Iris and the Giant PlayStation 4 Review

Many rogue-like games fill players with a sense of anxiety and stress from the unknown nature of the next challenge. Iris and the Giant takes it one step further by making the main character’s trauma part of the overall story as well. Iris is overcome with depression as her father takes her to diving class. As she leaps from the tall diving board, she doesn’t just land in a cold pool but in the depths of the River Styx from Greek mythology. Now she must make it from this strange fantasy realm and hopefully back to the real world.

 

Iris and the Giant was released initially on PC and Mac computers in 2020 under publisher Goblinz Studios. The PlayStation 4 (and Xbox Series) version is instead being covered by Klabater based in Poland. The game still remains faithful to the PC version, though obviously configured for a controller instead of the use of a mouse and keyboard. Though, straight off the bat, players can see that this is a port. It very much feels like the user interface was designed for directly clicking with a mouse on icons instead of awkwardly pushing through menus and double-confirming many prompts.

The game is primarily a rogue-like card game. Iris has access to many random cards in her bag. Some include swords, which can be comboed together in sets of three, bows that can fire long distances, a sickle that steals items if landing a killing blow, shields that stop incoming damage, and fire that hits everyone in a straight line. More complex cards are further found in chests during the midst of a fight and may have other functions like healing, targeting all of one monster type, or possibly even harming Iris.

Each turn Iris draws up to five cards from her bag, and they must all be eventually played; there is no way to discard or fully mulligan a hand. Additionally, cards do not shuffle back into the deck - they are completely gone once used, and Iris will immediately die if no cards remain. However, chests and defeated enemies might drop cards even during the battle itself. Often this comes in sets of varying amounts. For instance, players might be able to choose five swords or just one spell card. One must assess whether it is better to have stronger cards or pad the bag with sheer quantity in order to survive.

 

Monsters, field items, and obstacles appear in a five by three grid. Each monster belongs to a family - like cats, bugs, snakes, ghosts, and more with various attack and defense traits. Some might carry short swords and can only hit when at the first column wave, while others can snipe from further back. Iris’ long range attacks can typically hit up to the third column, while the fourth remains visible but immune, and the fifth is too far in the fog of war to fully know what they are - though one can at least make out of it is an enemy or object.

The trick of Iris and the Giant’s combat comes from what enemies to prioritize and with which cards. Sometimes it is best to leave weaker foes in the frontlines so that powerful attackers can’t even target Iris. At other points, it is better to hold on to healing cards and fully calculate that it is possible to survive at just one hitpoint. At other times, maybe it is better to flee through the revealed exit stairs rather than fight the remaining minions for more possible loot. Ultimately, the game’s balance is factored in that Iris will die, and players must restart (though probably die-hard fans of the 2020 release have found a way to one-shot it).

As a rogue-like, once restarting Iris and the Ginat’s main scenario, players will have access to gifts and powers from their last playthrough. This may include a better deck with more cards or stronger ones found from further levels. If one has gone far enough, they may have met friendly companions who will help out or alternate paths that take Iris away from pursuing her main foe - the ominous Giant.

Some maps will even yield a memory star - which plays a cutscene from Iris’ school and highlights the trauma she faces from students and other forces. Gaining these memories also leads to a skill system, where players can spend them on new traits and skills - including a larger hand size, more hitpoints, and finally being able to retain at least a portion of cards instead of fully trashing them.

But the question becomes if the rouge-like nature, random cards, and narrative all really mesh well. Most of the time, they feel like clashing systems all jumbled into a single game. There aren’t many means of strategising a good deck, as the randomness makes it unpredictable about what cards or enemies/enemy order will happen. This can often result in players simply grinding and dying rather than progressing and winning via skill or planning. Additionally, while the cutscenes are interesting the first time, sitting thorough or skipping over the same event can get tiresome.

The art of Iris and the Giant is a bold choice, with the majority of characters and scenes looking like pencil sketched drawing out of a high-schoolers notebook. This does make everything seem a bit light-hearted, despite the location being a hellish landscape roaming with monsters. However, it fits much better in story events, where it helps to reflect that Iris is just a kid and not a true warrior hero depicted while fighting.

 

The sound design of Iris and the Giant is passable, though uneven at times. Iris herself convincingly sounds like a school student and not an older actress trying to pretend to be much younger. Characters do not speak during normal gameplay, so voice work is rare overall. Iris and the demons typically make only simple grunts when hit, with the latter making noises to fit their species. The music is very fitting for a mysterious and tense play like the River Styx, though multiple maps will use the same song repeatedly. Having a different track play per each encounter would have made fights more memorable rather than blurring altogether.

Overall, Iris and the Giant has fun gameplay mechanics, though one is going to have to endure the rogue-like nature to grind and build up a good deck and bonuses. Those that want to just experience the story of Iris may want to also consider lowering the difficulty, though this will start a new campaign and wipe progress; alternately, there is a hard mode that amps up the challenge with more rules and harder foes. Finally, those with the option of the PC/Mac version of Iris and the Giant may still want to consider it first over jumping to console controls.
 

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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