Flintlock: The Siege of Daybreak on PC
For probably the most half, Flintlock The Siege of Daybreak is a superb sport. Nonetheless, there are just a few setbacks that hamper the expertise and its skill to achieve the heights I’m certain it may.
To start out off, I’d describe this sport as Remnant-esque, with extra concentrate on the melee fight relatively than simply firearms. The fight performs fairly equally and your close-range mobility choices and dodging choices additionally really feel related. I’d say that the bosses really feel the identical as properly, however there are some key variations I’ll get into later. The purpose is, in case you liked the Remnant video games and wish extra of that, Flintlock The Siege of Daybreak delivers a really strong and related expertise.
Earlier than moving into my reward for the sport and speaking about every little thing I liked, some efficiency points make me hesitate outright recommending the sport in its present state. I’m taking part in on an RTX 3070, which must be properly above the advisable necessities, nevertheless, the body stutters I skilled within the latter half of the sport have been jarring, to say the least.
They pop up on random events as you load into a brand new space and even throughout fight, and final for a number of seconds, making for an especially irritating expertise. I’m usually not somebody who complains about some body drops right here and there, nor do I demand an ideal 120fps expertise, however they have been noticeable sufficient that I really feel it’s obligatory to say them. I’d say that, in its present state, these efficiency points are the sport’s greatest weak spot, and I hope the builders are in a position to repair them earlier than launch.
I’d discover this acceptable if not for one different obvious problem that I used to be shocked to study. The in-game show settings are extremely barebones and provide you with no choices to handle textures, lighting, or shadow high quality to enhance the sport’s efficiency. So far as efficiency goes, you might be on the developer’s mercy for now. I actually do hope they add extra choices earlier than launch, in any other case will probably be extremely irritating for a lot of gamers who would in any other case get pleasure from this sport.
Past the efficiency points and moving into the precise meat and bones of the sport, we’ve got a really strong journey following our guilt-ridden protagonist Nor, a Sapper, and her companion Enki, who’re on a quest to kill the Gods which have risen from the underworld and invaded the human world with their legions of the useless.
There may be sufficient range within the two major areas the place you go alongside rivers, throughout mountains, via caves, cities, swamps, and all kinds of various vistas that maintain the ambiance recent. There was care put into making each biome and area really feel distinctive as you progress via this 20-30 hour story.
The story itself is fairly easy, with a bunch of aspect quests and companion quests sprinkled in for flavour. To their credit score, the aspect quests are properly thought out and really feel distinctive, and the companion quests are all accompanied by some nice voice performing from all the solid, which makes the entire setting really feel much more actual. You’ll additionally discover a ton of NPCs taking part in the Sebo board sport world wide, Witcher 3 Gwent-style, which was fairly humorous contemplating the ridiculous areas you might generally discover them in. Nonetheless, personally, the Sebo AI bought approach too good for me to deal with at a sure level.
As for the exploration, the verticality and expansiveness of this sport can truthfully really feel refreshing if you begin as a result of the sport eases you into its pretty massive and expansive open world with branching elective paths. The motion can also be designed in a enjoyable and intuitive approach, with shortcut unlocks feeling very passable everytime you attain them.
There’s a ton of verticality to the sport, complimented by the aforementioned motion, and it makes you wish to discover each nook and cranny for hidden paths and grabbable ledges as a result of it typically results in a brand new piece of armor, weapon, or grenade, which all the time really feel good to seek out.
The core gameplay revolves across the utilization of your melee weapon for attacking and parrying, and your pistol that’s used to interrupt unblockable assaults. Melee assaults give again costs on your pistol, so that you’re all the time going to be utilizing a mixture of each. This makes for an excellent steadiness selection as you possibly can’t play too aggressively or too passively, forcing you to get into the sport’s rhythm and learn the way the movement of fight works. The pitfall right here is that some enemies and janky hitboxes fully mess up the movement the sport is attempting to create, however when it really works and also you get into the zone, it’s an extremely satisfying and rewarding expertise.
On prime of the essential fight, you’ll have three talent bushes to improve your firearms, melee weapon, and Enki’s curses for crucial harm. Add grenades and sidearms similar to snipers and flamethrowers on prime of this, and you’ve got a fairly various arsenal at your disposal that retains the sport recent. In fact, there’s selection within the melee and pistol weapons too. My solely major problem with these is how tedious it feels to improve them as a result of extremely steep Status (primary forex) price related to them. This price nearly all the time makes you gravitate in direction of talent upgrades or specializing in weapons that don’t require Status.
It’s a disgrace as a result of meaning the sport is actively disincentivizing you from attempting out a number of weapons and armor. Whereas the Status good points within the sport are balanced, contemplating the truth that you turn out to be fairly overpowered after investing in a bunch of abilities, I really feel as if the Status necessities for the weapon upgrades must be lowered as a result of there isn’t a new sport plus and also you received’t get to expertise all of the weapons in a single run. That could be a disgrace as a result of a few of them appear very cool and have a definite feeling to them.
Talking of weapons and armor, I wish to touch upon the restricted quantity accessible. By the tip of the sport, I found six pistols, six melee weapons, 4 grenades, and 6 secondary vary weapons. There have been round 5 armor units, three totally different Enki Shards, and 5 totally different Witherings. Whereas this seems like rather a lot, and I truthfully actually loved the well-thought-out passives and playstyles meant for every of those. It made me want that there have been extra of them to seek out and accumulate. Sadly, extra weapons would make me really feel even worse about how restricted the Status to improve them is.
Nonetheless, this technique is smart with how a lot abilities and tools change your playstyle and really make you are feeling overpowered. Hordes you struggled with earlier than turn out to be rabble and even late-game enemies aren’t any match for a well-built Sapper.
The explosiveness of fight at this level mixed together with your mastery over the system makes for an extremely satisfying expertise that makes you need increasingly problem. Nonetheless, that is additionally the place the sport enables you to down. Regardless of all these well-built methods and power-ups in place, I consider Flintlock: The Siege of Daybreak fails to actually problem you. Let me clarify.
Close to the beginning of the sport, I ran right into a Stone Golem boss which took me a number of dozen tries to defeat as I discovered all of its strikes and patterns in an extremely Soulslike style. Going through this boss despatched me right into a zone the place I’d be fully centered on this epic struggle in entrance of me.
Nonetheless, such bosses are uncommon and much between in Flintlock and that’s one among its greatest weaknesses. The mini-bosses and bandit leaders really feel a bit lazy and solely two out of the 4 Gods we struggle fall into the class of a back-and-forth battle of movement and rhythm. I really feel like it is a missed alternative for some well-designed and memorable bosses that may have elevated how memorable this sport was.
You’ll be able to flip up the issue, but it surely doesn’t change the elemental problem with some enemy transfer units and selection. Most enemies observe a reasonably easy sequence of assaults, for instance, after a sure level, that each enemy’s first assault all the time tends to be an unblockable one. The AI may use a little bit of enchancment and a few extra enemy selection would actually assist the ultimate leg of the sport. Additionally, whoever designed the fowl enemies must pay for his or her crimes, however that’s simply my opinion.
All in all, in case you’re searching for a extra informal model of Remnant or a extra accessible soulslike with a well-thought-out open world and a reasonably sympathetic solid of characters, then Flintlock: The Siege of Daybreak will probably be a satisfying expertise. Nonetheless, in case you’re searching for one thing that poses a very tough problem stuffed with epic bosses, you may wish to move or not less than wait till they kind out all of the efficiency points. I had a reasonably good expertise with the sport, and a few enhancements on this well-laid-out base may lead to a very wonderful sport. Maybe we’ll see these in a possible sequel, which I’d undoubtedly be keen to check out.
Flintlock: The Siege of Daybreak
A properly designed sport with satisfying mechanics that’s introduced down by efficiency points and a few lack in enemy selection.
Execs
- Satisfying and difficult fight
- World feels alive and dynamic
- Secrets and techniques round each nook for completionists
Cons
- Efficiency points
- Boss designs go away extra to be desired
- Some hidden rewards really feel approach too repetitive and insignificant
- Weapon improve system may use some tweaking
A duplicate of this sport was supplied by the writer for assessment. Reviewed on PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X and Sequence S, Microsoft Home windows.