From the moment I held the rapier in my hands during the En Garde! demo, the vibes that Fireplace Games’ work gave me were sensational. Intense, fun, with more humor than the Comedy Club and beautiful to rage, hallmarks that are difficult to find in a single video game.
The trip as the heroine of the town took me a breath and it took just over three hours to rise as one of my favorite titles of 2023. If Zorro and Robin Hood had a daughter, surely she would look alike and experience similar adventures to those of Adalia de Volador.
Hands up!
This young rascal is the protagonist of a story that leads us to confront the tyrannical Count-Duke, the lord and master of a medieval city whose splendor has not been taken away. Adalia, as a good defender of justicehe embarks on the mission to overthrow such a villain and for this he will have the help of two intrepid swordsmen… more or less.
Although the plot of In Garde! It’s an excuse for it to make sense to walk through alleys, perform tricks and deal punches left and right, the developer hasn’t missed the opportunity to use it as a constant vehicle for its humor. The dialogue is replete with banter, humorous put-downs, and in-jokes that constantly ridicule both the villains and the hero pretenders.
A casual touch that feels great and it is nourished even more with the annotations and clues distributed throughout the levels that we can read optionally. There isn’t a single moment where the game decides to shed its clown costume to get serious, not even during combat. Adalia’s skill and skill are legendary and are demonstrated through a system that supports absolutely everything.
Defining itself as a “swashbuckling comedy”, In Garde! He drinks from the source of the success of Errol Flynn and Zorro in the cinema, as well as from stories as popular as those of Robin Hood. If you are familiar with some of these medieval epics, you will recognize many jokes, escapes in extremis and duels before a string of guards that end with the victorious protagonist.
the playground
As soon as he bears his faithful steel, Adalia is virtually unstoppable. Our heroine is capable of performing all kinds of moves with the rapier, be it attacking directly or blocking if the parries are executed perfectly. Although we can randomly hit the buttons to kill the enemies, the truth is that not everything is so simple. Beyond the basic rivals that last a breath, things get a little more complicated as we progress in In Garde!.
The guards and minions mostly have a resistance bar that we will have to exhaust if we really want to hurt them. For greater difficulty, some of them have two of them, so not everything depends on us fighting in a constant clash of swords duel. This is where the differential factor of the title comes into play, since the stage itself will be both our weapon and our defense.
Each zone is full of boxes, armories, bombs, bonfires and a kind of resources to use in our favor. A kick to the boxes serves to destabilize the enemies, the armories completely knock them down and the combination of explosives with fire is quite incendiary. To all this we must add the possibility of throwing chandeliers, spilling wine on the floor with which to slip, carrying jugs in our hands to stun and thus make up an almost endless list of utensils within our reach.
The game not only invites you to use them, but it will be the only way to survive with guarantees against a wave of criminals that will pounce on us. Groups of enemies are hard to get around, so the most dangerous must be put out of action for a while if we want to have a chance. Especially with the fiercest of them, whether they are underbosses with shields, those who resist kicks or the grenadiers who are terribly elusive, among others.
In the same way that a dungeon is a festival of offensive fun, it is a festival of necessary dodging. In Garde! It allows us to move freely, jumping huge tables, climbing stacks of boxes, hanging from poles and getting to safety in a jiffy. If you are not clear about the strategy to follow, it is best to gain height to give yourself a break from the panorama that is presented to you.
This dynamic is terribly fun and addictive, since it is on an ideal difficulty curve. We may die a few times, but where things will get really complicated it will be with the big bosses. They are unique, with their own characteristics, and it is possible to fail repeatedly until we measure them. Of course, if we don’t want to fool around, we can tip the balance in our favor with one of Adalia’s special abilities.
A style bar displays the salt shaker – yes, that’s the chosen term – that we’ve accumulated thus far, allowing us to execute an unstoppable lunge, round sweep or powerful takedown. The salt shaker increases the more shows we do, even resorting to taunts that we can activate with a button. Come on, there is always room for mockery.
A beauty to repeat
Are just four chapters that make up En Garde! and it would feel like a well-cooked dish finished too soon. However, Fireplace Games wanted to focus the experience on a replayability that is unexpected for a simple reason. Each of the game’s episodes has four optional objectives to beat, either hitting four enemies with a single kick or taking out the boss with a special ability.
We don’t know what they are until we finish said episode, but there’s more to discover. There are four other objectives that we can achieve, but in this case they are completely secret. There’s barely a hint of what to do, but you have to rack your brains to really figure out the purpose. In this way, we already have an excuse to revisit some areas that shine for their beauty.
The scenarios of En Garde! they are full of variety, going from recreations of life during the Middle Ages in the Spanish Mediterranean, with Arab influences, to prisons and tropical islands. Each of them has its own personality, unique architecture and a very bright color palette. A brutal detail is the one that is shown with the backgrounds of the game, since they are shown in watercolor when they are far away and take shape as we approach them.
On the other hand, there is a small margin to take alternative paths during our adventure, although the route to follow is quite marked. The arena mode deserves a special mention, a format that feeds on roguelikes, since it allows us to choose modifiers in our favor and against so that we can face waves of opponents. Once again, an extra reason to get the most out of the work.
VidaExtra’s opinion
I cross my fingers for the luck of In Garde! be one of the best and completely hit it on Steam. The work of Fireplace Games is worthy of standing up and applauding wildly, since rarely can we come across a game that knows what it wants to do so well. Humor is central of absolutely everything that makes up the title, be it the story, the fighting and the setting.
I have not stopped running with Adalia de Volador, because what I most wanted was to turn a corner to face another group of thugs. There’s no explicit scoring on whether what we’re doing is more or less spectacular, but like Uncharted 4 you just want to do it as well as possible, like a movie camera is rolling.
It is true that there has been an effort to In Garde! Don’t run out of content thanks to the arena mode and extra incentives, but it’s a pity that the plot ends so soon. There are very good ideas and surely there are a lot of contexts in which an adventure with Adalia would feel great, but it’s time to stay with the desire.
Duration of En Garde!
In Garde! It can be overcome in around three hours, the estimated time to complete its four chapters. The replayability of the work can extend the duration a couple more hours to achieve the rest of the objectives, while the arena mode adds a little more content to squeeze.
In Garde!
| platforms | PC (reviewed version) |
|---|---|
| multiplayer | No |
| developer | Fireplace Games |
| Company | Fireplace Games |
| Launch | August 16, 2023 |
The best
- Lighthearted humor packed with satire
- The combat is reminiscent of the best classic adventure cinema
- Artistically it’s amazing
Worst
- It is an idea that could have been exploited with more levels
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