En Garde! Demo Review
Greetings, friends!
Kept you waiting, huh? I’ve had my life (and time management) take a sharp turn after my last article, so I had take a break from writing articles here.
Speaking of sharp things, I’m reviewing En Garde! by Fireplace Games today. It’s a classic swashbuckling game with great movement, fluid combat, excellent characterization and most importantly, panache!
I know I ended up just TLDR’ing my own review above, but stay with me, because En Garde! definitely deserves more than a shortened statement for “this is awesome”.
Before I delve into (and bore you with) the history of the team that made this game, let’s get the part you’re most interested in out of the way. First of all, En Garde! plays amazing. The movement is super fluid, controls are VERY responsive and everything looks very lively. While I’m usually a keyboard & mouse guy, I had my DualShock 4 already plugged in to my PC, so I went in with a controller and weirdly, En Garde! hit me with a setting that I believed to be impossible to put in a game: the option to choose which mainstream console’s controller I’m using, so the UI adapts itself while showing me inputs. Most games (AAA included) just assume you’re using an Xbox controller and I have to say, it’s one of the bigger reasons why I stuck with KB&M for years, even when Yakuza series tried to gatekeep me into using a controller. I’ll stop ranting now and just say En Garde! is a delight to play with a controller. Moving on.
Okay, back to the business. En Garde!’s visual design gave me life while playing it. The art style is what you would call “cartoon-y”, but the design choices are right up my alley and I loved looking at every bit of detail on the screen. Quality-wise, the graphics are definitely able to carry the visual style.
Probably the biggest thing that I enjoyed during the demo is the writing and voice acting. The story so far is not a complicated one and it’s doesn’t need to be. I’m very glad that Fireplace was aware of this and went for a light hearted adventure. Obviously, if the full game goes deeper than what we have right now, that’s a bonus, but what I’ve seen made me quite happy.
As to voice acting, it was VERY natural and definitely underlined the tongue-in-cheek writing. Adalia de Volador and her brother (who is definitely not El Vigilante) come off as sympathetic and charismatic at the same time, thanks to great dialogue and excellent voice acting.
Now, the combat is… not exactly super hard. It relies on parrying and dodging, but in my experience, timings for both were quite easy. This is not a big criticism on my part, though. This game doesn’t aim to give you a hard time, instead it presents a very fluid and relatively easy combat, allowing you to have some fun with it. One little note, though. While each opponent is easy to handle, you can easily get overrun by big numbers on occassion. So En Garde! is not giving you an “easy” challenge per se, it’s just not trying to suffocate with it.
The environment also plays a big part in combat, opening up a lot of potential for variety. You can pick up baskets and throw them on the heads of your opponents, Skyrim style, then kick them to remind them who they are messing with. You can kick your opponents into weapon stands and other “you’re not getting out of that rubble” objects that tip over and defeat them (they are idiots for standing against you).
You can also kick crates towards your opponents to throw their balance off and create an opening for a quick and deadly strike. Unless your opponents are paid actors, hired by El Vigilante to test you. Then you’re doing a quick and harmless poking with your sword with questionably authenticity.
As revealed in the final showdown with El Vigilante himself, you also get some special moves that drain your special moves bar and have their own cooldown periods. Use them wisely and you’ll defeat anyone who stands between you and justice.
A project first born as Fireplace CEO Anaïs Simonnet’s graduation project, En Garde! will surely be one of the hidden gems of 2023. Lately, I’ve been thinking that I need a relaxing game with a fun cast and I think this is it. I can’t wait for the full game to release so I can enjoy this swashbuckling adventure!
