Rats can laugh, have belly buttons, like to play hide and seek, and can even experience regret. Their intelligence is unspoken, but they’re social creatures. The bond they strike with humans is adorably sweet, and their happiness is infectious whether they chatter their teeth, droop their ears, or let out a little snicker. Yet, they get a bad rap - undeservedly so. That’s why Tails of Iron is so refreshing. It’s a brilliant game that celebrates the positive side of these critters.

“The crown should pass to whiskers anew,” Doug Cockle, of Witcher fame, sets the stage with a narrated cutscene before you’re introduced to your rat brothers - a chef and a smithy. It’s the dawn of a new day and your father is picking a successor. Granted, rats don’t live all that long - usually around two years - so this doddering old ruler is pretty young by our standards. Still, his time has come. But the frogspawn attacks the rat kingdom, tearing down the city, the surrounding towns, and the throne room. They desecrate the legacy of your people, leaving you battered and licking your wounds. Thus begins your quest to save your people, restore your glory, and push back against the verdant vermin.

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Tails of Iron handles a lot like Hollow Knight, wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, but the developers previously told me that they also looked at Dark Souls and Salt & Sanctuary when it came to designing this side-scrolling hack & slash. Despite these weighty inspirations, it stands out as a uniquely intuitive and engaging adventure game that’s fair, first and foremost. Mostly, that’s thanks to the combat. A perfectly designed system means that every encounter is a treat to partake in. The stamina bar was removed in development, meaning that fights are intrinsically fluid as you dot about the stage, swooping under sword swings and sliding away from sweeping blows. Red sparks indicate that you have to dodge, yellow sparks mean that you can parry, white sparks leave it up to you, and red circles tell you that a power attack is incoming. Your eyes are always on the enemy.

You’ll find yourself duking it out with hulking frogs wielding giant maces as you rotate between beanies, crowns, miner’s hats, and knight’s helmets - there’s a lot of gear to find. But there are also giant bugs in the forest and moles to take on in underground pit fights. Yep, and they’re a bloody Metro parody. On your journey, you’ll venture into the swamps, rat towns, sewers, crypts, and, beneath it all, the industrial subway tunnels where a bustling civilization has made its home. There’s a heart to this journey as you lose countless allies in the effort to save your people, but there are also moments of childlike wonder akin to a Saturday Morning Cartoon. In those tunnels, you have to solve the debate of what cake the guards should buy. They block the way while they argue, so you have to go find one for ‘em. The catch is that it costs an arm and a leg, so you have to dive into the arena and chop off some literal arms and legs in order to raise the funds for the sweet treat.

There’s a lot of that in Tails of Iron - needing gold to progress, pushing you to try out the side content. This led me to fight both the patriarch and the matriarch of the bug kin, giant wasp-like insects that were tough S.O.B.s. One had a stinger - a literal pain in the backside - while the other was far more efficient in swooping down to crush me. Both fights were high-octane, thrilling duels, and each rewarded me with hefty amounts of coin to use in a bid to repair my kingdom. You’ll see the effects of your quest brought to life as you progress - it starts as early as an hour in. When you first push back against the frogspawn, you reclaim a rat town. When you later return, the inhabitants are in the streets cleaning up the mess and getting to work on fixing the place up. It’s a small example but later, you’ll find the entire kingdom starts to represent its pristine self again as it was in the prologue.

At its core, Tails of Iron is a character-driven story about a young rat bearing a heavy crown, living in the shadow of his recently murdered father. It tells the “tail” of how he comes to earn the favour of his people. But, there’s something much more to it. It has an aura of Romanticism. You’ll clock it as soon as you enter the Metro pastiche filled with moles. Cockle’s narration reveals that the king is taken aback by the revolutionary technology and sublime advancements, but the coldness of this world is overwhelming. The industrial revolution taking place right beneath the kingdom is lifeless, devoid of soul. It’s ugly, barren, crass, and loud. Meanwhile, the world above is warm, homely, and welcoming. There’s a juxtaposition between the medieval-era kingdom and the underground mole world, one that presents an unexpected but welcome Romanticist commentary. It only heightens the familial feel of the rat’s little colony, that tight-knit community where everybody knows everybody. Venturing up above after your trek to the underbelly is like feeling the sun on your skin after a long winter, and you’re beckoned back to the throne by a proud kingdom of loyal allies. You earn that return.

From milking bugs to slaying frogs with jetpacks, Tails of Iron is an off-the-walls, brilliantly intuitive sidescroller, but it has a heart and keeps you gripped from start to finish as you slaughter a conveyor belt of would-be challengers. It’s not about avenging your father, not entirely - it’s about family and community. Vin Diesel would be proud. Sadly, it’ll probably get lost in the busy end-of-year shuffle among the triple-A powerhouses. But in the downtime between releases, make some room for Tails of Iron - it’s one of 2021’s best.

Score: 4.5/5. A PC code was provided by United Label Games.

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