NEED TO KNOW
What’s it? A cartoon swashbuckler the place fight is as a lot about displaying off and utilizing the surroundings as putting your opponent.
Launch date August 16, 2023
Anticipate to pay TBC
Developer Hearth Video games
Writer In-house
Reviewed on RTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM
Steam Deck N/A
Hyperlink Official website
In En Garde! Seventeenth-century Spain is slathered with a way of nostalgia. Not for the setting itself, in fact—I’m not that outdated—though it’s an attractive reimagining, with its piñata color palette and kitsch flamenco soundtrack. No, as a result of it jogs my memory of Asterix books, of Dogtanian, and black and white episodes of Zorro on Sunday mornings. Of less complicated instances, in different phrases, and less complicated types of leisure.
Enjoying this swashbuckling journey, in the meantime, tickles a distinct reminiscence gland. En Garde! is just like the remaster of an early 2000s console effort that by no means existed, from a time when builders have been nonetheless determining how the scrolling beat-‘em-up may evolve and discover its sea legs in three dimensions. Relatively than Satan Might Cry’s intense deal with combos, although, it takes an alternate route, wanting in direction of the environments surrounding its combatants, and the way they is likely to be utilized in a combat.
Superficially, En Garde! might bear a household resemblance to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (there’s even a nod to Ubisoft’s basic with a ‘that’s not the way it occurred’ touch upon dying), however it’s narrower in scope, extra low-cost and cheerful. It’s historic journey serial fashion born extra of parody than pastiche. Your cost, Adalia de Volador, a self-styled hero preventing for the poor, is provided with a rapier but additionally a barrel of wisecracks aimed as a lot on the style as her arch-nemesis, the Rely Duke.
The fight arenas are the place the distinction actually counts, although, as Adalia understands {that a} good motion scene doesn’t merely entail swordplay and distinctive poise, however acrobatics, pratfalls, and an Ikea’s value of damaged furnishings. As a lot as she’ll again herself in a one-on-one duel with anybody, you see, the Rely Duke’s guards don’t queue up and wait their flip – attempt to fence while surrounded and also you’ll shortly get skewered. Victories are thus earned by prancing round rooms and courtyards, utilizing no matter comes handy to skinny the herd, till your swordswomanship can come to the fore.
Like Monty Python’s tackle the Spanish Inquisition, the truth is, your chief weapon in En Garde! is shock. Do one thing fashionable or sudden and an exclamation mark pops up over close by enemies’ heads. With their consideration thrown for a second, you may get a free hit in, or use Adalia’s hefty kick to propel them right into a wall or down some steps, cracking their defenses extra completely.
As for what causes shock, effectively, quite a bit. Boot some barrels in direction of a bunch as they shut in, maybe, or chuck a jug at one in every of their heads, or a lantern at one thing explosive—a cannon for full carnage—or kick a desk an enemy is standing on, or drop a chandelier when somebody’s standing beneath it. Assured shock and awe. Because the numbers of hapless guards multiply, you’ll must carry all this into play, shortly sprucing off surprised opponents earlier than their pals catch up.
Reduce it out
When you’ve purchased time, duelling itself is a clear but tense affair. Blue assaults might be parried, pink have to be dodged, with every success gaining you a second to whittle down your foe’s guard, then take away a success level (common foes have one or two, bosses have 4) whenever you break by. Focus and there’s simply time to react to the flash of color appropriately, and because the parry window is good and large, you don’t must be any extra exact than that.
Nonetheless, it’s simpler mentioned than accomplished, and as soon as a number of hardier enemies enter the fray, En Garde! can get fairly difficult to tame. Largely that’s in the precise approach, with sharp guidelines and controls guaranteeing any mishaps are yours to personal. An auto-lock function sensibly targets the closest aggressor except you push in direction of one other, whereas the digital camera is extra involved with framing the motion than indulging any cinematic pretensions (En Garde! grasps that the actual cinema right here is in your execution of its slapstick scenes). Busy later ranges do expose occasional issues—you snag on a step for a vital cut up second, or the digital camera panics when a duel backs you right into a nook—however in the primary, these programs are pleasingly elegant.
It helps additionally that there’s an actual sense of focus in the way to play En Garde! At coronary heart, it’s a sequence of layered playrooms simply ready for an excited little one (that’s you) to return bundling in and press each button. And with that comes an understanding that levelling up, or talent timber, or a bunch of combos and extra weapons would disrupt the distilled enjoyable. Like Adalia herself, it’s trim and nimble. There’s no extra bulk right here to throw issues off steadiness.
But, if the primary course has the precise variety of substances, it might do with just a little extra on the aspect. The Prince of Persia parallels additionally derive from Adalia’s platforming acrobatics, as an example, as she swings on poles or bounces on hanging nets to cross gaps, however nothing a lot comes of it as the sport progresses. Getting from A to B isn’t extra involving than recognizing the subsequent seize level and flinging your self in its normal route, and En Garde! appears extra involved with having you seek out collectibles than any extra significant navigation.
Alternatively, a stronger line in humour might have rounded off the package deal. The sport’s unrelenting silliness undoubtedly units the precise temper, however the supply is a contact leaden. A primary chapter that has you chasing the masked ‘El Vigilante’, whose secret identification is not any secret in any respect, units the scene by dragging the joke out too lengthy, and trusting far an excessive amount of within the comedic potential of exaggerated Spanish accents – not least making a three-course meal of the phrase ‘Vigilante’. Extra typically, the quips that rattle backwards and forwards between Adalia and her foes do land sporadically—“Name the guards!” “Aren’t we the guards?”—however most of the time, eyes will roll.
You may say that’s all a part of the nostalgia, paying homage to these Asterix books, or video games of 20 years prior, when scripts in motion video games have been mere trifles. But the concerted whiff of classic additionally makes En Garde! really feel considerably restricted, and the purpose is pushed residence whenever you swashbuckle by its 4 chapters in beneath 4 hours, with solely the prospect of doing it higher and quicker to drag you again in. Tremendous if you wish to hone your expertise to a rapier level, however this additionally looks like a tacit admission that En Garde! has already exhausted its idea. Maybe nostalgia works finest that approach, although – reminding you that it may be a pleasure to go to less complicated instances briefly, however it’s not fulfilling to stay prior to now.
