Games Like Iron Verdict

A man swears he did not do it. The law hands him a sword and puts the two of you out in the yard. Whoever is still standing was telling the truth.

You have never lost.

Nobody who stands against you is guilty. The guilty confess long before it gets this far. You have known that for years, and walked out there anyway.

"This isn't a trial. It's just a slower execution."

CASE 117 / JOLEN, FARMER / RECORDED

Then a prince starts reading the cases nobody reads. Then a claim comes to the bench with your name on it.

IRON VERDICT is a dark turn-based RPG about a court that has never once broken its own law, and the knight it sends to finish what it starts.

He swings. A window opens.

Parry is the narrow one, and it tightens with the blow. A frightened man with a borrowed sword leaves you room. A boss winding up the thing that takes half your health leaves you almost none. Catch it and you do not stop the blade. You put yours through the gap he left opening it.

Dodge is always wider. Every attack, no exceptions. It takes nothing off him, but some things cannot be caught on a blade at all, and when one opens its mouth and the room goes orange, wide is the only window there is.

Miss, and it lands for half again. That is usually the whole fight.

Then he comes at you five times without stopping. Not one window. Five. Every one you catch fires its own counter, threaded between the blows still falling.

Catch all five and a flurry that should have ended you runs the other way while he is still committed to it.

The gauge fills. The portrait drops, the light goes up.

And the game hands the input straight back to you.

Every beat of that strike is a press. Land them clean and the number at the end is not the number you would have got. Fumble them and you have spent a full gauge on a nice picture.

The fight ends and he is still breathing. Broken, on his knees, his men down beside him. Nothing moves until you say what happens to them.

Cut them down where they kneel. Lawful, quick, and it pays in full.

Hand them to the law, and take half of everything.

It goes into the record under your name either way. Some people are alive later because of what you chose. Some are not.

Earn their trust and your party stops taking turns. A shared gauge fills while you fight. When it is full, two of them go at once: one strike, both blades, and nobody else can throw it. Every pair has their own, and a deeper bond hits harder.

Something is getting out from under the city, and it does not surface at random.

It surfaces where the court got it wrong.

Every one of them is a receipt.

Nobody in Lucerna believes in them. Nobody has ever needed to: the kingdom has stood six hundred years and the law has never once been wrong.

Keep going down and you will stop being sure of the one thing you have never questioned.

* Trial by combat decides guilt, and you fight for the court.

* Parry to counter. Dodge for what cannot be caught. Miss and take half again.

* Play your limit instead of watching it.

* Sentence the men you beat: the blade pays full, the law pays half.

* Duo attacks, six characters, separate skill paths, more than one ending.

* Something is getting out from under the city, where the court got it wrong.

* 50-60 hours, and the record remembers every one of them.

You have never lost a duel.

Start hoping you do.