Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

[Nag]

 

Spent a few hours with this over today and Friday (through Game Pass on Series X) and it's OK...

 

I've seen it described as a Souls-lite which is a fairly good shout to be fair, this actually has three difficulty levels though which is nice for a game like this (although you can't earn achievements/trophies on story) and so far it's been pretty manageable even for someone as crap as me at this style of game.

 

 

You play as Nor and her companion Enki (the magical god fox)... it plays much as you'd expect with melee combat mixed with a little gun action. The gun can be used to knock enemies out of unblockable attacks and such. It has a cool risk reward thing going on where different actions in combat will raise a percentage multiplier and you can keep that going for as long as possible before you choose to "bank" your reputation but take one hit and the percentage is zeroed and your reputation is banked minus the percentage. Reputation can be dropped at death and needs to be collected again before another death.

 

The story so far has been a bit meh, something about the Undead and bad gods blah blah... tbh I've yet to play a game like this that actually had a good story and the voice mixing isn't helping much considering a couple of the characters seem to have voices that consist of pure bass and just seem to rumble more than anything else.

 

I kindve feel a little hooked on it so far though... unless there's a massive difficulty spike along the way I can see myself slowly plugging away at this.

 

[Maf]

I downloaded this and look forward to giving it a go. I’ve fallen off Lords of the Fallen pretty hard at this point, and this was made by the studio that made Ashen that although a bit B-tier was a very likeable Soulsborne style game. Hopefully this is the same. 

[Nag]

I don't think I've played anything by this studio... expect a bit of jank, especially in regards platforming but so far so good considering it hasn't cost me anything. 

[Maryokutai]

First game I pre-ordered in a while and what happens? Not even shipped yet. But with current temperatures I might not have played it much over the weekend anyway.

 

I've read the story criticism quite a bit, that's too bad. I thought the fact that this went for a more active storytelling approach with not only one, but two talking leads, would result in less lore-digging and a more immediately engaging narrative than the usual From titles. 

 

Still looking forward to it regardless, I've noticed that I like these copycats from other studios more than the From originals.

[Maryokutai]

Finally got around to playing this. I like it, but I'm not loving it, at least after about 4 hours. I do like the overall setting and style of it, it might look a bit generic on screenshots but it has very much its own personality. Charakters are a bit bland, but at least the protagonist duo is voiced well enough to make their conversations sufficiently engaging – though I'm not sure I agree with making the god fox so naive. He's written as if he has lived his thousands of years on the planet under a rock.

 

Combat is where I'm not quite sure what to think yet. Generally speaking it feels good, so there's that. And while it does seem like you are limited to the weapon type you have from the get-go, and also a rather limited move palette, I've already found a gauntlet that extends the reach of my axe quite significantly, making it feel more like a whip even though I'm using the same attacks. So it looks like there will be a decent amount of customisation options through equipment, even if the foundation remains the same.

 

The thing I don't like is how they tackled unblockable attacks. I'm not sure if it's just me being awful or not 'getting' it yet, but they feel extremely unrewarding to play around. Firstly, the red indicator just appears mid-animation, so if you see the opponent swinging and try to go for a parry there's a good chance it will be an unblockable and you have a split-second to adapt. Which might be by design, because it forces you do memorise attack patterns and animations for every enemy, but it makes first contact kind of a chore. It also doesn't help that your only counters to unblockables are a limited resource (firearm) and a dodge that feels ineffective most of the time because a lot of enemies attacks track for some reason. Again, maybe I'm just doing something wrong – I've noticed I'm out of ammo quite a bit, which only refills by being agressive with your melee attacks, but so far the whole dynamic back and fort is more of a 'pray I can kill them before they use their unblockables' which can't really be the intended way to play. We'll see.

 

I'm now at a point where it looks like I'll have to face the first proper boss, so maybe that'll be the trial by fire I need.

[Nag]

There's a skill unlock that allows Black Powder to be replenished when Enki attacks... that helps out keeping gunshots stocked up.

[mfnick]

On 20/07/2024 at 16:54, Maryokutai said:

 

Still looking forward to it regardless, I've noticed that I like these copycats from other studios more than the From originals.

I’m the same. Sekiro being the outlier. 
 

I’ve just finished P3R so looking at giving this a go next. 

[Maryokutai]

I have that Enki skill but I found it doesn't make much difference. I am actually focusing on his skill tree at the moment, because he feels severely undercooked in the early game but has some interesting stuff hidden there. Some of it is passive RNG though, so I'll have to wait and see how big the benefits are. At least you can simply de-learn skills from the menu and get some of your XP back, that's a nice QOL feature.

 

I really enjoy the mobility in this game btw. Soulslikes are usually very stiff (by design), so it's nice to have a double jump and an air dash for a change. The portal jumps are kind of cool as well, maybe not the most elegant solution for level design build around shortcuts, but rather effective and fun to use. They also allow the game to have an impressive sense of scale despite its linear design. Considering it's a small studio and their first project of this size they did a really good job of making it feel like a high quality production, even if certain limitations make it clear this is at most AA.

 

So unblockables aside I'm really enjoying it. But I will find a way around these nasty fuckers eventually. 

 

Also, bit of a random detail but this is a really cool character design. Implies they're just holding up these face masks to be more approachable by humans.

 

[mfnick]

I put a couple of hours in. I’m not sure yet. It doesnt feel great to me. Feels weirdly floaty in traversal then stiff in combat. The controls are really messing with me too, I can’t get it into my head to press RT when I see a red attack. I’m too used to dodging with that kind of stuff. 
 

I never picked up on the medieval setting in the pre release stuff either for some reason. Not a fan in general and this seems even more boring and generic. There’s no flair to the environment at all yet. Some cool fantasy character designs though. I love that mask coffee shop guy pictured above. The weird griffin thing was cool too. Hopefully there’s more of that. 

 

Ive already encountered numerous bugs too. Sound has dropped out 3 times and it’s hard crashed on me once.

 

Ill give it a bit more time but not a fan so far. 

[mfnick]

Gave it a couple more hours. It started to click more now but I’m going to have to put it down still until they’ve done a few patches. The sound problems are really fucking distracting. Can’t hear anything any character apart from the main says - the fox thing especially either comes out of the rear speakers or is basically silent even in stereo mode.

The deal breaker though is the brightness. It’s just way too dark. The last couple of villages I’ve “saved” I could barely see anything and done a couple of side missions one of which was in a mine and it was practically pitch black. Can only increase gamma which doesn’t really help and washes out all the menu stuff. Googled it & seems I’m not the only one so hopefully a future patch fixes it. 

 

[Maryokutai]

That's unfortunate, my 8 hours or so have been really smooth so far (from a technical standpoint). Can't speak on the technical stuff, on my ancient LCD with a soundbar everything is fine. What system are playing it on?

[mfnick]

Series X. Brightness seems to be a HDR and OLED issue. Some people say turning off HDR fixes it but didn’t help for me. 
 

Sound though, no idea why that’s so fucked. Tried all sorts. Works better in surround sound mode at a system level but then the speech always comes from the rear speakers and is extra loud so not a good experience either. 

[Nag]

Yeah the sound is all over the place on my surround sound too (voices coming from the rear and the levels being random as fuck) I'm not to fussed on that though as the stuff I have heard isn't interesting anyway.😂

 

Think I've left off today at the second god fight so that'll be order of the day tomorrow. 

[mfnick]

Managed to find a bodge - HDR off and Tv set to Vivid. Doesn’t look good but it’s actually playable now. 

So put a couple more hours into it. I’m really starting to enjoy the combat now I’ve got my head around pressing RT during red attacks. Got a few upgrades which have made it more fun too, the dodge is loads better now it has a slow down effect and got an ability where the fox thing aggro’s enemies when there’s more than one. 
 

It’s by no means a great game. The story is dull as fuck to the point ive started skipping dialogue. There’s very little enemy variety. The environments are dull and repetitive. The platforming still doesn’t feel good, especially when she does that weird 90degree turn thing at ledges. I was hoping for some epic God based boss fights too and so far only had 1 of those in ~5/6 hours. The rest have just been armoured regular enemies with a larger health bar. Meh. But I’m still having a decent time with it. 

 

[Nag]

Think I'm closing in on the end now... I've just murdered the third God and my quest marker is now confront the forth.

 

To be fair it's been the perfect Game Pass game, something I wouldn't of bought but I'll happily give a go with that... the difficulty has been just about right for me too, no stupid warping across an entire arena in a split second to combo you in to oblivion like Elden Ring.

[Maryokutai]

The difficulty is interesting because I very much get the feeling I'm playing it wrong but I still don't really struggle making progress. Choosing the right counter for normal and unblockable attacks remains impossible for me, to the point where I've started to dodge everything and simply react to the red flash with the shotgun counter (which seems to cancel any other move you might be doing at that moment Nope, it absolutely does not). I think it goes back to everything not being 100% readable at first and having to learn attack patterns, but the game isn't difficult enough for you to be forced to go up against certain enemy types often enough to get to that point. I also wish Enki would work a bit differently. His Curse attack feels a bit unrewarding to land, even if you have unlocked the tandem attacks, and everything else on his skill tree are passives. I think they should have given him a proper moveset that you can access by holding a shoulder button or something. In exchange they could have gotten rid of the secondary firearms, which feel a bit half-baked anyway because you're always out of ammo and the only way to restock is to respawn enemies, so it's a bit of a zero-sum feature.

 

Some design decisions are a bit weird, basically. But I'm rather enjoying it, it's a cool AA effort from a tiny team. And I'm saying that as a non-Gamepass person who paid full price for it.

[mfnick]

Turns out I was near the end. Done in around 9 hours, nice & short. Lovely. 
 

My issues with it persisted (& it hard crashed on me twice near the final) but once the combat clicked it was enough to keep me going. I ended up really enjoying it. The parry felt good, when you get the armour which adds slowdown to your dodge it’s a game changer and essential to make it more fun IMO. I liked the gun counters too.
 

Really needed more proper bosses though IMO. There’s only 4, 3 of which were basically bang next to each other. Could have been spaced out a lot better even with the ones they had. The camera is not designed for the size of the last boss either, that shit was annoying. Couldn’t see what it was doing half the time. Still, it was fun. 
 

Decent game

 

6/10

[Maryokutai]

What the hell? I'm at 9 hours and only reached the second area (Wanderer's Keep or so? The Africa lookalike with the nice colour palette).

 

Spoiler

 

I had one crash today as well. Thankfully is has quicksaves, which is unusal for these games.

[Nag]

I finished last night too... Trueachievements has me down as about 21.5 hours but I've no idea how accurate that is.

 

The last two bosses were a little annoying (for different reasons) but mostly I enjoyed it... think I got around 760G out of it, I'm not going to bother with the clean up though mostly as I think one achievement has glitched as, apparently, I should've already unlocked it while getting a couple which have already unlocked... so balls to that.

[mfnick]

Xbox app has updated and saying Inplyed it for 11 hours if that means anything. How long to beat has it at 9 hours Main and 12 for main+ extras - which is spot on for what I did. I only did a couple of side content things in the first area then did all of them in the 2nd and after. I never spent any time in the towns as it seemed completely pointless. 
 

No idea how you can spend 9 hours in that first but tbh. It doesn’t have a lot to see or do. But fair play, least you’re getting a lot from it.