Flint: Treasure of Oblivion puts together something one may not expect out of a swashbuckling experience: a turn-based tactical RPG with comic book graphics mixed in. While this might not be everybody’s cup of tea, it does bring a fun aesthetic to a chaotic genre.
Pirates and video games seem like a match made in heaven: sailing the seven seas with a crew, taking down enemies, and looting and plundering wherever you go. The ideas are endless, but the ideas haven’t always translated into good gameplay. Some pirate games have played well (Sea of Thieves), while others have left a bad taste in my mouth (Raven’s Cry). Could Savage Level and Microids put something together that will truly have someone wanting to live the pirate’s life (at least in video games)?
You play as James Flint, a pirate trying to find a mysterious treasure—somewhat standard by pirate standards, but creating it as a turn-based tactical RPG is what makes the game more interesting. You’ll be exploring with your crew and fighting along the way, so running a tight ship will be part of your experience with Flint.
When you’re not fighting, you’ll be searching for fights, and the game doesn’t anchor you down to any specific storyline, even ditching the standard objective markers. This also means that you have to turn over every stone in the game to find something to do. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it could leave the more impatient players wanting to do something more right away.
You can recruit crew members to aid you in battle as well. This is where the tables come into play: Exploration Group, Quests, Galley, and Crew. I found myself spending a lot of time in the last two tabs. The Galley will let you spend gold on boosts, grenades, healing items, armor, and other things to help you gain a leg up in the game. You should be wise about using boosts, as you can gain extra stats or an extra turn, which may be crucial in securing rare and powerful items. Healing items can heal your crew or revive them. Armor is key if you’re heading into a difficult battle, and it comes at a trade-off for one point of your stats—making it ideal for long, drawn-out battles.
Crew members are designated on the Crew tab, with Captain Flint himself, his first mate, and a wide array of allies at your disposal. They are organized by class and rank, and you can view their stats, abilities, and equipment. What makes Flint interesting is its leveling system. While not cryptic or time-consuming, it is a bit strange that it is based on how much gold you pay them—which really does quite a bit to the pirate experience. You can pour gold into a few characters or spread it out over as many characters as possible, and the latter may be the way to go for a more balanced crew.
Combat is interesting as well. There are large-scale battles that will have you picking three different teams to engage in combat, and abilities that apply to allies will affect all three teams. Small-scale encounters involve four to six crew members and no setup. Using grenades, healing, and abilities are free actions—you only consume turns if you move or attack. Overall, the battle system is good, but you will need to balance melee and range to beat your foes.
One major flaw is the camera—which seems to be akin to games where camera panning can be notoriously frustrating. Some items may be blocked by the environment. The problem? The camera doesn’t rotate during exploration. Many games already do this, but this game doesn’t—hopefully, this is patched in to allow people to locate hard-to-see items and give a more immersive playing experience.
While a great game that innovates in the tactical RPG space and interesting systems, Flint may gain some replay value if they add DLC or even make the game multiplayer, allowing you to pit your crew against another player’s crew. It isn’t a terrible game for the pirate genre, and it can be worth a few playthroughs if you’re willing to sink the time to complete the game. While I was pleasantly surprised by the combination of theme and genre, it does have some flaws that need to be improved on in the meantime.
Developer(s): Savage Label
Publisher(s): Microids
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
Words by Jose Alvarez
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE Volume 25 No. 7 Issue