En Garde! Review

I still remember seeing The Mask of Zorro at the cinema for my 12th birthday and loving the playful action and chemistry between Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and even to this day it’s a film I enjoy watching now and again. In the modern day, it’s a world and premise that is seldom revisited, but Fireplace Games has endeavoured to capture the spirit of films like The Mask of Zorro and Disney’s The Three Musketeers with its stylish, charismatic and colourful third-person action-adventure game En Garde!.

Set in a vivid adaptation of 17th-century Spain, players take on the role of legendary swashbuckler and hero of the people Adalia de Volador as she endeavours to stop the plans of the evil Count-Duke. She’s not alone in her journey, with de Volador’s brother (who masquerades as El Vigilante) and her love interest Zaida all vying to stop Count-Duke and his cronies.

There’s a comedic and light-hearted tone to En Garde! that it pulls off pretty well thanks to some funny writing and solid voice-acting, complete with over-the-top Spanish accents that have that cartoonish vibe. In one sequence, Adalia wisecracks how she always manages to find a conveniently hidden exit, before a guard laments, “Oh, no, she’s found the conveniently hidden exit? Again?” Lines like these are frequent throughout the game and they always brought a smile to my face. Keeping it light-hearted, guards will never be dead, rather simply knocked out or defeated, and will regularly make humorous quips about being asleep or their moustache when attacked.

Adalia de Volador – the master swordsperson

Fireplace Games has done an incredible job with the game’s art style, with the hand-painted backdrops bursting with vibrant colours and a watercolour-esque effect that creates stunning vistas. It’s all backed by an authentic and fitting soundtrack full of flamenco guitars composed by Jean-Claude Charlier.

There’s not much to En Garde!’s campaign, which is made up of fighting sequences that are essentially small arenas that de Volador must clear of enemies before being able to proceed, and traversing through the world will see Adalia do some light platforming to reach higher up and gated off areas. Combat in En Garde! is fast-paced but relatively basic, with de Volador able to perform a simple sword attack and a kick, as well as the ability to parry and dodge. These all work together with the numerous enemy types, which vary from your basic goons to your more challenging guards. All enemies have an attack that can be parried, and timing this correctly is paramount to making the most of it, while harder enemies have a red-coloured attack that can’t be parried and must be dodged. The game offers a decent enough challenge playing on normal difficulty, but for those who want to take things up a notch there’s a hard difficulty, as well as a mode for those who want to take it easy.

Where combat is given another layer is through environmental objects that can be used to Adalia’s advantage. Items such as buckets, lutes and pots can be thrown at enemies to stun them, explosives barrels or canons can be ignited, crates can be kicked into guards to knock them down, chandeliers and other swinging objects can be put to use as weapons, and tables with guards standing on them can be kicked to take their legs out from underneath them. It certainly helps break the combat up and adds to the overall slapstick schtick the game is going for.

Swords up!

There’s a comedic and light-hearted tone to En Garde! that it pulls off pretty well thanks to some funny writing and solid voice-acting

There’s also the Panache Meter, which can be charged by nailing parries and defeating guards, and can be used to deliver extra damage and recover one bar of health. Adalia has access to three Panache attacks – two sword attacks and one kick – which unlock during the campaign. It’s a neat and useful mechanic but it does feel a little underutilised with only three options, and when you’re constantly trying to focus on dodging and parrying, it can be difficult to charge up.

For the most part, it’s a gameplay loop that is fun and full of satisfactory moments (kicking enemies never gets old). However, one of the downsides is that combat can feel a little overwhelmingly chaotic at times, which can work against enjoying it, as you’ll frequently come up against groups of guards, all of whom will attack you at the same time. It means that you need to be constantly moving, making it hard to get a rhythm or combo going, as you may be able to parry and land two blows before needing to dodge an attack from another enemy. Furthermore, when facing a large group of guards there were several instances where I spent half the fight simply running away, which can take the fun away from the core mechanics. They’re minor complaints in the scheme of things, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t irk me from time to time.

Once you do roll credits on the 5–6 hour campaign, you can go back and replay each of the four episodes to complete challenges and find secrets. There’s also an Arena Mode that allows you play through four different stages with different modifiers, each progressively harder if you want more of En Garde!’s combat.

The art style is gorgeous

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to believe that En Garde! started as a student project in 2018. Fireplace Games has done a great job crafting a game that is not only fun and stylish but also nails the comedic tone of classic swashbuckling adventures. It’s not without its flaws but En Garde is certainly a title that I’m sure Zorro himself, Don Diego de la Vega, would tip his black sombrero in approval of.

Reviewed on PC // Review code supplied by publisher

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