85) Fuga: Melodies of Steel (2021)

Beginning development in 2018 as part of CyberConnect2's new focus on creating new, original titles, Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a strategy role-playing game that served as the first self published title from the developer. Having worked on the .Hack and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, the title is a departure from their previous work in almost every way. Serving as the fourth title in the Little Tail Bronx series, acting as a prequel to the PS1 game Tail Concerto, the story follows a group of anthropomorphic cats and dogs in a stylized vision of World War II France.

The story begins with a small group of children, desperately fleeing for their lives, stumbling upon a mysterious tank that comes to life once they're aboard. The tank, known as the Taranis, seems to possess a sort of sentience that vows to do what it can to protect the children. Using the tank, the children take to mounting the various weapons as they travel across the war torn lands. Coming face to face with a general of the Berman Empire, the de facto evil group of the story, the defining mechanic and moral conundrum of the game presents itself. Backed into a corner, with no other option, a special section of the Taranis seemingly calls to one of the children. Stepping inside, the Taranis proceeds to fire the Soul Cannon, a devastatingly powerful weapon that instantly obliterates the enemy forces. Once the dust settles, the price of such a weapon becomes clear, as the child who stepped inside the mechanism is gone for good, sacrificed to power the weapon.

After teaching us how to use this ultimate weapon, we're then introduced to the primary gameplay loop. We begin each level by getting to explore the Taranis, interacting with our group of children, collecting resources, and upgrading the weapons and facilities aboard the tank. As we progress, we get a few more options, such as the ability to explore ancient ruins, growing and cooking food, and allowing our team a bit of rest in between battles. As we move through the story, we meet and recruit other children of war, giving us more characters to interact with and, should it come to it, more ammo for our super weapon.

Each level consists of the Taranis barreling across the war torn countryside, with small battles against the enemy forces popping up along the way. Combat is an interesting take on turn based combat, as we control a total of three weapons mounted on the tank. The Taranis itself has a single bar of health shared across our characters, and each child can use a specific type of weapon, allowing for either light, medium, or heavy attacks. In addition, each child has their own special abilities, and these vary depending on if they're in a primary or support role. enemies can be delayed in combat by targeting specific weaknesses, and you can pretty freely swap out your characters mid combat to best suit the situation. It's a system that has layers of complexity, but is honestly pretty simple and intuitive when presented.

Each level allows for branching paths, telling the player which routes are safer and which are more dangerous. The more dangerous the path, the more rewards the player is presented with, so it becomes a simple question of risk versus reward. After giving the player the option to explore and upgrade the Taranis a few times during the level, we then proceed to a boss fight. These tend to test the player's comprehension of the battle systems while also throwing in a few curve balls. If the Taranis takes enough damage, the option to fire the Soul Cannon will be presented to the player. Doing so can easily turn the tide of battle, but it does come at the cost of one child. While I love the concept of giving the player such a powerful weapon with such a high cost, I very rarely felt tempted to use it, and was able to make it through the entire game without firing it outside of the tutorial, which kind of dampened the primary moral dilemma of the narrative.

The story, as a whole, does a good job showcasing the atrocities of war, and the decision to have the party be composed of literal children is certainly interesting, as it makes the idea of sacrificing them all the more horrific. However, the allusions to World War II, primarily the depiction of the Berman Empire, is a bit too on the nose at times. changing one letter and having the soldiers be depicted as Dobermanns is about as subtle as a hammer to the face. In addition, as I stated before, I found myself very rarely put in a situation where firing the Soul Cannon was even tempting, as even a fairly basic understanding of the combat system is enough to get through.

This is compounded by how charming the children and their interactions with one another is. While they could be argued to be a bit shallow in their writing, it's forgivable as they are quite literally children. Even so, how they're written into the story and their interactions as they get to know one another are charming, believable, and sometimes even painfully adorable. Why would I ever consider sacrificing rambunctious twins, an introverted nerd, or a big cat that loves food?

Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a charming and deceptively complex role-playing experience that has an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop that always left me wanting to play just a little bit more. The characters carry the emotional weight of the story well, even if the narrative itself is a bit on the nose. What the combat, at times, lacks in teeth, the narrative more than makes up for with a journey that effectively hammers home the atrocities of war. While the draw to use the primary mechanic of the game is lacking, it nonetheless serves as a phenomenal building block that I'm excited to see evolve as the series progresses.