Tiny Metal is a turn based strategy game that takes place in a post apocalyptic fantasy world called Artemesia. You follow the story of Nathan who leads the army against the Zipang army who initialized conflict by shooting down the Royal Jet and subsequently invading Artemesia.

2D in a 3D World

Graphically the game is not intense it has cartoon styled characters modeled rendered in 3D during gameplay and the cutscenes are done in a standardized cut out format where you see a cut out of the character talking while only their mouth moves. While Tiny Metal does not offer any ground breaking additions to the turn based strategy genre this game is executed very well and provides for a unique enough experience to keep you interested.

The cutscenes and dialogue are the most impressive part of the game even if they were a little long at times, but the excellent voice acting did not make them a chore. The animations and unit designs had a charming appeal to them while the gameplay was simplistic enough to pick up, while being tactical enough to remain stimulating throughout the playtime. Overall the game leaves you satisfied with a sense of accomplishment at the end of your game session.

Make Your Move

Tiny Metal deploys familiar turn based strategy game mechanics where units have different attack and movement points as you move around the level. Each unit has weaknesses and strengths when attacking other units as well as radar and sight values that you will need to keep in mind as you defend, attack or capture your objectives.

The game uses the standard army style unit system where you have soldiers, and vehicles. There are both land and air units utilized in the game each performing differently against other units. During the mission you take turns against the computer choosing to move all of your units and if you wish to purchase or deploy additional units.

Combat is done like it is in most other games of this type where you move your unit next to the unit you are attacking then select it. Each instance of combat will have an animation that starts that shows the units attacking each other (This can be turned off in the options) which adds a little more immersion and fun to the game. During the attack each unit will take damage with the attackers dealing theirs first then the defenders if they survive dealing theirs. Terrain will play a part in your damage and defense bonuses as well as your critical strike chance.

One of the unique aspects to the combat system was an option for you to “Lock On” to your enemy units which allowed you to focus multiple units to attack a single target resulting in higher damage and the ability to manage which unit takes the damage from the defensive strike.

Capture the Building

Resource generation was handled a little differently than other game where you have a building capture function. Capturing these building will allow you to produce your currency for purchasing units, allow you to purchase and deploy standard troops, and there are even specialty buildings that allow you to capture mission objectives, or deploy a Hero unit that is vastly more powerful than the standard units. While the Hero units cost more you will find that as you progress currency is not going to be a problem because once you capture a building it adds to your passive income that you receive each turn.

Victory conditions depend on the mission and will include destroying all of the enemy forces or capturing certain buildings. At the end of each mission you are awarded points which are saved and divided into Gold, Silver, Bronze. Replaying a mission will give you the opportunity to achieve a better score for those of us that need to finish everything Gold.

It’s Hero Time!

As you progress you will unlock additional characters who will be able to be deployed into battle as a “Hero” unit. Each Hero will have an short bio in the unlocks section giving you some insight on their place in the story as well as their unit statistics providing some motivation to advance the story to collect all of the units.

Speaking of story progression, this game is entirely voice acted. All of it. I did not come across a single cutscene that did not have audio behind it. For the anime/gamers, you’ll recognize some familiar voices from games like Dragon Quest Heroes, Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, and Ajin.

For a small game like this the production value was surprisingly high and the story was very detailed. The story and the voice acting were among the most impressive aspects of this game especially with the caliber of some of the talent the game had.

Outside of the main story there are Skirmishes which are one off battles that allow you to select how many teams you want to play against as well as the NPC difficulty. The game does not currently offer multiplayer but it was listed as coming soon on the main menu.

Overall

The store price is $24.99 no doubt due to the voice talent and length of the story but $10-15 would be my limit for this title. With standardized gameplay mechanics and a fantastic story my overall score on this game would 3.5 out of 5.

With all that being said you are probably wondering “Should I buy it?” If you are a strategy game enthusiast this will be entertaining and might keep you playing, while the voice talent and production value will present an excellent experience for a casual player as well my verdict would be wait for a sale.

A Steam review code was provided by AREA35 for this review.

Sample Soundtrack

Gameplay Footage