One of the standout titles for me in the spate of showcase events we saw a couple of months ago was the subject of today’s review, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
Coming from A44 Games and Kepler Interactive, the trailers suggest that this game will be a mixture of Souls like gameplay infused with a bit of gunplay, and with a cute animal companion to boot.
I’ll get stuck into the presentation first, leaving the story and gameplay for later on as one of the things that is really difficult to get right with this style of third person adventures is the camera – and here it proves to be an issue yet again.
The camera doesn’t make a bad fist of keeping everything in view, but it does get confused by corners, or if you knock an enemy that you are locked on to off an edge, for example. The draw distances in the levels are quite impressive though, and there is a good variety of places to explore, but you never quite get away from the feeling that you are fighting in a series of small interconnected areas rather than a big open world.
I do like the design of the characters and enemies as well, but the zooming in that happens when you get a headshot doesn’t do them any favours – they all look a bit pixelated if you snipe them from a distance, for instance. It isn’t game breaking by any means, but it is worth mentioning.
The audio is another area where the news is mixed – the majority of the NPCs are voiced, but the acting could be better. Thankfully, the combat sound effects are just that; the swish of the axe and the bark of the firearms all working perfectly. All in all, not a bad job has been done, but Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is a long way from perfect.
Story wise, the narrative is pretty interesting. We are Nor, a sapper involved in a long war against the dead who have been spilling out of a rift that leads to the Great Below. Of course, a plan is hatched to destroy said rift, but things don’t quite go according to plan – rather than destroying the rift, the strike blows the door to the Great Below wide open, releasing the Gods and even more dead to ravage the land.
We must try to undo what we have done, and to help us, we have a God on our side, a fox-like spirit called Enki. With his guidance, can we put an end to the Gods once and for all and free the land? Well, it’s in your hand but there is one thing to note about Enki – for some reason the dialogue he has is really muted; I can hear what Nor says fine, but I have to read the subtitles to get what Enki is saying. Bit of an odd one!
Anyway, with the traditional story of vengeance all nailed on, it is time to go and explore the gameplay of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. And it will come as no surprise that there are two sides to this – the combat, and then the exploration and traversal of the landscapes.
I’ll start with the exploring side, as this is a lot of fun, thanks to one innovation. This is the powder jump, a gift Enki gives us early on, and it basically acts as a double jump, where Nor can jump further by triggering a small explosion behind her. This is also used in combat, when jumping and dodging enemy attacks becomes second nature.
And as you would expect with a game of this type, exploring is its own reward, and there are plenty of things to find. These range from new equipment, either weapons or armour, all the way up to the finding of alters that increase Nor’s health permanently – and if there’s one thing I have learned, it is that having more health is always better. Exploring will also lead you to towns that need your assistance – enter the town, kill all the enemies and then the enemy leader, and the town will become free.
In those towns, the hub of all information are the coffee houses, as it should be, and going there will not only increase Nor’s healing flask uses (there had to be one, right?) but can also give us information leading to side missions. Basically, if the mission says go right, try going left and having a look around, you’ll rarely be disappointed.
One other thing to mention in the traversal/exploration section are the shortcuts that you can open, by finding purple skulls that open portals. Enki can carry us through these rifts, and this is a great way of getting around, avoiding combat and acting as a way to reach your target much faster. All in all, this section is a big tick.
Combat has its ups and downs, to return to the theme that seems to have been developing. Actual fighting is fine, and the firearm we have acts a bit like the pistol in Bloodborne – if you see an enemy charging up an attack (they will get a red dot on them) you can fire your pistol to interrupt their attacks and even knock them over. Every character of powder that we need to shoot with is charged up by performing melee attacks with our axe – four good swipes equals one powder charge. In this way, I was able to get into a pattern of knocking enemies off their feet with the gun, swiping them with the axe, and being ready to fire again once they stood up.
The rest of the combat is as expected – lock on, dodge the attacks, and time your attacks to make them count. Enki can help in battle too, if you attack with him he builds a stagger bar up, and when the bar is full, Nor can do a critical attack, which can break armour or make enemies drop shields, for instance. Nor also has a variety of secondary firearms, ranging from a rifle that can headshot weaker foes, through to a kind of mortar that damages all enemies in an area – these all have limited ammo, so we have to decide when the right time to use them is. There is also a reloading mini game, where a perfect reload gets you extra power on your next attack, and this all works very well.
Experience points gained is worth mentioning here too, as it is a little different. If you die in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn you drop all the souls or runes or whatever it is you have, and can recover by getting back to your deathpoint, as normal. However, there is a pretty cool multiplier effect that builds up if you don’t claim the EXP you have earned, and it keeps rising as long as you don’t get hit. Once the score is high enough, a long press of the left D-Pad button will claim the EXP, and this is a nice risk/reward gamble that you can play with yourself.
Apart from camera issues, the main problem with Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is that the combat just feels a little bit numb; death quite often comes as an unpleasant surprise, as you’d swear you hadn’t been hit and yet you drop dead. Other than these, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn has a lot of heart, and is more than capable of providing an enjoyable playthrough. There is a challenge there, and a good story, but it could have done with that final bit of polish to make it a classic must play game.
