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Flintlock: Siege of Dawn review: A small step for ARPG enthusiasts

Carp

2024-07-30

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Author: Zili

Comment:

make persistent efforts

As an independent game, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn takes the "independent" feature to the extreme. It does not have a lot of content and the process is not long. Instead of pursuing "large quantity and fullness", the production team put all their energy into showing their own ideas.

This has its pros and cons - the good thing is that at multiple key points in the entire game process, you have the opportunity to taste the essence of the game that is eye-catching and heart-stirring; the bad thing is that if you have little interest in action content, then the other content of "Flintlock: Dawn Siege" may be difficult to satisfy you.

Of course, its graphics are pretty good.

Before the game was released, the concept of "Flintlock Fantasy" occupied a large part of the agenda for Flintlock: Siege of Dawn. This theme, between the Middle Ages and the Steam Age, with the collision of gunpowder and magic as its biggest highlight, is indeed rarely seen in the field of ARPG.

The popular Bloodborne is based on the Victorian era more than 100 years later. Last year's popular Korean "soul-like" game Pinocchio's Lie, although the background setting of the "Belle Eckhart era" is slightly earlier than the "Victorian era", its scenes and styles look more advanced than Bloodborne due to the steampunk elements.

Although both have "gunpowder" and "guns", the artistic expression of the graphics of "Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn" has taken a completely different path from these ARPG predecessors. On the basis of "Flint Gun Fantasy", any content related to magic and mystery can be expressed in a more unbridled way than "Steam Punk". From 18th-century trench engineers to medieval knights, to statues and palaces in the style of ancient Mesopotamian civilization... "Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn" can be called a hodgepodge of various cultural elements. But under the bonding of the extremely inclusive theme of "Flint Gun Fantasy", the successive appearance of these elements does not make people feel abrupt, but instead provides players with a very fresh and wonderful experience.

But for "The Flintlock: Siege of Dawn" itself, in addition to the innovative cultural expression, the significance of the existence of "The Flintlock Fantasy" lies more in the relationship between the game's action system, which is similar to "shooting the arrow first and then drawing the target" - in terms of the degree of adaptation between the gameplay and the subject matter, this flintlock bullet flying from the 18th century can indeed be said to have hit the bull's eye perfectly.

In Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn, the requirement for the "flint gun shooting" operation almost determines the upper limit of the player's performance in the combat process. Most enemies in the game will release powerful attacks with red light prompts. If the player can identify and shoot the bullet before being hit, the enemy's attack can be interrupted and the enemy will fall into a short state of stiffness, creating an output window of one or two knives.

In the course of combat, accumulating bullets through ordinary attacks is the most basic combat resource cycle. Players have no shortage of bullets, and the frequency of enemies releasing powerful attacks will increase accordingly. In contrast, the player's ordinary attacks and eye-gazing dodges have become filler content in the combat process. Rather than calculating how many cuts can be made within the output window, always paying attention to the enemy's behavior and shooting to interrupt, and forcibly pulling the opponent into your turn, is the focus of combat in "Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn".

Moreover, although smooth interruption requires a certain level of proficiency in the enemy's attack module, the enemy can still be shot into stiffness for a period of time after the red light flashes. For those enemy actions that you are not sure about temporarily, you can "have both" and shoot again after dodging.

However, the devil is always better than the way. Although the design of "shooting to interrupt" greatly enhances the character's performance, facing a strong enemy with "armor", players still need other means of interaction to avoid "scraping". As the game progresses, the protagonist will encounter a mysterious creature named "Enki". In battle, players can ask it to make additional attacks through special buttons. "Enki's" attack is independent of the protagonist's actions and can be launched at any time.

Although Enki does not cause much damage to the enemy, its attack can activate the enemy's stun meter and add a short debuff to the enemy. During the duration of the debuff, the player's melee attack can also greatly increase the enemy's stun value. As this process repeats, the enemy will eventually enter the waiting execution state, stopping in place waiting to be hit by the player. When facing an enemy with "armor", the player's execution will first destroy their armor (for the BOSS, this also means entering the second stage).

Maintaining the stun value, paying attention to the timing of interrupting shooting, and the occasional choice between parrying and dodging, the constant alternation of these three exciting points weaves a tense combat experience for players that requires constant operation. This is the most commendable part of "Flintlock: Siege of Dawn".

However, due to the lack of design skills of the production team, the combat experience of "Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn" is still a long way from being excellent. The biggest problem is that the choreography of the boss's actions is too rigid, and players can only "do the right thing at the right time", that is, facing the enemy's various actions, they can only choose the right one from several methods step by step. Although the density of the enemy's actions makes this process challenging, this challenge no longer exists after the player is fully familiar with the enemy's behavior.

Moreover, this contradiction between "ideal and reality" is also reflected in other aspects of the game.

As mentioned in many interviews before the release, the members of A44 Studio, the creator of Flintstone: Siege of Dawn, are not only "game developers", but also experienced gamers. The "I'm good at what I do" thinking that players have during the game has also been applied to the various gameplay designs in Flintstone: Siege of Dawn.

For example, in order to provide players with additional motivation for action combat, A44 Studio introduced the "scoring system" commonly seen in action games into the action-adventure game "Flintlock: Siege of Dawn" and added some utilitarianism to it.

In battle, the player's various operations will be quantified into a percentage number. This number not only reflects the player's combat skills, but also allows the player to gain "reputation" after the battle, which will increase according to this percentage.

If you play well, you can increase this value to more than 100%.

Honestly, this design is novel and quite interesting. But if we continue to look down along the line of "consumption of 'reputation'", this design is not so interesting. In terms of character growth, in addition to the increase in weapon panel attack power and the increase in health brought by map collections, A44 Studio did not provide other numerical growth content, but through a large number of talent skills, it encourages you to use the currency obtained in the process (and amplified by skills) to improve gameplay such as "falling attack" and "soul sprint".

Of course, this is also very good. But the problem is that the price increase curve brought by the continuous upgrade in this talent system is not smooth. The total "reputation" of the main line, side lines and various collection gameplay rewards is basically only enough for players to delve into one of the development directions. In other words, in the early and middle stages of the game, when players have not yet thoroughly understood the entire system of the game, they need to plan their own development route to avoid wasting "reputation".

In theory, this kind of problem that can be solved by grinding is not a problem, but "Flintlock: Siege of Dawn" has become a big problem in the game precisely because it does not provide players with this way of grinding.

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is divided into three chapters according to three different maps, and introduces some small-scale levels in the wide linear process map in the form of "finding gunpowder barrels to blow up obstacles" and "eliminating the leader to recapture the village". The rewards for conquering these levels are the bulk of the "reputation" gained. However, in the three maps of Flintlock: Siege of Dawn, such levels are becoming less and less, and by the third map, there is no level at all.

Moreover, the other content that can gain "reputation" in the process of "Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn" is also unsatisfactory. Its side quests are pitifully few, and can be counted on two hands; the main storyline is anticlimactic, and just when the player has become familiar with most of the content of the game and is ready to show his skills, the whole process quickly enters the closing stage.

The most noteworthy part was glossed over

For a finished game, these problems are fatal.

Because of this, after completing Flint Gun: Siege of Dawn, I was caught in a dilemma - it can be seen that the ARPG enthusiasts of A44 Studio tried their best to bring some different experiences to their works from other ARPGs on the market. Of course, they did it.

But at the same time, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is also an extremely biased product. In many ways, it does not reach the ecological status of "more than independent, less than a masterpiece" that A44 Studios itself expects.

However, no matter what, A44 is their first long board on the road to pursuing big production. In time, I believe that with their enterprising spirit, they will achieve great success.

The hardware configuration specifications for this game evaluation are as follows:

monitor

MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED

size

32 inches

Curvature

Planar QD-OLED

Resolution

3840x2160

Refresh rate

240Hz

Response time

0.03ms GtG

Contrast

1500000：1

Viewing angle

178°(H)/178°(V)

brightness

250 nits (SDR)/1000 nits (HDR)

HDR

HDR TRUE BLACK 400

DCI-P3/sRGB

99% / 138%(CIE1976)

Product pictures Functional test Product details

3DM Rating: 7