Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 649:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆☆☆☆ (5/10)
This review will begin like most of my previous reviews: praising a game's beginning, perhaps admiring its characters, prose, or worldbuilding, before critiquing an [insert negative adjective here] ending. Perhaps I should work on a template at some point to save myself some work. Anyway, if I did, I would apply it pretty neatly to [i]Talon City: Death from Above[/i]. I've only played it for about two hours, but I love Eric Moser's humorous prose, his surprisingly charming cast, and unexpected lore. Seriously, the world of [i]Talon City[/i] is one of my favorites. However, I will be honest and say that I did not finish the game. You see, Moser has decided to involve an intriguing yet baffling design decision: RNG. Specifically, a six-sided die. Unfortunately, the dice-based mechanics and stat checks frequently left me feeling like my carefully built owl wasn't actually good at the things I'd specialized in, or like luck mattered more than preparation. [b]Still, big thanks to the staff for the free review copy![/b]
[b][h2]Pros:[/h2][/b]
✅[b] Hilarious, heartfelt writing.[/b] One minute you're playing a noir detective investigating murder. The next you're an owl attorney arguing in court against an eagle while worrying about paying off vulture loan sharks. [i]Talon City[/i] somehow balances absurdity with emotional earnestness. It's consistently witty, whether through clever dialogue, bird puns, or the sheer commitment to treating its avian legal system as though it's the most natural thing in the world. Yet, the bird jokes never undermine the mystery, and beneath the humor is a story about justice, prejudice, and inequality. I especially appreciated that your owl isn't magically free of the world's biases. Even playing a compassionate character, some of society's prejudices naturally seep into your dialogue and worldview. And as my uppity bird began to see how the "little people" lived, they slowly began to question the way of the world.
✅[b] One of the most creative worlds I've seen in interactive fiction.[/b] Every aspect of [i]Talon City's[/i] society feels carefully considered. Hunters—the literal big birds— and Feeders—your smaller birds—exist in an uneasy balance maintained by the Tenets of the Sacred Bark. Promotions are earned by literally collecting feathers in your cap through courtroom victories. You need fifty of them to be prompted to a Champion from a Caller. Guess how many you have as a Caller? ZERO, of course. Wards divide the city, religious traditions shape everyday life, and even something as bizarre as the birds' version of The Purge somehow feels like a natural extension of the setting.
➡️ [b]Most importantly, the game never overwhelms you with exposition.[/b] Instead, the lore unfolds naturally through conversations, investigations, and reading. It's one of the best examples I've seen of feeding players a tremendous amount of worldbuilding without ever making it feel like homework.
✅[b] Cast.[/b] I don't know how or [i]why[/i] I like the cast so much, especially with their relatively short screentime. The game has a remarkable talent for making every character immediately recognizable. They all have their own cadence, worldview, and little quirks that make them feel like real people rather than exposition machines. Concordia, your hummingbird assistant, is a real one: loyal and smart and actually competent. My girl frfr. Magistrate Tiberius has an elegant elitism to him, while Vale, his lowly clerk, is surprisingly smart. I swooned over Ayvex, one of the best predators in the city, and who I'm pretty sure friend-zoned me 💔 I even liked your annoying yet charming turkey client at the beginning of the game!
✅[b] I also appreciated that stat changes were included.[/b]
[b][h2]Cons:[/h2][/b]
🟥[b] Die system.[/b] The major con, to me, is the weighted randomized rolls. A d6 is rolled to check your stats, with a chance to auto-fail if you roll a 6. You can mitigate the chance of failure with "Strokes of Genius," an auto-success, or two inventory items that can be used once to bypass the check. If you succeed, you get XP, which is a currency needed to win three boss fights.
➡️[b] This might 100% be a skill issue, but it was so damn frustrating when I had a 4 in Beak but rolled a 5.[/b] And with another check, I had a 66% chance of winning, I still rolled unluckily. While the Strokes of Genius and inventory items were supposed to help me, I somehow managed to get either zero or one XP for the boss fight. As you might imagine, I fell flat on my face. And hey, maybe that's not so bad if there were checkpoints. But no, I had to restart from Chapter 1 to get to Chapter 7, and I just couldn't. I just don't think it's [i]fun[/i] to have to skim text to get where I was.
➡️[b] In general, I don't think the ChoiceScript engine is made for RNG.[/b] While some games can manage it—[i]Breach: The Archangel Job[/i]—in [i]Talon City[/i] the margin of error is so thin, and there's no way to mitigate RNG like you can do in [i]Breach.[/i] There's no save options with this engine, nor is there an auto-skip "all read text" button like with Ren'py. Plus, there's a level of inflexibility with ChoiceScript. This isn't [i]Baldur's Gate 3[/i] or even a rogue-like! The focus of IF is the [i]story[/i]—which makes it a bummer that Moser added a mechanic that was a detriment to the story.
🟥[b] Limited audience.[/b] I can see why this game only has a measly seven reviews in four years on Steam. The game is relatively short, has a bit of a tough sell—a noir fantasy thriller with no humans—and virtually no romance. It's a hard sell, for sure.
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If you enjoyed this review, please check out my curator page to find more: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45814768-Verdict-Play-or-Pass/]Verdict: Play or Pass.[/url] Also, please leave a like and visit [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Indie_Gems]IndieGems[/url] and our [url=https://www.youtube.com/@IndieGems2]YouTube channel[/url] for more reviews like this one.
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