All views are that of the creator and are usually not influenced by any copies of video games supplied by publishers for evaluate functions. En Garde! releases completely on Steam on August sixteenth.
En Garde! is a third-person swashbuckler sport that permits you to use your atmosphere to face off towards guards and enemies in fast-paced fencing motion. A debut for Fire Video games, who developed and printed the sport, En Garde! swings into motion and instantly turns into vital this summer time.
En Garde! has one of the distinctive gameplays I’ve seen in a online game shortly as you are taking Adalia on a fencing journey in contrast to some other. The fencing mechanic is easy and, coupled with parrying, blocking and dodging, feels immensely satisfying when battling a number of guards directly. The schwing sounds of your fencing sword clanging along with your enemies’ weapons is rewarding to the eyes and the ears in a means I could not have predicted, and it led me down a harmful path of swinging every part and everybody that comes my means. That is made much more pleasing if you get extra particular combos, most of which you must time fairly nicely, and use your atmosphere rigorously and rapidly to trick, stun or watch your enemies get crushed by a chandelier. It is swashbuckling enjoyable!
The sport itself performs like a simple theatrical journey divided into 4 primary “episodes”, every of that are self-contained and distinctive in their very own means. There are numerous and colourful characters that Adalia de Volador meets (and bickers with) alongside the way in which in addition to set items and places whilst you attempt to cease the Rely-Duke from his tyrannical regime. Zaida, specifically, is a standout character you meet all through the sport, generally even labeled as “Definitely Not Your Crush” which stuffed this participant’s queer coronary heart with pleasure. Adalia, our fabulous bisexual Spanish protagonist, has sufficient quips and witty dialogue to maintain you entertained for hours—round 6-8 hours complete, in my expertise. Typically, it is enjoyable to cease round and take within the new places as a substitute of following the markers that help you in finishing the present quest. Doing so can reward you with secrets and techniques and backstory scattered round every episode, including a pleasant contact to an already wealthy lore.
Other than the principle storyline, En Garde! additionally accommodates an Enviornment Mode, which is a singular method to maintain gamers coming again for extra Adalia and fencing enjoyable. I am personally at all times on the lookout for extra replay worth in video games currently after coming off of months of Hades runs, and the Enviornment Mode appears like the proper mixture of randomized fight, waves of enemies, and beautiful locales—and it’s extremely addictive. It permits gamers to decide on between 3 optimistic modifiers in between arenas that parry a gameplay modifier used to buff enemies. This was undeniably one among my favourite issues about En Garde! because the unpredictability stored me coming again for extra swashbuckling—plus, I actually needed to kick extra crates and barrels in direction of the guards.
There is a slight problem curve within the sport that I wasn’t too ready for, significantly after the second degree/episode, however the brand new particular talents you study as you progress actually assist counter {that a} bit. It is just a little jarring after the fast-paced motion of the primary half of the sport and virtually Souls-like, however En Garde! actually needs you to strategize in real-time and make the most of every part round you whereas making ready on your enemies’ subsequent strikes. This problem is, nevertheless, all forgotten if you understand that you could pet the chickens!
The cartoonish environments are completely beautiful to have a look at. Whether or not you are in the course of a battle area surrounded by colourful and wealthy locales or swinging from a rope atop the hanging ocean, there’s at all times one thing breathtaking round you in En Garde!. Fire Video games additionally cleverly maintain the environments from being repetitive by making every episode stand out by itself. It is really a visible delight.
En Garde! has a ridiculously enjoyable soundtrack that feels proper at residence with the environments you are in. The orchestral and instrumental music by composer Jean-Claude Charlier appears like an NPC at instances, and it was one thing that I stored coming again to on YouTube lengthy after the top credit completed rolling.
The sport runs very nicely with little to no hiccups all through the totally different episodes, and it is price noting how exceptionally quick the loading screens are. In case you additionally end up leaping into the water for enjoyable—the place are my chaotic avid gamers?—then the sport reloads at your final pre-jump place virtually instantaneously, which is fairly spectacular.
Utilizing a sport controller made the gameplay so much smoother a lot that I performed most of En Garde! each on the Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. It is undoubtedly the sort of sport that is much more enjoyable on-the-go!
The sport options a number of commonplace accessibility options, together with subtitles which had been on by default, a pleasant and much-needed contact. It was significantly cool to see the digicam zoom in on the characters that had been talking and the subtitles together with their names as a substitute of simply the voiceover.
Other than the default Medium setting, gamers can set the issue to Straightforward or Laborious (the previous of which is useful) in addition to Invincibility Mode and Automated Parrying, if gamers needed a extra relaxed and story-driven journey.
En Garde! is the swashbuckling journey you did not understand you wanted this summer time. The fencing mechanic provides a singular gameplay to a theatrical story jam-packed with enjoyable characters, wealthy and colourful environments, and real-time dodging and parrying. An Enviornment Mode will maintain you coming again for extra, however the problem curve is certainly one thing to look out for.