Fuga: Melodies of Steel

I posted earlier about FUGA Melodies of Steel in the JRPG thread, and I thought I made it's own thread but apparently I did not. Yeah yeah, it's got anthro looking characters. So did ratchet and clank, okay? However, the game is really really good, well reviewed on steam, and has an 84 metacritic which is above average for a JRPG. There are multiple youtube reviews on it that all agree that it's an excellent game, with a few issues out there but nothing bad at all. It's largely flown under the radar by a lot of people, but it's a VERY VERY enjoyable game. Hoping to give CC2 some love on this game!

I watched a good friend play it for a few hours and just picked it up myself as well.

Gameplay of first hour...



Excellent soundtrack too!





And a typical youtube review:

OU Ariakas said:

For real though, my biggest problem with JRPGs now is that they are literally on rails; as in, you have one path that you go down and it just tells the story as you go. They don't even give you the illusion of a type of open world a la God of War. I saw at the very end of this that there is a huge map, but the path you could follow was simply a straight line with waypoints along it. Can you replay areas to power level? I get that there are some 'no going back choices' (Jesus Christ, how fucking dark) but I'd like to know if the options for where you go and what you do are varied.

Click to expand...

This game is extremely on rails. If that bothers you then you won't like this. With that said, you can't go back and powerlevel, but what you can do is always pick the harder paths and you'll get more materials to upgrade your stuff better. When you beat it you can do a new game plus which includes a lot of extra lore, as well as carrying over pretty much everything.

I beat the main game in 20 hours, and the final boss was fairly underwhelming, however, the game doesn't bill it so much as a super challenging thing, but moreso just telling the story of the kids. I found the story pretty good, and the gameplay good, but I don't mind games that are on rails. Do keep in mind combat is very much a turn based system as well, although there are moments you'll explore ruins which are really just extra puzzles to get extra materials. That's a little different gameplay, but its still on rails and isn't like something radically different.

Pros --

- Cute, likeable characters.
- Good story
- Solid combat that while slow, doesn't seem to really get old despite being repetitive.
- Satisfying Ending
- Soul cannon gives an interesting twist to the game and it's well done what happens if you actually decide to use it.
- Very good music that isn't annoying

Cons --

- Towns are basic and consist of basically talking to 3 NPCs (through a menu) to get 3 items.
- Entire thing is on-rails from beginning to end