Ironcast

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...

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 the very definition of the saying "easy to pick up, difficult to master". The world, the characters and the art style are all top notch and really serve to draw you in, and once you are in, the compulsion to just have one more go is almost irresistible. The gameplay is balanced very nicely and we can't not recommend it, with only the freezes and crashes to really report as drawbacks. If you are looking for a puzzle game for your Xbox One, look no further than this. Picking it up would be a capital idea, what what?

In the end, Ironcast is easily a fun game that you can get caught up in while playing. It keeps you engaged and planning, but not to the point where it becomes a chore. The soundtrack stays faithful to the older steampunk style of the game as well. It's not a long campaign, maybe a few hours at most, but the permadeath roguelike mechanics offer more replayability. The final boss was definitely the most frustrating thing to me because of how much tougher it is with no real lead-up. Other than that and bad luck with the board a few times, Ironcast has been largely enjoyable experience. A nice ad...

Some may love the unexpected strategy and depth that Ironcast provides behind a sleek match three exterior. Others however may find that unlucky RNG and the too often loss of progression from permadeath begins to deteriorate any sense of achievement or progress being made. Personally, I feel that Dreadbit should have excluded any roguelite features to make for a more compelling and engaging experience. That said, for those who stick around and enjoy the strategy that Ironcast offers, it can be an addictive and enjoyable experience.

Fans of mechs and match three will find a lot to like in Ironcast, but even they will eventually tire of the repeating missions and random nature of the game.

The gem-matching's pretty simple, but the strategy is surprisingly complex.

From barely scraped through Kickstarter to finished game in a few months, however, Ironcast really holds up. Its permadeath is perhaps the sort where you'll need to walk away for a bit before starting over, but with my average playing time between calamities being a couple of hours themselves, that's no bad thing. It's far more involved than you'd think from looking at it, and much more tactically thoughtful than a match-3 RPG has been before. Much more. The story is a touch blandly presented, but hardly an important factor in the scheme of the game. It's completely novel, and that's a rare th...