Tail Concerto

I found Tail Concerto to be a fun game. It is a kid friendly game with a cartoon feel. The humanoid cats and dogs live on floating islands in the kingdom of Praria. Waffle Ryebread is an Officer in the Prairie Police Department and tasked with using his bubble shooting Police Robo to capture the Black Cats Gang before they find the mysterious crystals of Prairie. He flies to different islands, talking to citizens and capturing the mischief making Kittens from the gang.

There are "dramatic anime sequences" with lots of spoken dialogue. There are pieces of pictures throughout the levels that create photos, of the characters in the game, for the photo album in your home. It is lighthearted, cute, and lots of fun. It is one of my favorite PSone games.

(www.plasticpals.com) CyberConnect's Tail Concerto is a cute little 3D action platformer for the original PlayStation starring anthropomorphic dogs and cats designed by Nobuteru Yuki (probably most famous for his character designs in the television series Escaflowne). It's the first game in the company's imaginative Little Tail Bronx series, set in a steam-punk world of floating islands.

Story & Game Play The Black Cats Gang is causing havoc amongst the floating island cities of Prairie, so police-dog Waffle is called to the rescue. Along the way he'll help to uncover the mystery of the Iron Giant, a mysterious artifact from an ancient civilization.

Piloting his robot suit, Waffle can jump, shoot bubbles, and grab objects around him. In later stages he'll hover using a jet pack, cling to mesh ceilings, and climb on pipes to get around. Unfortunately most of these mechanics aren't fully explored, as the game is simply too short to get the most out of them.

There's also a bit of an RPG feel as you can enter buildings and talk to people in the various locations. However, you can't upgrade your character's abilities or robot suit, and aside from optional red boxes which can be collected to complete a photo album, there are basically no side-quests or puzzles.

The grabbing move is mainly used to pick up items, and you can also grab and toss bombs back at enemies, but that's about it. Most of the time, you damage foes by shooting them with your bubble gun, which doesn't deal much damage.

Presentation Tail Concerto is a decent looking PlayStation game, benefiting from simple cartoony graphics. Cut scenes usually feature full voice acting, and there are frequent animated videos to punctuate major plot points (about 20 minutes in total). It's a well rounded package but nothing extraordinary compared to other games that were released around the same time.

Challenge Each of the areas you'll explore are pretty basic, so the main challenge comes from the poorly programmed camera. Sadly camera control was not mapped to the secondary joystick, and tilting the camera up and down with the L1 and L2 buttons doesn't help much. As a result, you'll end up making mistakes that should be easy to avoid, which may get a little annoying.

There were a few bosses and platforming sections which gave me some trouble, mainly due to the poor camera and somewhat sluggish controls. The game gives you plenty of opportunities to pick up continues though, so you never have to replay too much of any given segment.

Conclusion Tail Concerto isn't as fleshed out or as polished as it probably should have been, which is a real shame as the characters and world could easily support a much larger game. And while it may be aimed primarily at young children, the clunky camera will probably make it too frustrating for that demographic. Meanwhile more experienced gamers will find the game is too short and simple, clocking in at just five hours. If you can get past the problematic camera, there is an enjoyable little adventure with a big heart to be found, with little to no filler. I would still recommend you skip it and play the sequel, Solatorobo, instead.

Tail Concerto is a fun game that is a rare gem. Taking on the role of Waffle Rybread, a cop who lives in the kingdom or Prairie, he is called to action when one of the islands, is attacked by the Black Cats Gang. When he encounters the Pris sisters, the three leaders of the gang, he recognizes one of them as Alicia, his childhood friend, Waffle sets out to find out what she and her sisters, Flare and Stare, are doing stealing crystals from the islands, unaware that they are working for Fool, a weapons merchant.

So, in the game, you control Waffle, and when outside of his home island of Porto, you control a small Police Mecha. While it does have tank controls, they are very easy (as it does have the ability to strafe using two of the shoulder buttons and a button combination even allows for a long jump, which can be performed accidentally when trying to turn around). You are armed with a blaster that can fire bubbles, which can be used to slow down kittens you need to capture to advance, but it does minimal damage to vehicles. Thankfully, the mecha's arms can be used to throw objects, which also includes the bombs that are thrown, which does more damage. Sadly, there are no upgrades to improve your mecha (other than a rocket pack, although that is sadly restricted to only one island). And in the levels, not only are there kittens to capture, but there are also whistles, which will serve as extra lives, and picture pieces, which are hidden throughout the islands and take the form of star cubes when revealed. but when collected, reveals a piece of a photo that can be viewed in Waffle's house.

The game is fun, but short, as some levels are not too long, but most of them actually have exciting boss fights, and the characters are charming.