I really wanted to like this game. In the first few minutes I spent in En Garde!, I was intrigued. I really liked the vibrant comic style mixed with a rather unique swashbuckler / Three Musketeers setting. I also enjoyed the humorous writing quite a bit. The game's protagonist is your typical witty Zorro/d'Artagnan-inspired loudmouth who takes up arms against the mischievous and corrupt Count-Duke, fighting for justice and equality. I really liked that setup.

I also enjoyed the gameplay in the first chapter. This is a fencing game that mixes fast-paced action combat based on parries and dodges with a highly reactive environment that you have to utilize in battles to prevail. Simply fighting enemies one on one is usually not the way to go. You have to use what's in your vicinity like buckets that you throw on peoples' heads, or boxes that you can kick in their faces to stagger them. This is cool and the game gets really creative with it. Soon enough, you'll have so many options at your disposal to deal with enemies. You can drop chandeliers, throw grenades into fire pits, kick down oil jugs to make the floor slippery and so on. This approach to combat feels novel and fun, at least in the first hour or so of the game.

Maybe I'm one of the few people to feel this way but using environmental traps and objects to deal with enemies loses its charm rather quickly for me. I had the same issue when playing Dark Messiah some time ago. Yeah it's fun to kick enemies into weapon racks or drop vases onto their head but when I do the same thing 100 times, I just get bored. Even in a short game like En Garde! that I finished in 4 hours, this approach to combat couldn't keep me hooked for too long. My biggest issue with the game was how messy most of the group battles were designed. In the first chapter and parts of the second one, fighting groups of enemies was pretty fun. Running around searching for traps and throwables was cool and taking enemies apart bit by bit felt motivating. Much of that is due to the smart and open level design in these first areas. However, the game soon starts to artificially increase its difficulty in the most annoying ways imaginable. For one, it just throws you into combat situations where you have to deal with multiple elite enemies in rather cramped rooms which made it super difficult to focus on a single enemy. You see, as soon as you have to fight more than one dude at a time and can't rely on running away finding traps and stuff, the game just kinda breaks. You try to focus on one guy, dodging and parrying at the right times only to get stabbed in the back by another. The problem is, that, for elite enemies, their health/stagger bar immediately regenerates once you make a "mistake" like getting attacked by someone else. I'm sure you can adjust that in the difficulty settings but I wanted to experience this game on its intended normal difficulty.
Another thing that really bugged was some of the boss encounters. There's one in particular where you have to fight on a bridge and it was just the worst. In general, the fight is pretty tough (for me this was the hardest in the game) but I'm a sucker for tight one-on-one boss battles. I should have liked this but I ended up hating every second of it. There are two reasons for this. For one, fighting on a bridge is a stupid idea for this kind of battle. Whenever you parry or dodge, your character moves. Even if you time your actions correctly, you can easily drop off the bridge. You don't lose health but falling and respawning can mess with your timing which means that even though you were close to decreasing the boss' health, your progress is reset. The second reason is the camera. There were so many moments in which I didn't see what my opponent was doing because the camera was stuck in the wall behind me or it didn't turn fast enough. The camera itself is its own issue in this game. For some reason, the devs refrained from using a lock-on system and implemented a sort of automatic targeting system which mostly works but often doesn't. So many times, I tried to attack someone and my character would just not target that person but flail away in the air or attack someone else. I just don't get why they didn't simply use lock-on, it would have made combat so much more manageable.

So yeah, I was somewhat disappointed with this one. I still like the humor and setting which felt fresh and entertained me for an afternoon. The fighting seemed promising in the beginning but turned into an annoying mess towards the end. If this game is on sale, you can definitely check it out (I got it in a humble bundle) but for me, this is definitely not a must-play.

A 6/10 game with 9/10 charm. Far too short, combat is pretty good in early stages and the focus on using your environment is fun twist, but it's relatively limited in use and some of the end game fights are an exercise in frustration with how many bodies the game throws out you. Hard to use the environment when I can get leap stabbed from 2m away. Still, it's a harken back to the PS2 time where games were fun and colourful rather than hyper realistic and I still recommend people give it a go.... just not at full price.

Cortito, pero muy divertido. A ratos parece más una demo de algo más grande que un juego completo, pero tiene ideas muy interesantes y el núcleo jugable funciona de maravilla.

Una posible secuela algo más larga, con algo más de profundidad en algunos de sus sistemas, podría ser algo espectacular, pero este es un primer intento muy digno.

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Short, but very fun. At times it feels like a demo of something bigger more than a full game, but it has some really interesting ideas and the gameplay itself works like a charm.

A potential longer sequel, with a bit more depth in some of its systems, could be something amazing, but this is a worthwhile first attempt.

Eu adoro quando jogos são feitos em torno de uma única mecânica. Claro, sempre é interessante quando vários diferentes tipos de jogabilidade são inseridos dentro de um mesmo título. Porém, quando os desenvolvedores se associam à um item em específico e o fazem muito bem, saem resultados como En Garde.

Aqui nós temos uma mecânica de combate que bem distante se assemelha a de Sekiro, só que com o adicional da interação com o cenário. E o jogo inteiro é construído ao redor disso. Aqui não controlamos um grande e honrado guerreiro, mas sim uma libertadora que vai fazer de tudo o que for necessário para melhorar a vida de sua população (em certos momentos me senti na revolução cubana com algumas falas do jogo). Sendo assim, ela vai chutar inimigos de escadas, explodir barris, usar canecas, baldes, lustres, e mais o que estiver em sua disposição para sair vitoriosa.

E o jogo é muito bem projetado em fazer com que você use-as, tanto na construção dos encontros, garantindo sua necessidade, pela variedade de inimigos e suas diferentes formas de serem derrotados, como você sempre se encontra cercada; tanto pela disponibilidade, eles sempre estão em abundância ao seu redor, sempre te convidando à usá-los.

Really liked this one, but it has obvious holes that keep it from entering the upper tier of action games; it’s sort of a riff on the Arkham-style counter based combat against groups of enemies, the main distinction being that you’ll be faced with overlapping attacks you can’t simply defensively bait out, and so you have to use props in the environment to whittle down groups and make certain high-value targets vulnerable. While it is possible to fight enemies with just your sword and defensive kit- it’s suboptimal, and the best moments here are when you blend the environmental takedowns with the more traditional forms of combat: knocking them down stairs, kicking boxes at them, and dropping chandeliers on their heads to name a few.

The result is a combat system that ends up being much more playful than its influences, where the toughest enemies aren’t necessarily meant to be fought honorably, but tossed around with some swashbuckling gusto. Was also very pleasantly surprised to see that this extends to the major bosses as well, the majority of which are just as susceptible to environmental hazards and throw regular enemies into the mix as well- nicely avoiding the “boss as rhythm game” design that’s made many parry-centric games feel so rote. This means that the big, climatic moments here end up as some of the biggest highlights, as they push the combat into its wildest and most improvisational moments, and the few times you do fight an enemy one-on-one being so rare and novel that they feel like a genuine break from the rest of the action.

Over the course of its four-chapter campaign, it introduces a lot of ideas and a number of bespoke maps, and I was really excited when I saw that there was an “Arena” mode in the menu, something I expected to be a straight shot of action if the running through the story proved to be too diluted, but instead of chasing high scores and really learning each of the individual arenas, it’s a weird roguelike mode. The randomness here comes from the positive and negative modifiers you’ll get after completing each map, with the negative effects being pretty negligible and the choice of buffs being game-ruiningly powerful. Winning the last challenge had less to do with any accumulated sense of crowd control or map knowledge, and was far more a result of constructing a busted build that let me heal constantly and stun enemies whenever they tried to attack. Feels like a waste of a mode, especially since the basic gameplay hook seems like it would lend itself so well to something where you had to consider the ramifications of every stunned guard and hurled piece of cutlery.

Lots of room for improvement and expansion in future, but it’s wonderfully breezy tonally and solid enough mechanically that it should satisfy for the moment. (And consider going for a no-death clear of the campaign on Hard if you really want to get some extra mileage out of it.)

"En Garde!" is a rare gem of a game, reminiscent of "Call of Juarez: Gunslinger." This comparison might seem odd, but the rarity I refer to is simplicity. "En Garde!" focuses on two core elements: engaging combat and competent jumping, climbing, and rope-swinging mechanics. Rather than incorporating features from RPGs and open-world games, it excels as a linear series of challenges using these polished mechanics. This is what made me think of "Gunslinger," which is also a straightforward arcade-style action game. In an era where levels, equipment, crafting, and conquerable camps dominate action game design, it's refreshing to find a game that relies solely on its core mechanics.

The combat in "En Garde!" feels like "Batman Arkham" if a group of talented designers modified the combat loop to fit a swashbuckling character. Enemies telegraph their moves: blue attacks require parries, red attacks require dodges. When attacked by groups, simply responding adequately isn't enough. You must assess whether you have time to counter multiple quasi-simultaneous attacks. You'll need to run, jump, set traps, and isolate enemies to control the fight.

The game introduces new enemy types (grenadiers, elite duelists, tanky foes, and more). These additions force you to adjust your strategies, adding enough variety to keep the combat loop fresh.

How long does the game stay fresh? For three or four hours, which is fortunate because that's exactly how long it lasts. It’s a short, enjoyable experience.

Regarding environments, music, and voice acting, they're decent. The Spanish-inspired settings remind me of Overwatch's Dorado, featuring ports, 16th-century cities, prisons, and haciendas. I won’t comment on the music since, admittedly, I played the game mostly while listening to other content.

"En Garde!" is challenging in a fun way, and its simplicity prevents frustration. I dislike getting lost in repetitive 3D environments and games that fail to clearly distinguish between main paths and side quests. "En Garde!" avoids these pitfalls with no hidden optional treasures or irrelevant puzzles. I enjoyed the game and believe that a sequel with additional features would be well-received.

This is a really weird one for me. For starters, the game is absolutely gorgeous. It feels like a PS2 game in the best ways, running through the levels sort of reminded me of Sly Cooper at times. I loved the environments and artstyle in general. The combat is satisfying, it feels kind of like a more friendly and forgiving Sekiro. The comedic tools you use to take down enemies are almost always hilarious and add a unique charm to the game.
However the characters talk. A lot. Like a lot a lot. You can turn this down in the menu but the writing is actually quite fun when there arent 6 people talking over one another. The enemies don't synergize well with one another and some combat encounters can become absolute slogs as a result. I found myself getting really frustrated when you're forced to dodge one enemies attack but that refills the meter of another enemy. All in all though this is a great game for the price, and the accessibility options do make up for some of the less considered design decisions.

En achetant un bundle sur humble bundle il y avait ce jeu du coup je les finis et il me semble intéressant d'en parle.
En garde et un jeu qui nous offre un jeu d'Arena fight avec des furets ou on contrôle Adalia de volador dans un scenario qui n'es pas sans rappelle les épisodes de Zorro quand j'etait petit.
J'ai pas beaucoup a développe car le jeu pour ma part trop court et manque de difficulté seulement deux heure et a part le boss de fin il y a pas temp que ça de pick de difficulté.
Si vous prenez un bundle ou le jeu pas cher fonce mais sinon je ne pense pas que vaille le coup.