Impression - Fuga: Melodies of Steel
The Cats and Dogs of War
Difficulty can certainly be a difficult (pun intended) area in which developers sometimes strike balance in video games, and in my experience, most games that are “challenging,” particularly those that originated in Japan, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, tended to implement the concept artificially through things such as constant repetition upon dying, horrid level design, enemy AI that seems to “cheat,” and so forth. Thus, I was hesitant to purchase the Steam Deck version of Fuga: Melodies of Steel despite its anthro cast (and a prequel to the Little Tail Bronx series), although luckily, a demo covering the first three chapters was available, so I decided to give it a go.
Fuga occurs in a war-torn world where the Berman Empire seeks dominance, with around a dozen of children surviving their invasions band together and discover an ancient giant tank known as the Taranis, using it to fight back at the Bermans for sake of survival. The antediluvian vehicle also has a potential trump card against the enemy known as the Soul Cannon, in which one of the children must sacrifice himself or herself to deal immense damage against whatever opposition they face. The game generally tells its story well and has excellent pacing, with the intermissions between battles in each chapter adding reasonable depth and having the potential for the children to bond with one another in special cutscenes, along with the themes of war and sacrifice.
Fortunately, solid gameplay backs the experience, with Fuga containing a methodical chapter-based narrative structure. Each chapter sees the Taranis on a linear path, with occasional branches depending upon whether players wish to experience easy or difficult routes, and intermissions where they control a character within the tank and can accomplish various things such as talking with other playable characters to increase bonds with them, which can unlock Link Attacks that can be useful in battle, among other things. There are also various facilities within the vehicle where the player can increase its stats through the consumption of various materials gained along the pathways of each chapter, fished from the rear of the tank, or acquired from ruins they can occasionally explore.
The battles themselves pit the Taranis against a certain number of vehicular Berman units, with skirmishes often happening in phases in between the giant tank moving forward through the chapter’s paths. The player can put six children in pairs into each of the main armaments, which take turns depending upon speed alongside each adversary. Each pair can perform various actions such as normally firing munition at one of the foes (the game luckily indicating accuracy, with machinegun attacks more effective against aerial antagonists and standard cannons doing well against land units). Other actions include using SP-consuming skills, some of which can be critical such as one that decreases the defensive power of foes by one “shield” unit indicated, all the way to zero, making them more vulnerable to damage.
Battles strictly occur between the Taranis and a number of enemy vehicles.
Players need to watch the Taranis’s HP as well, with total depletion resulting in a Game Over and the need to restart from either before or after the previous intermission. However, whenever the tank reaches critical health, the player can sacrifice one of the children to the Soul Cannon and blast away the enemy, naturally reducing the playable cast. This somewhat reminded me of the sacrifice system in Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and can have implications upon the plot. As far as difficulty goes, I never needed to use said superweapon in the three-chapter demo, with things such as recovery items and skills softening the blow and providing some room for error. Aside from the lack of a midbattle suspend save, I had an overall fun time with Fuga’s combat.
Control is well above average as well, with the linear structure preventing players from ever finding themselves wondering where to go next, unlike many RPGs that feature more open worlds, for starters. The menus are easy to navigate and exploring the interior of the Taranis is nonproblematic, alongside maintaining the tank’s facilities and playable units. An autodash feature within the vehicle would have been nice, but otherwise, Fuga interacts well with players.
The soundtrack very much fits the game’s militaristic setting, players further having a choice between Japanese or French voices (I chose the latter since they more fit the setting), with most performances being solid, aside from that for a pudgy character.
Fuga is definitely a sight for sore eyes, with a beautiful sepia color theme, excellent art direction, and gorgeous detailed environments, although there is occasional choppiness alongside the general static nature of the character portraits aside from showing different emotions during cutscenes.
Finally, the demo will last players a little over three hours, with the main game promising multiple endings and a New Game+ mode.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Fuga’s demo, given the promising combat system whose difficulty, for the most part, doesn’t feel artificial, given the strategizing that players will need to do within and without combat, and the alternate pathways in each chapter seem to allow them to decide whether to take risks in terms of gameplay or not. The other aspects shine as well, such as the engaging wartime narrative and audiovisual presentation, the former never feeling childish despite the largely preteen cast and the latter very well enhancing the experience. Those who finish the demo will be able to transfer their data to the full game, either a standard or deluxe digital edition, and should the demo’s quality translate well to the whole experience, it could be a gaming masterpiece.
This impression is based on a completed playthrough of the Steam demo through Chapter 3.