10. En Garde! [PC/Steam Deck]
And that makes ten.
En Garde! is a game that sparked my interest from the moment I first heard about it. Taking place in 17th century Spain, you play as Adalia de Volador, a masterful swordswoman. The game aims to emulate the feeling of Zorro-style fight scenes (at least I assume, I've never seen a Zorro movie, but that's the first word that comes to my mind). So to fight your opponents, yes you will need to use your fencing skills, but that alone won't cut it. The key to victory is in using your surroundings. Grabbing random stuff and throwing it at people, kicking them down the stairs, kicking them into pillars to drop the pots on top on their heads, throwing torches to light explosives, swinging across rooms to escape a tight spot, et cetera. All spiced up by light-hearted, silly, Spanish-accented banter by the characters.
The combat flow does take a bit to get used to, because it's so different from any other third-person brawler. You really need to change how you think and approach fights: just going for brute force
will get you killed. You need to stay on your feet, find openings to use what you have available, and find ways to split opponents up and drain their defense so you can damage them.
Overall, I had fun with it! I did stumble through it, but that's normal for any first playthrough of a new action game, right? Thankfully the checkpoint system is more than fair, and this game is clearly designed to be played repeatedly and improve your skills in. Especially considering how short it is: it only took me about 4-5 hours to beat. The game is available on GOG and Steam (from what I can see). If you find it on sale, I think it's worth trying out.
(Oh, and on technical performance: I played the DirectX 12 version on Steam Deck. The framerate was a bit choppy which did cause me to slip up, but after I dropped all graphic settings one level, it ran perfectly fine and still looked good to me.)
