Review: THE IRON OATH Brings Higher Stakes To The Strategy Genre
Video games can be great for a number of reasons. Powerful visuals, engaging gameplay, and a strong story can all be fine reasons for playing a game. The Iron Oath does have some nice pixel/retro art, solid strategy gameplay, and an ever changing story, but its best aspect is the well balanced difficulty that forces each action in and out of the battlefield to be well calculated.
After the first few introductory missions, players will realize the liberty and scope of the game. While it may not be as expansive as Skyrim or Breath of the Wild, it has a lot to do and a lot of choices to be made. Players act basically as a party manager of adventures that are stopping an encroaching darkness. The main gameplay is turn-based tactical battles that really put your strategy skills to the test. Every fight is doable, but challenging. The enemies, their abilities and tactics caused moments of deep thought before every movement, attack, spell and item used. This is especially important because most battles aren’t done in open and random encounters. Most fights are done through mini, rogue-like dungeons where players choose the path, choose to explore or leave and more. Gameplay in general is impressively balanced and fun, leaving players at the end of every mini dungeon or encounter breathing out big sighs of relief.
After these battles, there are cities to visit that can be almost as important as the battles themselves. Cities will have taverns, inns, shops and more. Players can heal their party members, recruit new ones, buy materials and take on new quests. While this seems fairly normal and uninventive, all the different parts are well executed and feel important because of the balanced resource income and intense gameplay out of the towns.
The last really impressive part of the game was the moving story. While finding the main story might be initially difficult, there was plenty of interaction as players made choices over time. This longer time investment also had an impact because characters get old after years of in-game play time. Managing time to travel from place to place, resting, and battles all culminate in an ever growing story that players help shape.
The Iron Oath offers a deep and entertaining experience. While it might not have a lot of original ideas, all the concepts it uses are well tuned, simple to use, and fun. The intensity of the strategy and difficulty may not appeal to most gamers. But for those who want an adventure game that will challenge them at almost every turn, The Iron Oath could be something really enjoyable and worthwhile.
