Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter Review

thesixthaxis.com:

It’s a hard life, being a rat. No one thinks you are cute, you get all the blame for the bubonic plague, and you have a tendency to get embroiled in vicious blood-thirsty wars with rival armies of animals. For an example of the latter, look no further than the first Tails of Iron, which pitted Redgi and his anthropomorphic pals against ferocious bands of fearsome frogs. Now, with the frog menace having taken their last ribbit, it’s the turn of some undead Bats to invade a Ratty Kingdom. Thankfully for Redgi, this is not the southern kingdom that he rules over, instead, it’s the Rats of the North who get brutally murdered by an invading army. And they do, in outstandingly gory but oh-so-cute fashion, in the cataclysmic opening to Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter.

For those who didn’t have the good fortune of playing through its fantastic forebear, Tails of Iron 2 is best summed up as a 2D Souls-like. The diminutive player character – a bearded, brutally-violent, yet surprisingly cuddly rat named Arlo – must hack and chop their way through a vast interconnected environment, taking on hordes of massive foes. The foes are glorious to behold, painted and animated in an arresting visual style.

This time out there’s an overarching wintry Game of Thrones aesthetic, which proves a suitably arresting theme. The species and enemies are far more varied and creative in this outing; cannibalistic were-owls, enormous killer snakes (from Arlo’s perspective at least), and undead wyvern-riding bat shamans are all a joy to dismember. Indeed, the vast array of baddies keep proceedings fresh as the hours of play tick by, demanding that the player is constantly identifying new attack patterns, finding the chinks in their foe’s armour and exploiting them to finally emerge bat-tered (pun absolutely intended) and victorious. The satisfaction these hard earned triumphs earn results in quite the squeak of exultation.

Make no mistakes, Tails of Iron 2 doesn’t pull any paws. This is a tough –