Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Steam Charts & Stats

The game has solid bones, though it took me a few hours of playing to really get that across. Overall, a solid 7/10 for me, there's definitely some janky aspects to the game, but it was an enjoyable ride and I would absolutely love to see more about this world, and about what happens after the ending of the game. If you're looking for a souls-like with some good exploration, I'd recommend this. This is a review written almost immediately after beating the game, so below is entirely yapping about it, and giving my thoughts on it. Getting the negative thoughts out of the way first: as some have mentioned, enemy attacks aren't the most well-telegraphed thing in this game, but after unlocking some of the skills, you gain the means needed to work around that. Another minor gripe I had while playing the game was that, for whatever reason, boss music and cutscenes totally ignored the sound settings that I had placed on the game; the cutscenes were a little less jarring but having my speakers nearly blown at the start of the final boss of the Peaks was wild (though the music is great!). Some minor tweaking fixed things up nicely, but, if there's a sequel, it would be nice if both of these followed whatever levels you set it to, or had their own settings added in to adjust as needed. In a similar vein, there were times where the voice lines tended to be drowned out by environmental noises, shouts from enemies, or by music. Again, not the worst in the world, it just seemed a little odd now and again. Nor and Enki's relationship and dynamic is definitely one of the best parts of the game, and really helped me get more invested in the story than I thought I would have been originally. This, without a doubt, really gave me the push to keep going through the game. The setting, too, is a great aesthetic -- from the environments, prevalent use and role of gunpowder in the world, and the creature design, it's all fantastic and was absolutely one of the things that sold me on the game when it was first announced. The combat starts rather weak, and I had more than my fair share of moments being frustrated at certain encounters, but as the game progresses, you start to get a better grasp of how things should work, and from there it feels leagues better. For the last third of the game, I ran exclusively a build involving burn, poison, and cursing an enemy, then spreading that to other enemies (and subsequently having them explode from this), which felt like the most "for me" build. The ability to refund Reputation (currency, souls) for skills is nice touch, though admittedly, I never ended up using it. And, as a final note, one of the most enjoyable things about the game was figuring out how to maintain momentum, as one casually does. There's something incredibly interesting going on with how momentum is built and used in the game - if you pop out of a rift using a dash instead of a jump, and hold LB (block) while in the air, Nor seems to maintain the speed, which you can then chain into, what is essentially, wavedashing. It's goofy, but you can really cover some distance quickly with clever use of chaining dashes into guards, cancelling the animation but maintaining the momentum of the dash. Also, one last thing: the birds were absolutely the worst enemy in the game, hated fighting them every single time without fail. Snipe 'em, throw grenades at them, give them no quarter. The birds won't give you any either. No rest 'til Dawn.

Pretty solid game overall. A little on the shorter side, but I'd rather a game be short and quality than padded out just for playtime inflation. Pros: The movement through the world feels quite good. The game gives the core movement abilities as soon as the tutorial is over, so there's no early game slog (looking at you, Hollow Knight first playthrough) before the movement tech kicks in. The combat is honestly pretty good for being a bloodbornekirodarksouls mash up. You can dodge stuff, you can dark souls parry stuff, you can bloodborne parry stuff, you can even block if you're so inclined. It's almost to the point of having too many options, but really shines on the first two major story bosses. The quest markers are useful enough without being intrusive on the UI. The bad: Pretty severe lack of weapon variety reduces any appeal of a second playthrough. Spamming light attacks with a hand axe is fun enough for one playthrough, but the slow weapons are just objectively bad and all the light axes play the same. It's a fairly on the rails story game even with a world you can explore and collect a bunch of shinies in (well balanced with regards to story vs open world imo), but there's just nothing to mix it up for a second playthrough. Personal gripe: As far as I can tell, there is literally not enough sulfur in the game to get all steam achievements in one playthrough, and because of the above points I am not going to do another. Maybe I missed some mega cache of sulfur somewhere, but many souls games give you the ability to just full on purchase the upgrade materials later in the game for exactly this kind of reason. Pretty big oversight there imo not to just have a shop before the final boss that sells sulfur / iron / wood / your mom. TLDR: Short, pretty solid quality, get it on a sale and don't expect more than 20 hours.

I'm a BIG fan of Ashen, A44's previous game. So naturally Flintlock would not escape my grasp. Ashen was one of the most beautiful games I have played and while most soulslikes Ι play tend to be more gameplay-centric experiences, A44 proved themselves to be able to furnish an immersive fantasy setting that truly stood out. With Flintlock it's even more visible how experienced the team behind the project has become. The art direction is fantastic, from the clothing, to the gods (and the coffee-shop host whatever they are) and the architecture. The world feels vibrant and real. The npcs are a joy to listen to both in terms of dialogue and the execution. (Had watched Blood of Zeus like some days before I started it so hearing Nephelim in Baz was a surprise). Ashen had amazing music, Flintlock has even better. I have been listening to Rammuha's theme nonstop. While at first glance it shares the simple combat system that Ashen had, since the weapon types are like 2/3 with similar attacks, the skill system and parrying & shooting mechanics turn this into perhaps the most addictive back and forth, leads to highly cinematic moments as well. A thing I noticed and highly appreciated is that I ended up using consistently every single mechanic the game offered me. I obviously had preference between equipment but all was usable and not gimmicky. There are some minor problems: there could have been another difficulty setting between normal and the "punishing mode". The difference is so big, that a "Hard" in-between mode could easily co-exist. I recommend starting in Normal and switching to Punishing once you unlock enough skills/upgrades. The player also scales a bit weirdly so if you truly wanna make the fights lengthy to enjoy the masterclass combat you kinda have to put it on punishing after a point. Reputation dropping on death feels unnecessary, I lost it like 2 times and it was an extra unneeded stress and even if a player chooses to farm it's not a big deal I feel like. You'll have use of the resource till the last moment and you won't finish with all skills unlocked (if you wanna max your equipment that is) Projectile deflect should give a reputation bonus but that's a nitpick. I would have liked a "replay the boss fights" interface once you win the final boss, since this does not have a NG+ system. All in all, I think this also ends up as one of my favourite games and it's a crime that it did not get it spotlight that it so rightfully deserves. A part of me feels like this would have had a continuation if the studio wasn't unfortunately struggling but what they delivered was truly more than enough. I'll miss Nor, I'll miss Enki and I'll miss the gang. No Rest till Dawn.

Pretty good game with interesting combat mechanics. They take a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it, the switch between melee and shooting is pretty smooth. Lots of checkpoints, and opening up shortcuts is a great QOL feature.

A short and accessible Souls-like with fluid movement, satisfying gunplay, powerful magic, and best of all... no stamina bar!

Historically, I haven't enjoyed souls-like games, but the flavor of the game combined with the combat mechanics have made this one worth the effort to learn the system and keep pushing yourself to move through the story.

Half the time dodges don't work because of invisible impediments, or enemies track them perfectly so they're useless anyway. Timing on blocks and parries is random, so every time it's like rolling the dice and hoping for the best. Often enemies take no damage from attacks, for no reason whatsoever. When things go right it's pretty satisfying, but they go wrong so often that it's not worth it. The developers seem to have abandoned the game almost a year ago. I bought it because it was the cheapest game on my wish list, and now I know why that was the case.

The moment-to-moment gameplay feels stiff and robotic in a way that's hard to articulate, and combat is full of minor irritants that almost never cause you to lose, but often break the "flow" in a way that feels jarring and unfair. Also, Sebo is a cute attempt at an in-universe minigame that, with the harder opponents, somehow manages to feel cheap both when you lose AND when you win. The additional coins with special ability somehow make it feel worse rather than more interesting. And unfortunately, nothing about the story, characters, or setting - which I initially was intrigued by - feels compelling enough for me to stick with this through to the end. Regardless, I hope to see more from these devs in the future. There are good bones here.

Very solid AA. Engaging gameplay, good story, excellent character design. Could stand to improve some on platforming and enemy variety, but that's nitpicking.

Don't listen to the haters. Fun game, fun combat, fun story and for the price its well worth it.