TAIL CONCERTO

My first glimpse of this great game came to me via a Japanese alpha demo. I coudn't read the menu or the story, but I loved the game. I concocted my own world around the limited knowledge that I had of TAIL CONCERTO.

That was years ago.

TAIL CONCERTO has just now been released to the US market. I cannot thank ATLUS enough for doing this. Far too few deep Japanese games make it here. TAIL CONCERTO is in a limited release. It is testing the waters. If it sells well, more will follow.

TAIL CONCERTO is the quinticental Japanese game. You play as an animorphic fox police officer who pilots a steam-powered mecha. Your mission is to stop the Black Cats gang from whatever villiany they may be up to. You spend the majority of the time chasing down the gang's common thugs... cute little MD kittens.

Doesn't that just make you want to go and find a copy right now? Doesn't it?

The game's polygonal world is colorful and very well rendered. The puzzles and game-play mechanics are ingenious. Anime sequences but only further the story. There are not only one or two, but they appear almost every five minutes, casting beautiful light across the sky.

You trek across the skies of Prairie -- the Revived Earth -- after the Black Cats. The gang is led by three cute but evil sisters... or so it appears.

You cross Prairie from Porto, to Resaca, to Ferzen, to Airleaf (via a most excellent steam-powered jetpack), to Grimto, to Coolant, and to Prairia.

As you progress, you find gems dropped by the sisters and learn of an ancient legend. The Black Cats gang is but a pawn of a mysterious man named Fool. He is behind their crimes. He has painted their world red. He has taught them how to hate. He has killed in them love.

You receive aid in the form of Cyan Garland, leader of the Prairia's Royal Guard. With Cyan and his mecha, you press further. You learn the horrible secret of the TETSUKYOSHIN... the IRON GIANT.

In your moment of triumphant, disaster strikes as the Iron Giant rises from the ocean.

It is your final crusade and your finest hour. For, in the end, you fight for the life of your foe. In the end, you fight to return to her the memories which have been stolen. In the end, you fight to show her that love exists.

You win.

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Peter Tatara
11.24.1999

http://www.klink.net/~tatara/DFFQI.html