Flint: Treasure of Oblivion - First Impressions

Part #1: This will entail the first five hours of play-time I've had with Flint: Treasure of Oblivion so far. 
Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is an isometric game, where the exploration is open and in real time, while the combat is turn based. This part of the review covers my first five hours of play, from the beginning to where you actually get to the ship. I initially had trouble trying to play via the keyboard so I picked up the controller and went from there. Firstly the game is gorgeous visually, it pulled me right in from the start. You begin in a small area and, of course, since you're a former pirate, you wind up almost immediately in prison. This is where you'll get your first taste of combat and exploration, as well as your first companion, Billy.

Your first task is to make friends and try to get out of prison. To do that requires investigating not only the prison but some of the residents, doing various tasks and finding a few odds and ends. The combat is fairly unique, as it incorporates movement, melee weapons, firearms, and objects within the environment. Sometimes I wasn't able to move where I wished and I'm not sure if that's something that will be addressed or if I was doing something wrong. When you move, at the end of your travel you can push, tackle, or sometimes fumble when you reach your opponent. Of course, mostly I fumbled! It's fun combat and no two fights have been exactly the same, which forced me to study the map each and every time, because if you don't take into account the environment, the computer most certainly will. You can do a serious amount of damage with casks and other objects in the combat field, even dropping down on your opponents can be deadly as well as damaging to yourself. It's also a great idea to have several back-up weapons as they can degrade or break, and firearms take significant time to reload during combat. What I usually did was fire the musket, then charge in and resort to melee weapons, which worked well.

Once out of prison, Billy and I were in a small port town, and there we decided land sucked and it was time to get back on a ship! We found a merchant willing to sign us on (in other words, a sucker!), provided we could staff the rest of the positions on the ship. This required us to thoroughly explore the town, recruiting as we went along and finding various treasures and maps along the way. This is where I spent a long period of time because staffing a ship takes quite a few folks! You can do this in a number of different ways, you can hire people, con them into joining, or trick them in various ways. Most of the tricks involve getting them in trouble with the local authorities and then they've no recourse but to join your crew. I had two significant fights while in town, one while recruiting a smuggler and then another at the very end, which turned into a huge melee that literally took me over an hour to get through. And in the end, two serving wenches were the deciding factor, let me tell you those two ladies could both make pirates yell and dance!

First impressions are important and this game has hit a home run for me. I'm a sucker for both an isometric view plus turn-based combat, so I'm fully onboard with this one. Land lubbers beware, this pirate is on a cruise to Oblivion! This is merely part one of the review, more to come as we conquer the seas!

Part #2: Flint, part deux!
When last Billy and I had dealt with nefarious folk who wanted to delay our pirating, we boarded our engaged vessel. Now came time for crew placement and confirmations, you can put those in proper places according to skills and merits, as well as gearing them up appropriately. I also took this time to look at candidates for future battles as I wanted a tough team ready to go at a moments notice. You can easily see who is suited to what, as high strength characters excel at melee and your high dexterity folks are better with firearms. When gearing people up, weapons are indeed important yet don't forget items like armour and additional gear that might help with wounds or give buffs.

The crew was interested in our goals, which were rather simple: booty, exploration, and copious amounts of drinking! Not long after setting sail we spotted our first opportunity, at a distance what appeared to be a nasty slaver ship! Finally, a chance to see what ship-to-ship combat might be like. This is split into two parts, a scripted battle with exchanges of cannon fire, which is talked through via the comic blurbs in text form. You also get to see the results as impacts hit your ship and crew. The next part is the player detailing three parties to board the enemy ship, one team headed fore, one aft, and one mid-ship. After setting up all three boarding parties, we crashed the slavers party and a serious scrum broke out!

This was a long fight, and took place over the entire ship, involving all three parties. First you must defeat the defenders and after that, you had to disable the gunners that are firing on your ship. It was quite the slug-fest, the slavers put up tremendous resistance yet, at the conclusion, the enemy ship was ours. We lost some crew along the way yet overall it was a huge victory for our side. When we spoke to some of the slaves/prisoners, we discovered that they'd been kidnapped from an island not far away, so that's where we next set course.

The comic blurbs add a lot to the game and shouldn't be simply clicked through, as you get a treasure-trove of information each and every time. There's also a quest section which will keep you well informed along the way. Many times during the course of play various characters have conversations with one another and these are also important to track.

Part #3: Flint, The Finale!

That battle I was stuck on irked me so I gave it another try a few days ago, and was successful. The whole luck factor in this fight can be annoying yet if you stick it out and try some out-of-the-box thinking, you might pull it off. It's always smart to keep in mind both the mission parameters and objectives. I'm by nature a hoarder of resources yet sometimes you have to throw the entire kitchen sink into a fight to get the win. And again, be aware that luck can play a huge role!

And it turned out I was only a few more fights from the conclusion. The last battles would also test my resolve in some areas yet were manageable and a lot more fun than the one I was previously stuck on. Overall, most of this game is fun, particularly the mind-set of the pirates and their goals. The combat is unique and I would advise reading the tutorials, and be ready to reference them often. Keep multiple weapons on your squad mates and this game will be a lot more fun and you'll avoid some frustrations along the way. One final caveat: do not regulate the lady pirates to the galley/housekeeping areas, as two of them turned out to be quite adept at combat and saved my bacon on at least two occasions!

PS:
Review copy of the game from HomeRun PR