Ironcast
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Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Ironcast
Like most roguelikes, though, the true game is about fighting back against the randomness, and you do this with each lesson you learn about the sorts of augmentations to prioritise, and each trick you uncover for minimising battle scars and maximising scrap. If you've got the stomach for the learning curve, you can probably cut it in this army. And if you can, you'll discover a game that's tense and personable and clever.
All told, Ironcast is one of the most in-depth and engaging match three puzzlers that we've seen. The game's pitch is a bit of a tough sell — it's clearly trying to juggle a lot of different genre elements — but Ironcast somehow manages to pull it all off in a way that is uniquely innovative and frustratingly addicting. The various elements being fused here make for a game that is endlessly replayable, but not at the cost of becoming repetitive or boring. We would strongly recommend that you pick up Ironcast if you're looking for a game that can be a good time sink, but can also be comfortably played in short bursts. Do yourself a favour and try this one out.
A decent strategy puzzle-RPG that displays all the good bits and mitigates the bad ones, pip pip.
Ironcast is a solid strategy game, easy mechanics and a deep level of customisation makes it worth coming back to.
The system's portability is also a great fit for the game, as I could easily knock out one or two missions while on the go. It reminded me of puzzle games from the heyday of Xbox Live Arcade such as Peggle and Puzzle Quest, and makes me hopeful that the Nintendo Switch will be a similarly great platform for smaller, outside the box indie games such as Ironcast.
Ironcast is a smart and funny game that perfectly fit the Nintendo Switch library. Its roguelike mechanics, otherwise, are a bit dull.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Ironcast has a fascinatingly complex base game, filled with myriad details to keep track of and a brilliant sense of strategy. Unfortunately, while serious tacticians will find themselves enjoying the nightmarish difficulty, anyone looking for a lighter challenge will be left in the dust, as permadeath and a merciless RNG slow progress to an unsatisfying crawl. That may seem like a personal problem rather than a serious criticism, but there is so much richness here that a lot of players will probably never get to see — repeating the same missions over and over again is only fun for so long, and "so long" is exactly what I said to Dreadbit's fiendish genre-blend.
Having to re-start the game after every death can be absolutely soul crushing but the satisfaction you get from winning an exhausting battle against an enemy Ironcast is remarkably satisfying.