I left the Captain’s survival a possibility just in case I wanted to bring her back but in the end I felt it would have been too crowded so I left her as assumed dead. I’d love to write a sequel but it could be tricky considering the great range of possible endings to this one. I’m still pondering though…
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Any chance for now Isabella too? She is absent the major part of the game, and we can’t really have a meaningful conversation with her to know her better like we can with Ygraine.
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I’ve been sitting on this review for a while, but I decided to finish it today. The gist of my opinion is that I think Ironheart is pretty good and I think anyone with a passing interest should check it out
I finished my second playthrough of the game today, and while this isn’t going to be as a long as my other writeups on other threads, I do think it’ll have some of my main thoughts on the game, in a more compact style, though.
Despite the swashbuckling adventure of piloting a huuuge robot during the Crusades, I think one of Ironheart’s most distinct aspects (and one of its strong suits, in my book) is its attention to the smaller moments of the story, and how those show us a richer range of emotions in its characters. I can think of no better example than Guillaume and Tonzo, whose banter in the first few chapters immediately captivated me, and left my eyes wide open to chances to know more about them. Luckily, the game is skilled into sketching a sense of nuance into these people: how Guillaume isn’t really an outsider to the nobility, despite his frankness toward the MC and Tonzo, how he clings to the usual trappings of honor and victory willingly, but is uninterested in fighting, how he’s a genuine religious man, but doesn’t keep that from showing compassion when he think it’s deserved, how Tonzo plays off himself because the bond they shared in the archon has done away with any lack of familiarity among them, and so on. By the time Guillaume died in my game, the time spent with them had meant quite a bit to me.
So, while the author showed skill with these characters, I felt like I never really got too close to the rest of the cast to get a good of how they were. A part of that is just the natural consequence of making a branchy game, but I wish we could’ve gotten a bit more time with Loukia and Isabella and Sana and Ygraine. That’s just a personal opinion though; the more time goes by, the more I think that what really draws me into games are the characters. Having a large and undeveloped cast does create the sensation that much of the supporting cast kind of orbits around the MC, instead of being their own people with goals and opinions.
But, speaking of the mechanics, I was very pleased with the way the big ol’ mecha fighting is handled. It took me a while to understand it, but I enjoyed it. Making fights that feel open and thoughtful and not so explicity connected to stats is a hard thing, and I appreciate the fact that Ironheart went out of its way to offer something completely new. For the most part, the fact that I couldn’t understand exactly what went into the mecha’s swings is what made them appealing. It added a degree of unpredictability into the duels.
If there’s one thing in particular that I’m left wishing, is that my choices when it comes to the fief were more noted by the story. I had a character, a doctor who left his robot on the side to try and turn the fief into a robust, modern piece of land, and I came off a bit disappointed that things I tried to do, like building a hospital, a school and inviting Jewish settlers never really came back. I’m not suggesting that the game should offer subplots for each, that’s not what I mean, but just a nod in the epilogue would’ve been nice. Like “your hospital becomes widely studied by scholars across the Levant”. In my case, I’m less interested in the upgrades as a way to get different playstyles in place and more into them because they’d change the world and my character, I think their bigger reward as more of a story-focused one.
So, that’s that for Ironheart. I enjoyed it, and I look forward to try and discover more mysteries inside the story. It’s a good first game and, if the author tries to do something else later, I’ll be here to check it out. I like to think about how some scenes of the story, like the one where the MC looks at the stars with Vivienne, stayed with me after the game was over.
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Thank you! I really appreciate the time taken to give such detailed feedback.
I’m especially gratified to hear you liked the characters and their interactions so much. That’s probably my strong suit as a writer, it’s certainly the aspect that I most enjoy. It really pained me to kill off a couple of them and I can usually do that with an almost-GRRM level of impassivity!
I’m also just finishing up an update today which might go a little way toward addressing some of your disappointment over the unresolved fief options (which I completely agree with, by the way). It doesn’t have any truly new content but it does ensure that all the subplots (including the fief and its improvements) are tied up in every possible epliogue.
Thanks again for your insight and encouragement!
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You’re welcome! Good to see you around here and on other alleys of the forum.
I’ve got a question: how much do you think the forum thread influenced the development of Ironheart? Your game was, I think, one of the first company games to be written fully on the forum and then moved to beta-testing, so I’m curious to see your opinions.
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I found the feedback really useful and it definitely influenced the development. Perhaps not the broader thrust of the story but many of the details, especially the romances, were tweaked following suggestions.
It was useful just to know what sort of thing readers were looking for in the story, so I could weight those areas appropriately. For example, when a number of people said they didn’t want to have to choose either the Christian and Muslim factions, I added more hedge-knight content and interactions with the atheist Golden Horde.
With IF, it’s hard to second-guess your readers and easy to overlook routes you might not think of taking yourself, so getting as many eyes on the game before release is very helpful.
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Bought the game on release day but only got a chance to play now.
Really awesome.
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Thank you!
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Does anybody know what are the different outcomes at the tent scene where MC and Sana sleep?..I mean she feas me when I try to go near her
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You can’t get together with Sana during this scene (which can occur either at a campfire or in a room at your castle) but you can help your relationship with her a little by not being too forward. Talk to her rather than reaching out or trying to take the sword/knife.
Hope that helps!
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Thanks…And hoping this would get a sequel…No pressure. And good luck on your future works
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Thank you! My new project is here: Bitten! but I’d also love to return to the world of Ironheart one day. I do still have stories to tell there… 
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Does it matter which blacksmith you hire to repair Gillaumme’s mech? Tonzo recommends the short man but is there any difference?
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Yes, the short man is definitely better. You don’t always get the recommendation from Tonzo so it’s worth following. Essentially, the quality of the work on Berthilda determines how well she performs during the victory procession and that in turn affects a number of other things, most notably your renown and standing with the Papacy. Hope that helps.
Funny, I never used him. Always chose the girl and never had issues, but I always tended to play into my strengths as a character.
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Yes, if you play well in other regards, it shouldn’t matter. I just checked under the hood and he gives a +20 to Berthilda where the other smiths give a +5. But there are other ways to boost the same stat and there are also other ways to make a good show in the victory parade.
I picked the girl because I sympathized with her tbh. She seemed nervous and I wanted to give her a chance.
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From the deepest depths of my heart I love the story. It made me cry every time I play it. The scene where Viv dies is so heart wrenching. The concept is sci fi medieval yet it is so realistic.
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Thank you! That truly means a lot. And that scene was hard to write too…
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