Iron Gaia

Iron Gaia is an old Rpgmaker game, and probably one of the first and few sci-fi games ever made (for me together Alter Aila and a Blurred Line creates the "Rpgmaker cyberpunk trilogy"). Anyway despite its age he presents some interesting characteristics:

THE GOOD
The game begins with a prologue in which you use a character who isn't the protagonist. This is not a big shock as other games did the same (for example a Blurred Line and Legion Saga II), still this is a rare occurrance, and I liked that as it makes you wonder who are the good and bad guys in this scenario.
Oh well, speaking about scenario, let's start with the setting: the game is set on a space station controlled by an insane AI with multiple personalities, that created mutants and robots to your character... that's considered the virus, the anomaly of this setting. Ok, this is nothing new (System Shock and other games already did that) but I've never seen this themes in any Rpgmaker game, and story is good and has a good pacing in my opinion.

Another thing I liked is the atmosphere: the sounds and the music selection are excellent and while mapping is for the most part average, I like how you really feel the creepiness of the dark and claustrophobic space station. The main character also start as a blank slate, and this makes the game really immersive, as you explore the dark enviroments fighting robots to discover the truth about the protagonist and the world he woke up into. Oh and there are three endings, not one but three!



THE BAD
Let's start from combat: here there's nothing new, it's the usual front view, with no battlers, the usual attack effects and reused backgrounds (but I admit I liked the selection for the enemy sprites and the detailed descriptions of the attacks). Also I found that there's little balance among the different skills, I found only some useful, while others, like Calm, were not necessary at all (Confusion is an ability that very few opponents possess). I also found the game really hard in the beginning as you have few abilities, and you often have to run from the random encounters, but during the final parts, thanks to powerful party members (sadly characters in this game are few so do not expect to be able to choose from different companions) and great healing skills I was able to steamroll the opposition rather easily.

Maps are average for the most part, and due to the used of the default futuristic chipsets there's not much to say about that. Even with that I didn't mind the design of the locations, even if it's true that Max McGee did a far better job in his other games. But I did mind the minigames as I hated them (especially the hacking minigame, the shoot-em-up one was not so terrible).

Ok, and the last thing I did not like was the terminal save-system that I found to be a bit clunky/slow compared to the usual simple (and faster) save point system.



THE END
Iron Gaia is an old cyberpunk/survival horror game, that together with A Blurred Line and Alter Aila is still one of the classic and best futuristic games due to the great atmosphere and storyline. Visually it's not impressive, but the sense of dread, loneliness and isolation was really unique. It has its charm, despite the not-so-pretty visuals I had fun especially in the beginning, where it becomes more similar to a survival horror than to an rpg.
Despite the defects on the technical level, mainly due to the outdated graphics and bad maps, I had fun playing it (I like plot-driven games), so it gets a 4 because it's really a classic and one of the best of its time.