Thanks to Cyberconnect2 for the review code
Title: Fuga Melodies of Steel 3
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $39.99
Release Date: 05/28/2025
Story
Mere weeks after the true ending of Fuga 2, another crisis hits Gasco and Berman; a massive troop buildup and impending treaty violation, and the disappearance of the hero Malt! Add in a tank that just refuses to stay destroyed, coming back to guide the chosen children on a rescue mission, and the series finale of the Fuga trilogy is here!
In the last game, I felt that while there were some good elements to Fuga 2‘s story and a few strong moments that were memorable, it really came off as a big step back from the war theming of the first game. Throw in some weird plot elements, and it seemed as if Fuga 2 was backtracking on the whole “war is bad” message the original Fuga portrayed shockingly well.
I was honestly a tad worried Fuga 3 would continue that trend, just with a darker coat of paint, and I’m very happy to report I did not feel that way with Fuga 3. Some of those weird elements that rubbed me the wrong way last time get some really good context added this time around, making those rougher spots from 2 less bad in retrospect.
When it comes to how the story as a whole moves forward, without spoiling the plot in any significant way Fuga 3 does a great job at filling in missing mysteries from prior entries, and is pretty darn expansive despite the game still having the same amount of chapters. Seriously, there’s a crazy amount of exposition here compared to the prior two games, and a lot more cutscene illustrations because of that, and I didn’t mind that one bit.
The answers from prior installments I was seeking were mostly answered in a satisfying manner, and there were plenty of gripping scenes that led me to keep playing the next chapter, so much so that I switched to Fast Mode for my first playthrough just to focus on the story and get as much of that in as I possibly could, because it was that gripping, just like the first game was for me so many years ago. So no need to fret about Fuga 3 feeling like more filler prepping for a Fuga 4 like Fuga 2 did, as this is a real deal of a finale.
Presentation
While Fuga 3 goes all out on story to the point the illustrations that go with cutscenes are way more plentiful than in the previous games, this is still a Fuga game building upon the last two, and thus the presentation is very similar to that of the prior installments, just like how Fuga 2 was similar to the first and built upon that.
You have your returning cast of Japanese VA voicing lines and battle cues in either Japanese or French depending on your language option, and unfortunately, the game continues to lack in fully voiced lines for cutscenes. I was really hoping with this being the grand finale we’d have more lines fully voiced in the most critical cutscenes, but alas, the game still is very picky about what lines it voices and what lines it gives grunts or simple words to. This was the most disappointing aspect of the game as a whole for me, honestly.
Thankfully, you have yet another good soundtrack by CC2, backed with even more vocal tracks from LiEN, which continue the trend of pretty great vocal music to go along with boss fights and the end credits, along with some tracks from prior songs making a return, and even the option to buy the old intermission songs via the in-game store if you preferred how the transition themes sounded then.
Visually, the game looks and runs pretty similarly to the prior two, which for the Steam Deck I use to cover PC games, is pretty darn optimized and silky smooth, with me not really noticing any sort of framerate hits outside of brief stutters during specific boss attacks. Expect this game to run like the others did on whatever console you went with last time.
Gameplay
Despite the bigger plot, a grander scope and some new elements added to Fuga 3, including a very handy new difficulty mode, Fuga 3 still has the same general gameplay loop as the previous installments. Twelve chapters, with the Taranis tank going from battle to battle, choosing different paths of various difficulties to take out enemies and get different rewards to upgrade the tank during intermission segments, with the occasional dungeon to shake things up. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and that even goes for the dungeons, which feel like a continuation from the second game’s dungeons with little else to make them more interesting.
Still, that doesn’t mean Fuga 3 is a weaker game for sticking to what worked before and slightly adding upon it. You still have the three weapon types, you still have the twelve chosen children with their own skills and attributes to make use of, and you still have the strategy of making pairs for link moves by having kids talk to one another during the intermission section.
You do gain two new mechanics to make use of in the average encounter, however, and I felt these were fine additions, but nothing too monumental. The first is a combo meter that grows up to 200% depending on how many weakness clocks you break in a row, and each increase in the combo meter helps deal extra damage to the opposing foe, with it resetting back to 100% if you don’t use a weakness. Decent little addition for a bit more strategy, but it felt like they were reaching for things to add by this point.
The handier of the two new additions come from Assist Characters, basically serving as a special attack that charges up over time and that you can use against the enemy, with certain characters taking longer to charge up compared to others. These characters also can be upgraded by partaking in radio transmissions scattered throughout the chapters, and are unlocked by the choices you make in the game’s returning alignment system, which doesn’t impact the story much to speak of but instead this brand new assist system. While I didn’t really feel that the combos did much to enhance the battles as a whole, the assist characters are definitely a much better addition, and have helped for the boss fights I struggled with and didn’t want to use the Win Button on.
Oh yeah, a “Win Button”. What is that, exactly? Well new to Fuga 3 (and backported to the previous games) is the addition of a new difficulty known as Fast Mode. You can choose it when starting a playthrough, or swap to it mid-adventure to tone things down significantly for more of a story focus, if you so desire. What this does is cause the Taranis to instantly destroy every encounter that isn’t linked to dialogue, and give it a special grenade that will obliterate any enemy group you come across, Exodia style. I’m not kidding, you can destroy any boss, any enemy formation, everything with just the press of a button, which defeats the whole point of engaging with the combat, hence why I restrained myself for boss fights and some challenge battles.
Sure, you may want to disable Fast Mode if you end up throwing it on to get past a boss fight you just can’t overcome, but as far as I could tell, there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable Fast Mode. Once your file has it on, you’re stuck with it even through a new game plus, and I wish there was some way to disable it unless I’m blind to some toggle. Thankfully, you can just choose to not use the win button attack and just play the boss fights normally, but this is a case where I feel like a helpful means of getting players who just want the story to enjoy the story without stress went a little too far.
Lastly, you have the return of the Soul Cannon in boss fights, which is done in a slightly different fashion yet again, now beginning to kick in when your health is at a low enough level during boss fights, where a kid will get stressed out by the struggle of the battle to the point they sacrifice themselves to the soul cannon after a few turns to win the battle, making it a lot more likely you’ll end up using it if you take enough hits, and with how the fights ramp up in difficulty fast after the halfway point, you’ll have to continue to think every encounter through if you want to truly survive without the impulse to switch to Fast Mode.
Of course, if that weren’t stressful enough for you, there’s also the addition of the new Mega Soul Cannon, which kicks in during specific boss fights if your health gets too low, even if a child is on the verge of sacrificing themselves all alone. No, in these encounters if the tank takes enough damage or is just on the verge of exploding, the entire crew will partake in a mass suicide that creates a blast even stronger than the Soul Cannon, leading to a bad ending due to the overwhelming power leading to no survivors in any capacity.
Thankfully, you just get sent back to before the boss fight if this happens, but it is rather dark the first time you end up losing this way. Ultimately, the gameplay is more of the same, just slightly refined, and that definitely isn’t a bad thing considering how strong Fuga’s gameplay was right from the onset.
Conclusion
With the end of a trilogy and thus the end of the Taranis’ adventure, I came away from Fuga 3 with huge relief. Mostly from how great the story managed to stick the landing despite some initial worries it might get too convoluted, but also for the fact that the Fuga series is finally over.
Don’t get me wrong, Fuga 3 still plays incredibly well and I sung the praises of the new QOL options for good reason, but after 3 games of an excellent gameplay loop getting refined over and over again, there’s only so much you can handle before you get sick of it and tell it to go lie down. The combo meter and assist features add a bit more to the battling, but even if they weren’t added, the battles would still be just as good as in Fuga 2, which were as good as the original Fuga.
The whole trilogy’s gameplay structure is the definition of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and while I’m happy CyberConnect2 still made some bold choices from a scenario point of view to make the overall plot just as gripping, if not slightly more than the first game, the big factor in whether or not you like Fuga 3 will come down almost solely to how well you liked the first two.
Did you enjoy the first game, but felt the second was a bit stale from a plot perspective? Well, this one vastly improves on that fault and should make you pretty excited to return to the world of Gasco. Never got into the dark aspect of the soul cannon, but didn’t mind the other parts of the games and how easy it was to avoid the cannon? Well, you might not like Fuga 3‘s slightly darker tone and the fact you can pull off a mass suicide in certain boss fights now, or the fact that if you struggle in a boss fight for too long and can’t heal in time, the soul cannon goes off anyhow. It definitely adds some nice tension to these fights, but this game has moments that aren’t for the faint of heart.
Still, if you do manage to pull through and enjoy the whole trilogy, or just want to skip the gameplay in favor of the story due to the Fast Mode difficulty setting, then I think you’ll find a pretty good finale to a fun trilogy of strategy RPGs. It won’t be a story that’ll win game of the year awards or anything, but for me as a Fuga fan, I felt satisfied at the end of the adventure, and even more intrigued by some aspects you can discover in the new game plus due to the Akasha Panel. As long as we don’t get an unnecessary Fuga 4 in 2 years time, I think this is a fitting series finale that was well worth the wait.
I give Fuga: Melodies of Steel 3 a 9 out of 10.