Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn released in July without making much of a splash. In my opinion, Flintlock is at least an improvement from A44's previous game, Ashen, already for the fact that it has a lot more variation in combat actions. There are some questionable design decisions and I suppose overall it's not that special of a game. However, I would say it's enjoyable enough on Game Pass if you're hungering for a straightforward soulslike action roleplaying game.

Reasonably entertaining adventure

It's cool how, even with its more realistic visuals -- compared to the stylized Ashen -- you can tell Flintlock is from the same developers: the character's stance, animations, axe being the primary weapon, and interface art all have familiar looks. The setting is different but it has a similar vibe too. Flintlock does have somewhat a typical Unreal Engine 4 title look -- maybe it's the lighting that does it? -- but the game is definitely beautiful: its environments easy on one's eyes.

I am not a fan of the Napoleonic uniform style, though. The high-waisted pants look terrible to me. It doesn't help either that the protagonist Nor has the lankiest butt. I was surprised to learn that Flintlock has mods. The most popular one of them on NexusMods is 'More Cake' -- which doesn't surprise me. The mod only applies for the pants type you start with and the enhanced buttocks will clip through the longer coat style. But being limited to a third of the available clothing styles is not much of a loss.

Pictures taken before a disaster

Flintlock's title presumably comes from the level of gun technology in the game's world. (And based on the game's executable, its working title was Saltpeter.) The maybe-not-quite-necessary subtitle is from the siege that's being laid to the city of Dawn. I think it's supposed to be the souls of the dead sieging Dawn but the prologue gave me impression it was humans trying to get into the city to close the portal to the Great Below. Or maybe the assault was against just the old city part of Dawn.

Nor and few other sappers attack the city gates in an attempt to blow them up but a godly being appears and puts an end to the attempt. Nor survives thanks to the help of another godly being, a feathery fox Enki. God or not, human speech producing animal mouth just doesn't sit right with me this time either. Enki joins Nor as a companion to put an end to the underwordly threat.

A lot to explore

Flintlock has more than one map, and I liked how the first one takes you around it in a huge circle back to where you start. The maps are not completely open but the path is not narrow either. Unlike in Ashen, there are no gruesome dark dungeons. A44 did add shortcuts this time, though, which come mostly in the form of floating rift portals you can jump between thanks to Enki. Surprisingly, the rift traversal is never used in combat. You'd think it make a cool mechanic for at least one boss fight phase. I think I've even played a game with such -- one of the Darksiders games maybe?

You also get a double jump and an air dash: there is plenty of verticality in the maps. Unfortunately Flintlock has some trouble communicating where exactly you can go. I started using the game's photo mode to scout ahead if it would be worth it to negotiate to some high-up place: if there was anything to loot. It might not be a problem for the majority of players but a completionist will encounter many an annoyance: suddenly a surface you slide off with the awkward-looking falling animation frame. The double jump animation is a bit weird too; it doesn't look like you can mantle onto any ledge in the middle of it. I feel mantling should be slightly more lenient as well, to allow you to grab on just at a tiny bit lower height.

Like in Ashen, there is hidden stuff everywhere. Again it's mostly currency and weapon upgrade materials but occasionally there is an actual gear piece, weapon, or an additional charge for a grenade. While I do tend to take my time with games of this kind, the average times on How Long to Beat seem awfully low. Even a completionist average is only 19 hours -- I was only done with the first map at that point. In total the game took me 33 hours to 100%. I was playing on Normal which isn't all that difficult (after a point) so I didn't really spend time stuck at places either. Looking everywhere merely takes time.

Easy on Normal

Flintlock has all the usual damage evasion moves: block, perfect parry, and dodge. Parrying leaves the enemy susceptible for high damage counterattacks but there are also "red" attacks that can't be parried. And they become more common as the game progresses. A skill upgrade one should aim to unlock as soon as possible is Poised Shot. It makes blocking and dodging practically obsolete and the game in general a lot easier.

Fairly early on, there is an optional side boss, Stone Sentinel or something. After a handful of attempts, I figured the boss was beatable at my power level of that time but it would require way too much effort, considering the boss could two-shot me. So I returned once I had Poised Shot and it made such a difference. Poised Shot interrupts any attack (as long as you don't fire way too soon) and when correctly timed (with a pretty large window), it will allow counterattacks, just like a parry. The skill does require your pistol to have shots left but with the right perks and gear pieces that shouldn't ever be a problem.

Contrived experience mechanic

Flintlock's currency is called reputation. There's a twist with reputation gained from combat: instead of being added to your total right away, it instead sits in a pool to be claimed with a multiplier. The multiplier grows with every unique action you perform.

There are multiple things I don't like with the system. The biggest kicker is that if you're hit even once, the multiplier resets and the reputation is claimed automatically. And avoiding being hit in Flintlock is a true challenge. One reason for that is how there are few automatic finisher moves that take control of your camera and cause you to lose all sense of where the still standing enemies are. Flintlock advertises itself as a "soulslite" -- I guess the lite is due to having the flashy spectacle. I like the finisher moves immensely but the loss of control doesn't fit well with the avoid-being-hit mechanic.

Having to manually claim the reputation after every encounter (when you're still likely to have something to claim) is tiresome and the system is also too close to being a performance grading feature which is immersion breaking for me. Then there is how skill perks and weapon upgrades seem to cost insane amounts of reputation. Not being able to claim reputation with big multipliers is disheartening and makes you feel you're falling behind.

As a bonus insult, cosmetics cost a lot of reputation as well. As if anyone could afford them when there is a whole perk tree to unlock and full gear set to upgrade! (Luckily, there's a mod for that too.)

There's an achievement for claiming at least 50,000 reputation at once. That's quite a ridiculous amount to accrue over many no-hit encounters. Fortunately towards the end of the game there's a spot where you can repeatedly pull two enemies from their summoner, for them to drop dead when they get too far. It takes a while but it's guaranteed to get you the reputation. Another silly achievement is staying in rift travel for 60 seconds without entering a rift. Try to not get dizzy when zigzagging between two rifts at maxed controller/mouse sensitivity. Otherwise Flintlock is easy to 100% as long as you don't spread limited upgrade materials too wide: you need to fully upgrade at least one of every type of gear piece and weapon.

I played Flintlock on a controller because I hadn't used one in a while but mouse and keyboard would have been far easier for me without a doubt. I think Flintlock's controller scheme is typical for a soulslike game but it's not something I've been used to. It took me hours to not hit wrong buttons in panic anymore.

Wanna play a game?

Flintlock has a minigame called Sebo. I groaned upon learning that it was similar to all the real life boardgames featured in the American history Assassin Creed games: Nine Men's Morris etc. The goal in Sebo is to form a triangle -- or thematical "rift" -- with three adjacent stones within a turn limit while your opponent tries to stop you. Then it's your turn to prevent the NPC from forming a rift. Sebo is of even more flawed design than the real life games: most of the board scenarios are literally impossible for the attacking player -- at least with the standard stones. You can find special stones in the world and one special stone per phase can be traded in for turn counters. The NPCs don't play perfectly, though, so it's possible to win on even unbeatable board setups. Once you get to the defending phase, you have usually already won because it's so much easier to stop a triangle from forming.

Each NPC sebo player can be beaten once for a reputation reward but for some reason Baz in your camp can be played ad infinitum. The reputation reward is substantial and gets larger with every new NPC player you've beaten. Baz's scenario is easy and quick to farm for reputation. I think I even managed to properly solve it: discovered the correct responses against all of Baz's moves.

And speaking of Baz -- what's up with the dialogue audio in Flintlock? At one point I started to wonder if the game's audio was on a surround setting or something, which would make it sound wrong on my humble 2.1 speakers. Characters tend to sound muffled; Baz voiced by Elias Toufexis is like mumbling in a cardboard box.