Video Game Review: Iris and the Giant

Developer: Louis Rigaud

Publisher: Klabater

Genre: Deck-Building Roguelite

Reviewed On: PlayStation 4

Also Available For: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

For as much as I love indie roguelikes-slash-lites and play as many of them as I can get my gay little hands on, even I have to admit that they can be a bit derivative of each other. Certain mechanics, even beyond just very basic things that it would be difficult to build games in certain genres without, tend to appear again and again, and deck-builders seem to be especially prone to this. Though not necessarily a bad thing (“if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, yadda yadda yadda), it does make finding a game that breaks out of the mold and does something boldly unique – such as Iris and the Giant – all the more exciting and delightful.

The game follows the titular Iris – a young girl with depression, antisocial tendencies, and probably at least one sort of neurodivergence – on a journey up a mountain through a torrential rainstorm, caused by the weeping of the titular Giant at the top. The path is full of hordes of monsters from Greek myth – cyclopes, minotaurs, harpies, hydra, etc. – as well as some slightly more generic skeletons, ghosts and such. The word “horde” is key here, by the way, as the throngs of monsters on-screen can get up to fifteen at once, which admittedly may not sound like much but is quite the contrast to the twos and threes of most other deckbuilders, especially given their tendency to just keep coming. Once you eliminate one or more monsters, others that were waiting in the wings move up to get a piece of the action.

This is but the first of several ways Iris and the Giant distinguishes its gameplay from that of its peers. Though the enemies are far more numerous, they’re also far more fragile, and less powerful, and many of them have limited ability to actually attack Iris. Many enemies will die in just one hit, with the exceptions being marked by armor or shields that have to be worn down before dealing the killing blow, and even these can be bypassed under certain conditions. Most creatures, particularly early on in a run, deal just one or two damage when they hit, and unless they have a weapon with some reach they can only attack while in the front row.

However, the player is not able to simply carve through the foes’ ranks with impunity; generally speaking, Iris can only play one card per turn, and thus much of the game’s strategy is all about using multi-hit cards, keeping enemies from hitting you or finding ways to circumvent the one-card limitation. In addition, cards are single-use: once you use one, it’s removed from your deck entirely. There are, again, exceptions and workarounds to this, but thinking and planning card use carefully is key to making it to the top of the mountain, particularly given that running out of cards is an instant game over regardless of how much health Iris has left.

I will note that Iris and the Giant aren’t overly difficult, particularly since the range of workable builds is very broad. Defeating strong enemies grants Iris access to special magical powers, which are things ranging from damage reduction to being able to play every card in your hand of a single type. One of my favorite synergies is the power that lets you play multiple bows in one turn with the powers that allow a single bow to hit two or even three enemies at once, turning Iris into a veritable storm of melancholic archery. On top of that, there are all sorts of “secret mechanics”, for lack of a better term, things that reward experimentation and finding ways to use certain cards that aren’t immediately obvious from their description. I won’t give too much of that away, as I found stumbling across new secrets every now and again to be one of the most delightful parts of the game, but I will say that whips and traps make very good friends.

The relatively low difficulty holds especially true once you unlock a few of the memories and/or imaginary friends, this game’s version of persistent upgrades. You can, however, choose to disable both, and play it completely without upgrades – or, alternately, pick the imaginary friends that come with caveats, such as the skeleton that allows Iris to play every card in her hand each turn at the cost of all incoming damage being multiplied by nine. This sort of modularity and ability to tailor the game to the player’s preferences increases its longevity even beyond what is typical of the genre, I think, and ought to prove quite enticing to roguelike fans who, in my experience, thrive on finding new ways to induce handicaps and generally challenge themselves.

Beyond just the tightly-designed CCG, which is admittedly the majority of the game’s draw (pun intended), there’s a touching story about Iris learning to navigate the world around her through her neurodivergence. It’s not the most complex or even especially prevalent in the game, but it struck a chord with me as a former Strange Child and I would be remiss not to make SOME note praising it.

To tell you the truth, dear reader, I played Iris and the Giant at a time when I was on a bit of a break from roguelikes. I hadn’t touched any of the ones in my extensive library in quite some time, but this game is such a shining example of the form it reignited my interest in them and even got me to start a few I’d yet to try. It’s a real treat, both mechanically and aesthetically, and you’ll no doubt lose tens of hours experimenting with different deck builds.