By far my favorite part of this year's Steam Next Fest, En Garde! originally began as an award-winning student project that blossomed into a fully-fledged game by then-newly formed Fireplace Games in Montpelier, France. Having finished it, I can proudly declare that their hard labor in expanding the original concept into a completed work has paid off well, and En Garde! is a charming swashbuckling romp through 17th-century Spain as the incredibly charismatic Adalia de Volador.
Combat is obviously the main draw here, and the foundational elements of it are fun throughout. There's a much greater focus on dueling than in most other games like it, and you often have to rely on trickery or your immediate surroundings to deal with large groups of foes and split them up. The basic combat loop involves striking, parrying, and dodging, with some of the tougher enemies mixing those up in quick succession to try and throw you off. It all feels very intuitive and fun to experiment with.
That being said, enemy variety and a lack of smoothness in the animations can hold it back a bit at times. What helps with variety, however, is that the enemy types require different strategies to deal with and aren't just palette swaps of the same ones over and over, so when you're faced with a big room of them all, it feels like a test of what you learned, thus making the victory much more rewarding.
Given that it's an independent project, the quality of the voice acting is stellar, much more than you might be used to. That's, of course, helped by a strong, genuinely funny, and charming script that feels very reminiscent of an 80s cartoon with all the cheese and awful puns to go along with it. As stated, Adalia de Volador is a wonderful character, and her banter with the various guards and lackeys you encounter is super endearing, as you can tell she has a genuine respect for anyone brave enough to cross swords with her.
Though, yes, En Garde! could have done with a couple more of her adventures to pad the game out some more, as although there's good pacing, more Adalia is surely nothing but a great thing. That being said, I'm sure there are updates and DLCs that can handle that.
En Garde! might fly under the radar for many people, but I strongly encourage you to check it out, especially if you're hankering for the kind of colorful platforming antics usually reserved for a mid-2000s PS2 game. It's a fantastic debut from a clearly very talented studio who should be immensely proud of what they've pulled off here.
8/10
Combat is obviously the main draw here, and the foundational elements of it are fun throughout. There's a much greater focus on dueling than in most other games like it, and you often have to rely on trickery or your immediate surroundings to deal with large groups of foes and split them up. The basic combat loop involves striking, parrying, and dodging, with some of the tougher enemies mixing those up in quick succession to try and throw you off. It all feels very intuitive and fun to experiment with.
That being said, enemy variety and a lack of smoothness in the animations can hold it back a bit at times. What helps with variety, however, is that the enemy types require different strategies to deal with and aren't just palette swaps of the same ones over and over, so when you're faced with a big room of them all, it feels like a test of what you learned, thus making the victory much more rewarding.
Given that it's an independent project, the quality of the voice acting is stellar, much more than you might be used to. That's, of course, helped by a strong, genuinely funny, and charming script that feels very reminiscent of an 80s cartoon with all the cheese and awful puns to go along with it. As stated, Adalia de Volador is a wonderful character, and her banter with the various guards and lackeys you encounter is super endearing, as you can tell she has a genuine respect for anyone brave enough to cross swords with her.
Though, yes, En Garde! could have done with a couple more of her adventures to pad the game out some more, as although there's good pacing, more Adalia is surely nothing but a great thing. That being said, I'm sure there are updates and DLCs that can handle that.
En Garde! might fly under the radar for many people, but I strongly encourage you to check it out, especially if you're hankering for the kind of colorful platforming antics usually reserved for a mid-2000s PS2 game. It's a fantastic debut from a clearly very talented studio who should be immensely proud of what they've pulled off here.
8/10