En Garde! is a 3rd-individual swashbuckler recreation that permits you to use your atmosphere to face off towards guards and enemies in quick-paced fencing motion. A debut for Fireplace Games, who developed and revealed the sport, En Garde! swings into motion and instantly turns into a should-have 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 not like every other. The fencing mechanic is clean 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 the whole lot and everybody that comes my means. This is made much more fulfilling while you get extra particular combos, most of which it’s important to time fairly properly, and use your atmosphere rigorously and rapidly to trick, stun or watch your enemies get crushed by a chandelier. It’s swashbuckling enjoyable!
The recreation 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 varied and colourful characters that Adalia de Volador meets (and bickers with) alongside the best way in addition to set items and places whilst you attempt to cease the Count-Duke from his tyrannical regime. Zaida, particularly, is a standout character you meet all through the sport, typically even labeled as “Definitely Not Your Crush” which crammed 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. Sometimes, it is enjoyable to cease round and take within the new places as an alternative 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.
Apart from the primary storyline, En Garde! additionally comprises an Arena Mode, which is a singular strategy to maintain gamers coming again for extra Adalia and fencing enjoyable. I’m personally at all times searching for extra replay worth in video games recently after coming off of months of Hades runs, and the Arena Mode appears like the right mixture of randomized fight, waves of enemies, and gorgeous locales—and it’s extremely addictive. It permits gamers to decide on between 3 constructive modifiers in between arenas that parry a gameplay modifier used to buff enemies. This was undeniably considered one of 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 the direction of the guards.
There’s a slight problem curve within the recreation that I wasn’t too ready for, notably after the second stage/episode, however the brand new particular talents you study as you progress definitely assist counter {that a} bit. It’s somewhat jarring after the quick-paced motion of the primary half of the sport and virtually Souls-like, however En Garde! actually needs you to strategize in actual-time and make the most of the whole lot round you whereas making ready in your enemies’ subsequent strikes. This problem is, nevertheless, all forgotten while you understand which you can pet the chickens!
The cartoonish environments are completely gorgeous to have a look at. Whether you are in the course of a battle enviornment surrounded by colourful and wealthy locales or swinging from a rope atop the placing ocean, there’s at all times one thing breathtaking round you in En Garde!. Fireplace Games additionally cleverly preserve the environments from being repetitive by making every episode stand out by itself. It’s really a visible delight.
The recreation runs very properly with little to no hiccups all through the totally different episodes, and it is value noting how exceptionally quick the loading screens are. If you additionally end up leaping into the water for enjoyable—the place are my chaotic players?—then the sport reloads at your final pre-bounce place virtually instantaneously, which is fairly spectacular.
Using a recreation controller made the gameplay lots smoother a lot that I performed most of En Garde! each on the Steam Deck and the Asus ROG Ally. It’s undoubtedly the sort of recreation that is much more enjoyable on-the-go!
The recreation options a number of customary accessibility options, together with subtitles which have been on by default, a pleasant and far-wanted contact. It was notably cool to see the digital camera zoom in on the characters that have been talking and the subtitles together with their names as an alternative of simply the voiceover.
Apart from the default Medium setting, gamers can set the problem to Easy or Hard (the previous of which is useful) in addition to Invincibility Mode and Automatic Parrying, if gamers needed a extra relaxed and story-pushed 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-full of enjoyable characters, wealthy and colourful environments, and actual-time dodging and parrying. An Arena Mode will preserve you coming again for extra, however the problem curve is certainly one thing to look out for.
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