Fuga: Melodies of Steel
Allons enfants de la Patrie!
Difficulty can certainly be a difficult (pun intended) area for developers to 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, and was satisfied to the point where I purchased the deluxe edition of the full game.
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, and there are only a few tried tropes such as an ancient god.
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.
Battles strictly occur between the Taranis and a number of enemy vehicles.
The battles themselves pit the Taranis against a few vehicular Berman units, 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.
Players need to watch the Taranis’s HP as well, with total depletion resulting in a Game Over and the need to restart from 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 except when the plot dictated, with things such as recovery items and skills softening the blow and providing some room for error. Players can further change unit formation during a pair’s turn, the three pairs consequentially locked for three turns. Aside from the lack of a midbattle suspend save, I had an overall fun time with Fuga’s combat.
Control is above average as well, the linear structure preventing players from getting lost, 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, alongside quality-of-life features such as the ability to see levels and items on hand when performing tasks such as planting crops, picking children whom to rest for supplemental experience if not for recovering injuries and depression, and such, but otherwise, Fuga interacts well with players.
War isn't exactly the best time for that.
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 a few such as the pudgy feline Boron who sounds more like a normal-sized child. Many tracks feature beautiful vocals as well and have a general Gaelic feel, with the sound effects also rarely out of place, accounting for an excellent-sounding game.
Fuga is definitely a sight for sore eyes, with a beautiful sepia color theme, excellent art direction (with chapter-ending illustrations by different artists), 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, maybe a few out-of-place portrait emotions, and many reskinned enemy vehicles.
Finally, going through the game takes somewhere from sixteen to twenty hours, with different endings, achievements, and modes of replay such as a New Game+ to restart from the beginning or from Chapter 7 onward with character stats retained (which can help those who yearn to see alternate narrative conclusions), very well enhancing lasting appeal.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Fuga, given the combat system whose difficulty is marked but fair, what with the strategizing that players need to do within and without battle, the alternate pathways throughout each chapter allowing players the choice of whether to take risks in terms of gameplay. 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. While I couldn’t transfer my demo data to the full game when I purchased it due to some issues with the Steam platform utilizing my Steam Deck, going through the early stages again was far from a hellish experience, and I have very little hesitation in recommending Melodies of Steel to novice and veteran gamers alike.
This review is based on a single playthrough of the deluxe edition purchased by the reviewer and downloaded to his Steam Deck.
Score Breakdown The Good The Bad
- Excellent and straightforward battle mechanics.
- Superb audiovisual presentation.
- Plenty lasting appeal.
- No midbattle suspend save.
- Lacks a few other quality-of-life features.
- Translation is spotty in some minor areas.