Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn PS5 Review. In 2018, A44 Games released Ashen, an action-RPG much in the same vein as Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. So, the team has some experience in the genre. In comparison, though, Flintlock presents itself in a much more detailed and complex light, seemingly expanding on the formula in every way. While not perfect, Flintlock brings some interesting ideas to the genre without flubbing what makes the genre appealing in the first place.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Review (PS5) – A Compelling Mix Of Soulsborne Challenge With Difficulty Flexibility
You jump into the shoes of Nor Vanek, a soldier in the Coalition army fighting the growing horde from the gods called the Dead. You learn that Baz, a long-time father figure, got caught in the middle of a siege of the Dead deep behind enemy lines. After convincing your superior officer, you receive the order to go in, find Baz, and get him out.
Shortly after that, you meet Enki, a flying fox-like god, who offers to help Nor along the way. Nor holds no love for the gods and quickly attacks Enki. In an example of ability as well as restraint, Enki shocks Nor just enough to subdue her before offering assistance once again. Nor reluctantly accepts.
Enki provides much of the game’s more intriguing systems, ranging from navigation to combat. Shortly after meeting Enki, getting around the map feels much more interesting. Scattered throughout the game, you find skulls on pedestals, which Enki uses to open rifts and transport you short distances. Most of the time, these rifts serve as a means of reaching a high ledge or crossing a gap.
Semi-Open World Exploration
At the same time, these also serve as ways to shorten travel time after you discover a new path. While the maps are by no means open-world, they offer different pathways to either get to where you need to go or find hidden resources. Some of these are obvious while others require a little more observation. After you find these paths, there’s often a rift available for you to return to the main path. All in all, rifts help alleviate some of the empty travel time in Flintlock.
Equally so, many of these paths lack much to do at all. Oftentimes, you end up running for 20 or 30 seconds with nothing more to do than a jump or two. Fortunately, most of the significant areas revolving around the main quest feel far more interesting. So, you won’t feel this issue if you simply focus on the main questline. However, exploring the hidden pathways sees you running long lengths just to find a very small amount of resources, only to turn around and run that length again just to get back.
As I mentioned before, Enki also provides fundamental help during combat. With a press of Triangle, Enki applies his energy to enemies, either weakening them or allowing them to be weakened. This behaves much like a stagger or break system from other games. You deplete the enemy’s stagger bar, which leaves them open to big damage. In many cases, applying this stagger is paramount to your success, especially on harder difficulties. If you don’t use it, you end up just slapping a boss or mini-boss for a long, long time before bringing it down.
Bring Down Your Axe
Overall, combat itself feels good. It lacks real impact, but it makes up for it with flair. Animations look cool without being too overly flashy, doing just enough to feel empowered without being distracting. A shot from your flintlock pistol interrupts an opponent’s attack with a nice flash and puff of smoke. Through Elki, you build up an ultimate ability that clears out enemies all around you. This works as a desperate failsafe, but it also just feels great to use.
To boot, the enemy variety and overall designs absolutely shine. Some of these creatures and entities would impress even Guillermo Del Toro.
You earn Reputation during combat, which acts as the currency for unlocking skills for Nor. The application of Reputation is self-explanatory, especially for Soulsborne aficionados: defeat enemies to get more Reputation and lose said Reputation if you fall in combat. Naturally, you can also recover lost Reputation by defeating the enemy that beat you.
The coolest aspect to combat in Flintlock comes with how it allows you to manipulate your Reputation. When you fight, you earn extra percentages to your total earned Reputation by performing different actions. Naturally, a perfect parry and counter, for example, provides more additional percentage than a basic attack, but they all accumulate together. If you get hit, you lose that bonus and a little extra. If you don’t want to lose your multiplier, just long-press Left on the D-Pad and collect your additional Reputation. This risk-reward provides a welcome twist on a tried and tested gameplay loop.
Definitely Dodge Parrying
My one gripe with combat relates to timing. I begin by saying that it can be acclimated. However, it does make the game more difficult to swallow at the beginning, especially on normal or hard difficulty. Most of the time, enemy attack animations have a built-in hesitation, which I imagine is supposed to balance with your attack inputs. The real issue is that by the time you react to the attack, the enemy’s attack has already reached the built-in hesitation animation. So when you press L1 to parry, you need to account for your own hesitation: the weapon raise. By the time you hit L1, the enemy hits you.
Thankfully, dodge is instantaneous and provides invincibility frames, making harder difficulties more manageable without necessarily needing to parry. Why this sucks, though, is because there’s such a significant reward for parrying. As mentioned previously, the bonus Reputation from parrying is quite high compared to other combat actions. Plus, you can also counter immediately after parrying for major damage. Again, you can get used to this, but it becomes something more like anticipation than reaction. This favors the repeat players who put in the extra time and familiarize with all the animations and what animations trigger when.
When looking at other Soulslike or Metroidvania games, the systems surrounding combat can easily make or break the game. In Flintlock, you don’t have very many. As mentioned above, you earn Reputation to unlock skills, and you use resources to improve your weapons and equipment. Weapons come from completing different story and side quests, so the gear selection keeps things rather simple. This part of the experience feels like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or Valhalla, which, for better or worse, offers room for customization without much complexity.
Some New Ideas In A Flashy, Engaging Package
The accessibility of this game on top of what it offers is what sets it apart from other Soulslikes on the market. You get the feel for all the systems at play without feeling like the game just lays down at your feet. You still need to perform, even at lower difficulties, but the risks in messing up aren’t as high. That combination of flexibility with risk-reward, from difficulty to managing Reputation, makes this an intriguing concept that other games like it should look into.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is an intriguing Soulslike offering. It combines some of the streamlined aspects of the modern Assassin’s Creed titles with the demanding mechanics from the Dark Souls franchise to make a welcome and fairly accommodating game without losing touch with its roots. The gameplay loop may feel samey to die-hard fans of the genre, and the parry system lacks the kind of refinement needed to benefit the product.
At the same time, the amount of control over the experience that the game offers players is unique in this niche. Overall, Flintlock is arriving at the perfect time for gamers who are eager to jump into another good Soulsborne adventure.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn releases for PS5 and PC on July 18, 2024.