military, which kidnaps all of the townsfolk except the aforementioned kids, who manage to hide away in a nearby cave where they discover a large, powerful tank. Piloting this tank, they follow after the Berman army seeking to free their captured families.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because this game’s protagonists are furry children that this game is cutesy, because this is actually one of the darker games I’ve played in a while. Mega-powerful tank or no, these children are being plunged into the horrors of war, and the game doesn’t hold back when it comes to the ways this can affect them… and then there’s the soul cannon.

Activated whenever a battle isn’t going so well, the soul cannon is a powerful mega-weapon powerful enough that in many cases it is capable of clearing a battlefield of your enemies and turning defeat into victory… but to fuel it, you need to sacrifice one of the children to power the thing. The game demonstrates this early on by forcing your hand before rewinding time, but whenever the battles start to go poorly, the cannon activates and tempts you with its Sophie’s Choice of a solution.

These aren’t faceless kids, either – all of them have distinct personalities, strengths and skills, and contribute to the story, though the “anyone can die” nature of the story does mean that these contributions are somewhat compartmental in nature, though by building up these characters’ relationships you can see occasional cutscenes focusing on the unique dynamics between the different character pairings.

This relationship system is tied into a mechanic where players have a limited amount of points to invest in activities at brief respites they will occasionally encounter on the road, and they must use those points wisely, gathering materials, using those materials to upgrade their tank, preparing meals that give temporary bonuses, choosing characters to spend time conversing to build up their relationships, and so on. Since this time is limited, you have to weigh boosting a character pairing’s synergy against things like growing the food you need for meal bonuses or sending ailing characters to their bunk to sleep it off.

Once all your time points are spent, you’re on the road again, facing a gauntlet of battles interspersed with occasional healing and item pickups. This game strips away any sort of exploration to bring this back to the core elements of story, preparing your party for the challenges ahead, and combat.

Speaking of combat, this game’s combat has players taking a party of six into battle, with three active fighters and three support units, with each character associated with one of three types of weapons – powerful but slow and less accurate red cannons to take on tougher enemies, fast but weak blue machine guns to take on fast flying enemies and pierce the defenses of shielded enemies, and yellow grenade launchers that are balanced, average weapons.

As you progress through battle, you’ll swap characters in and out as the battle dictates as you encounter enemies with different strengths and weaknesses, or need to make use of a particular character’s unique abilities. These character swaps can only happen every three actions though, so players need to think ahead to anticipate what they’ll need for the next few turns. And all of these actions take place on a timeline that shows your upcoming moves and enemies’ moves.

Given the unusual setting and premise, I’m surprised at how strong the presentation is, blending cel-shaded 3D elements and 2D elements with some gorgeous character designs and a memorable Metal Slug-esque design for the game’s tanks, joined by some decent voice acting (in Japanese and French) and backed by an excellent soundtrack that blends orchestral and choral themes to really sell the serious and tense tone of the game’s story.

When it comes to problems, mostly my problems come down to information. This game is highly strategic, and whether or not you’re making good decisions can determine whether you’ll need to make use of the child-murdering soul cannon. Yet often you’ll find that information hard to come by or access.

What is each character’s assigned weapon and special abilities and what do they do, and what are their relationship levels with other characters? You can find this out, but not when you’re trying to decide which character to spend valuable time upgrading or chatting with another. Similarly, this game foregoes money in favor of a barter system, which means that every transaction will require you to keep in mind the things you can build in your workshop with both the components you’re trading for and the ones you’re trading away.

Making important information harder to look up means players will find themselves shuffling through menus or walking around to different parts of the tank and wasting a lot of their time doing so… or they’ll just have to give their best guess and sacrifice some of this game’s all-important strategy.

However, despite this issue, Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a wonderful game with some great game mechanics and a chilling story with likeable characters. If you don’t mind a little frustration with the way this game organizes its information, and you don’t mind a game with a deceptively dark tone, I think you’ll find this well worth a look.

tl;dr – Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a Turn-Based RPG where players control a group of children piloting a super-powerful tank to fight through an invading army to rescue their families. This game’s characters and story are great, if surprisingly dark, and there are some strong game mechanics here. However, the way information is organized and presented is confusing and at times unhelpful, meaning players will have to go through some tedium to make strategic choices. Despite this issue, this is a solid game well worth checking out for fans of RPGs.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}