Retro Review - Tail Concerto

The old but beloved PlayStation 1, as I've mentioned it countless times, has with it a great catalog of excellent video games, of the most recognized in the field and in the video game industry, many of them considered today cult games, but we can also find some hidden jewels, something that is totally normal in the industry. For many people, the game I'm talking about here may not be remembered or perhaps never played by some of you, but you could say that this title is a "furry-themed" video game before the term "furry" existed or at least before it became known and parodied by many people around the world. A perfect game for the furry community which, in turn, is an excellent game of platforms and adventures (if you don't know what the word "furry" means look it up in Google, even if you might get a little scared).

Today's Retro Review is about: Tail Concerto.

Tail Concerto's argument is located in a fictitious place called "Praire", in that world coexist two races of anthropomorphic animals: dogs and cats, however the cats form to be a small minority in this universe and the dogs are presented as the "good" part of the society, in such a way that one could say that there is certain racism between this society of furrys, I mean... of anthropomorphic animals.

Our story focuses on Waffle Ryebread, he is a dog with human characteristics and in turn is a fairly loyal policeman and dedicated to his work. One day Waffle is called from the police station and they tell him that he must go to one of the islands located in Porto city, city in which he resides, to deal with some problems that are causing a group of cats called "Cat Noirs". Waffle prepares to go to the place and for it he mounts in his robot to stop all the chaos that is causing this group, when arriving at the place and after stopping the actions of this group, that is led by three cats called "The sisters Pris", our canine protagonist realizes that one of the leaders is an old friend of his childhood, Alicia. So as a good cop and good friend, Waffle is going to devote himself to find out why the sudden change suffered by her friend and somehow get her on the right track.

Besides this, this group of cats are in search of some ancient crystals that have in them a great power, so our other mission is to find each of these mysterious crystals before they find them, but behind the actions of this group is a master mind that tricked them into going in search of these crystals. In spite of its infantile appearance it could be said that Tail Concerto touches a little delicate subjects as they are the racial minority and the war between societies, although of course, they are subjects that are not deepened too much, but it is a great detail to touch these subjects in a videogame.

Tail Concerto is a game totally in 3D and in terms of this aspect is one of the best games with 3D style of the old but beloved PlayStation 1. In this game we are going to find a great variety of scenarios and each one of them is going to present a quite good and showy decoration, besides containing a great amount of details, from the smallest to the biggest, in such a way that we feel that we are in a world full of life and not in something flat or empty, although clear without reaching the level of games like Metal Gear Solid, for example.

Both the stage and the characters present a fairly good coloring and with bright colors where necessary. If we talk about the characters, they have a quite particular style, since they used a rather childish artistic style that makes them look like characters from a film from the famous animation studio Ghibli. In addition, the textures of the characters and some areas of the stages have a fairly smooth level that, together with the artistic style of the characters make it look much more childish, but not bad at all.

Tail Concerto besides having a child artistic style, in the world where the events of the game occur is a world very Steampunk style, so we will see throughout the map details and objects that allude to this type of art, from robots or also known as "mechas" have a pretty good design, we will also see some ships and vehicles very well designed and according to the style of the game.

This game also has anime style cinematics, where you see much more remarked the similarity that this game has with the movies from the Ghibli studio. Each of these kinematics are very well done and serve as accompaniment to some events that occur in the game.

Video Author ZampNoxis

Tail Concerto Cutscenes List

The sound aspect is very good, however nothing spectacular and to be a game that resembles a lot to the artistic style of the Ghibli style, that for the connoisseurs of the subject knows that this animation studio, besides having an impeccable style and animation, also stand out for having some of the most remembered and beloved melodies of the industry of the cinema, therefore I expected that in this aspect they were at par, but even so it fulfills the necessary thing, that is to ambient certain scenes, situations and to adorn musically during all the adventure.

But the sound aspect that is spectacular in this game is the dubbing. Japanese dubbing, as well as in many of its anime products, is something of a high level. The voices of each of Tail Concerto's characters are appropriate to their personality and features, something that is not surprising, because it is known that Japanese dubbing is characterized by the great professionalism, charisma and effort made by the people in charge of making the voices.

Video Author WiredGeist

Tail Concerto is an adventure and platform game, therefore the control of our character is the most important aspect for this game and in general, for the games that belong to this genre.

Waffle our main protagonist controls a robot during almost all the game, with this robot our canine protagonist is going to take charge of stopping the enemies that we meet in each one of the scenarios, for it our robot has a cannon that shoots bubbles, these bubbles are going to paralyze our enemies for some seconds, in such a way that gives us the advantage of being able to capture them. In each city we are going to have to carry out this mission, in such a way that when capturing all the enemies of a certain zone, other places will be unlocked to which we can go. We'll control our mecca very easily and we'll learn the controls pretty quickly.

Tail Concerto has a great level of freedom of movement, there are many places that we can go with Waffle, and because of this we can explore certain places to find objects and some secrets, to go to these places to explore is not necessary that we use our robot, as our protagonist can go without in some areas of the game, so that we can also talk to some characters of the game that are in cities or towns.

And in general terms that's what we'll be able to do in this game, you might think it's a bit repetitive, but in spite of this, performing every action in this game is really fun due to all the aspects I mentioned before, besides that as usual, we'll also find some final bosses that will give us battle and will test our skills.

Tail Concerto is an excellent game, which in spite of its infantile style does not stop being a game entertaining enough and well done so that it can be played by any person, independently of their age. Besides it is not such a long game and in a few hours we will be able to complete it. Highly recommended if you want to play a jewel of the Playstation 1.