Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn Review | Xbox Series X

A44 Games' Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is an ARPG with souls-light poured into the mix. While there are some references to the soul genre, the gameplay and exploration were more reminiscent of a typical ARPG game. Despite the charming linear setting, there is no shortage of secret pathways to discover.

Fighting with both melee and ranged weaponry is fun and keeps things interesting. You could say that Flintlock is sophisticated without being overly so. While the game combines elements of both ARPG and Souls-lite games in an ideal way and the settings that A44 Games have created are interesting they failed to establish a sense of bond between the player and the protagonist.

 

Although the story's increased emphasis on it is noteworthy for the genre, Flintlock lacks originality. In terms of mechanics, it's a fairly rich game. You can use your weapons in a variety of ways, including the standard attack, block, parry, and attack interruption. However, these abilities can evolve through the skill system and interact differently with different enemies.

Active abilities, like as spells and debuffs, need charging or synchronization with your assaults, while passive abilities, such as taunts and interruptions, are available to your fox god companion. When compared to ARPGs like Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, Flintlock isn't quite as good, but it does have its share of fun moments.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn puts you in control of Nor Vanek, a sapper in a fantasy world where magic, the undead, and some unsavory gods coexist with elements reminiscent of the Napoleonic Empire. At the beginning of the game, you unintentionally release the gods from the underworld, and they begin to conquer the planet.

You ally with Enki, the fox god, who is oddly glad to assist you in exacting your vengeance and destroying the gods one by one. These are the game's primary bosses and story landmarks. Along with your reliable sapper axe and the game's title pistol, you'll discover new weapons, upgrades, fighting styles, and more as you go through the story's two primary settings and a few smaller ones.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn's gameplay combines elements of role-playing games and souls, thus naturally the game's combat and its difficulty are at the forefront. Resting restores your health flask and consumables like grenades, but it also respawns opponents through a bonfire mechanism.

 

You can dodge, as well as light and heavy/charged assaults, in terms of the fighting mechanic. You can also jump, although your jump attacks won't do much good in battle. When you sneak up on an enemy, they'll still notice you, so there's no such thing as a stealth kill. The good thing is that the blocks and parries mechanism isn't too harsh when you figure out the timing.

You also won't need to reload the pistol or anything else because it recharges automatically. Recharging your gun charges is as simple as engaging in melee or any kind of battle. When enemies turn red, they're about to execute an unblockable assault; in such cases, you'll need to either dodge them or stun them with the pistol.

The game starts on a somewhat steep incline, with a handful of enemies that can overwhelm you or create a few problems. However, on regular difficulties, the game became more manageable as you progressed and improved your gearing abilities. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn has three gameplay modes. In the story mode, you do not gain achievements; however, this setting does significantly reduce the complexity of the game. Then there's the regular mode which I thought was suitable for newcomers to this genre.

Additionally, there is a hard difficulty mode, in which the enemies I encountered are really unpleasant. There, battles seem to stretch on longer than in any other place, which is just not my cup of tea. Rather than introducing any new mechanics, it only increases health and damage received.

You can use your axe and pistol in conjunction with Enki's abilities to deal more damage, confuse your adversaries, and inflict curses and other debuffs. You can even time your attacks to coincide with his to increase the amount of damage you deal. Your reputation score, which is based on the experience you gain from fights and missions, will determine how far you go in the game and how you engage in combat.

 

However, you can boost your chances of success by taking risks in a fight and using the multiplier system, which is a kind of risk-reward mechanism. After that, you'll have the option to bank the experience points you gain while the multiplier is active; however, if you choose not to and are attacked, it will take damage regardless. Base experience points are still awarded as before, but the multiplier is no longer there.

It seems like some enemies are designed to break your multiplier rather than do any real damage. I thought it was a tad ridiculous at times. While a greater multiplier did increase the stakes, it did make me think twice before engaging in combat with certain enemies. This mechanic encourages the no-hit playthrough or efforts to bank as much experience as possible, which I think would appeal to Souls fans looking for a more challenging experience.

This multiplier, however, doesn't count when you're in a boss fight. And unlike most Souls-lite games, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn does not feature an overwhelming number of bosses, though. The gods are important characters and bosses that you encounter as you progress through the game; I found them to be a lot of fun.

This game's currency and experience point system are both driven by reputation. Not taking damage in battle, completing quests, or winning the hands of Sebo are all ways to gain it. You have to pick between cosmetic items and upgrades because everything uses the same reputation source and things are pricey. Reputation is not something you can simply get; therefore, I regret spending some of it on cosmetics. To level up your weapons, you'll need crafting resources, which are in short supply.

You become stronger as the game progresses, making the combat appear easier than it actually is. Plus, bosses are sometimes easier to handle than groups of foes. Once you begin to level up Nor's powers, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn becomes considerably easier to play. You may now upgrade weapons at the camps using resources you collect around the world and reputation experience points.

 

Weapons range from Tier 1 to Tier 6, with each tier increasing the cost of the upgrade. Its resources, which are primarily wood, iron, and sulfur, are deftly dispersed and appear to be limited. So, you need to be careful spending them on upgrading weapons. It may take multiple playthroughs to improve all of the weapons because resources do not respawn.

Nor’s skill tree is broken up into three different areas which are the Powder for the pistol, Magic for Enki, and Steel for the axe. As you level up and gain reputation in various areas, you'll be able to access new skills, some of which are passive and add general buffs, while others are more specific. Some of these abilities complement one another, while others overlap; eventually, you'll be able to create hybrid skills that draw from both sets of strengths.

There is a mini-game called Sebo that you can play in pretty much every location you explore. You might compare it to Gwent, but it's not nearly as entertaining. At first, I played it for the sake of reputation. But eventually, you become tired of it. Aside from reputation, there is no unique loot to be gained. There are two levels to every game.

When your turn comes, you attack; when your opponent's turn comes, you defend. The game requires a fresh start after each failed level. To spice up the action, you can find special coins at wells around the map that you can utilize as you go through the game. The difficulty of opponents grows as you level up.

 

The two primary maps in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn are Wanderer's Rest and Three Peaks. They provide a quite straight route in an open-world hub area. Though you're free to roam the region and discover side missions and hidden passages, the narrative will force you to explore the area to progress through the main story. It was a pleasure to explore these two visually separate regions; clearly, a lot of thought and care went into the design of these places.

The level features white paint for climbable places and is relatively deep vertically. Certain sections of the game's levels have unusual platforming, requiring you to accomplish things like jump, fly, double jump, grab, and so on. The dodge function isn't just for fighting; it's also heavily utilized in platforming to grant you additional reach.

Even though you'll be doing a lot of exploring and platforming, the game never seems challenging or rewarding. It happens pretty often, and it's a little unsettling because the climbing and jumping animation is a touch floppy and it tries to force you to a ledge to hold. The exploration was considerably flawed, as an extensive part of the map remains inaccessible.

You'll soon come to discover that the seemingly dynamic world is just a series of props and villages and that the rift travel system, which allows you to fly through the air or gain access to previously visited locations via shortcuts, is quite static. The ability to fly is also available through the use of Void Portals, which can be unlocked with the aid of Enki. This merely functions as a miniature mode of transport to swiftly go from one location to another; there isn't really much more to it than that.

 

From a technical standpoint, I had no issues with the game crashing or problems preventing me from progressing through quests. What drove me most into the game, aside from the characters, was how beautiful it looked. God as a fox-like sidekick is a fantastic concept. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn has a decent soundtrack too. However, the game's audio is lacking.

After walking past some settler NPCs in a hamlet, I could still overhear their conversation. The voice acting was decent, and the voices of Enki and Nor were great. They express themselves intelligently and emotionally in their conversations. Additionally, Enki possessed some intriguing understandings of human nature.

Sadly, the initial few hours of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn just wasn't gripping enough to keep me engaged. Neither the protagonist, Nor, nor the majority of the small supporting cast impressed me. It seemed like everything was happening in exactly the same manner, and I was thrust into this universe without any particular reason.

In contrast, Enki was a likable character. The chemistry between him and Nor is nicely set up by this companion of yours. As the plot thickens and progresses in the second half of the game, her character comes alive a bit more, and the gameplay becomes more engaging.

 

There are some great moments in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, but overall, it's just an average ARPG game. It crawls to a halt at the beginning, while the plot and character development fall well short of expectations. I wouldn't call it an exceptional game or anything that really leaps out. It took me just over twenty hours to finish the game on normal while grinding a bit for reputation and resources to upgrade.

Once you finish the main story, it doesn't seem like there's much room for replay value, unless you're up for a challenge in higher difficulty. You might as well give the game a go since it's available on Xbox Game Pass. However, I’ll recommend to buy it once it’s on sale. It’s one of those games that you play once and forget that it existed.

 

Azfar Rayan (@AzfarRayan)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed