Iron Danger is a fantasy based JRPG that features the ability to manipulate time by dying!
Have you ever fallen to your death and had some goddess grant you the ability to manipulate time? In Iron Danger from Action Squad Studios and Daedelic Entertainment, you do exactly that. You play as Kipuna, a teen girl who’s home is attacked by the Northern Empire. As she tries to escape she runs across what appears to be a stone altar of sorts to have the ground fall out from underneath her, causing her to fall to her death, impaled on the rocks below. A goddess points out that this is not the time of her death, rewinds time and passes the ability to Kipuna. With this power and the memory of the fall you now know to move around the marked area and are able to continue your escape. Through each encounter if you time your attacks incorrectly (like I did most of the time) you can rewind time, adjust the ability or skill you’re using and try again. With no obvious limit to how often you can manipulate time.
The world is highly detailed and the level of detail can be a little distracting at time when you need to focus more on the combat. In new areas I liked to hold time to look around, see if anything stands out as an important item before allowing time to resume. The controls are a combination of intuitive (when manipulating time and combat) and downright frustrating. The frustration comes most when there are multiple items within reach to interact with because it becomes difficult at times to interact with the item you want to most. The tutorial doesn’t do much to explain how to do this adequately either. The story is engaging and coupled with the combat mechanics make for a very well designed game. This is a must play for anyone that enjoys JRPGs or have any interest in time manipulation and the greatness of it far exceed the frustrations with the already mentioned controls.
