Iron Danger

Iron Danger is a “real-time” isometric tactical game. It’s not exactly an RPG, and it’s not exactly a squad game, either. Real-time is in quotes for a reason. What it does have is a really cool time manipulating combat system that works really well. It is neat to play around with.

Special thanks to swaswj for the game. Find the game on Steam.

Iron Danger is about Kipuna and the war she gets dragged into. The Northlanders have invaded her kingdom, and all she wants to do is to get to where it’s safe in the capital. However, she happens to fall into an ancient ruin and obtains the power to manipulate time. Because of that, she is forced on a quest to gather all of the magical shards in order to help defend the Kingdom.

The story of the game feels average. It’s not that complicated and there isn’t too man surprises. This would not be a game I continue playing for the story. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that the presentation doesn’t really draw me in. And there’s not much else to do outside of missions, either, so you’re pretty much going from mission to mission. The plot does feel like part one of a larger story, though.

The characters are interesting enough, but nothing too extraordinary. The main character is Kipuna, a girl that only wants to avoid the war. She does change and grow through the journey while being helped along by a few others. The main characters are interesting enough to follow, even if the story is mainly a lot of go here and find the shard.

So what is the draw of the game? It’s the game play. Here, you are able to manipulate time, and the game makes sure you need to do just that to win. If you don’t, the game is pretty much impossible. So during combat, and optionally during exploration, time is frozen giving you time to issue orders to your pair of characters. And if you don’t like the results? Rewind and do something else!

It is fun for me since I can go at a methodical pace while also trying and trying again for that perfect set of actions. There is a limit to how much time you can rewind, so if the mistake is too far in the past, there’s no fixing that.

Combat in this game is challenging. Enemies attack relentlessly and hard. Your characters will die in only a few hits, and stronger attacks will kill you in one hit, so put those rewind powers to use.

While there are multiple playable characters, you only bring two into each mission, and you don’t get to pick. I didn’t call this game an RPG because it doesn’t really do leveling or equipment. The character gets what they get, though at the end of each mission, you do get the choice of what skill to upgrade.

The main character, Kipuna has the most skills as she gains access to a wide variety of magic. You need to pay attention to the environment, though. There have been way too many times I was hiding in grass and tried to use fireball only to set the grass on fire and hurt myself. Good thing I can rewind! Fire is also great for lighting oil spills. Her other magic is pretty useful.

The other characters don’t get as much skills, but they do all play differently thanks to them. The blacksmith can block and has the strongest melee attacks. The archer can, well, shoot arrows, and I find that really useful. The healer has the most underdeveloped skill set, and I think that’s because the healer is your partner for the least amount of missions, most of them not combat related.

I think only having two characters to control at a time works well for the game. Any more and things will become too hectic, not to mention it might make combat slog too much since you need to pause, rewind and mind three characters.

The games does feel unresponsive at times. When you click somewhere, it takes a bit of time before characters move. I think that’s because of the underlying time counting thing the game is doing so you can rewind. Trying to pick up items also feels fiddly at times, though.

Iron Danger is a game that works well because of its time manipulation mechanic. The rest of it isn’t too remarkable. Plan out the perfect attack strategy and use environmental dangers to your advantage! If things don’t work out? Rewind and try again.

Find it on Steam!