Flinthook

Genre: Action-Platformer / Roguelike

Players: 1

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Review:

Flinthook is an Action-Platformer structured like a Roguelike where players fight through room after room of enemies, grab loot, and gradually upgrade their character. In addition to the usual running and jumping, players have a grappling hook they use to fling themselves around the environment, which gives the game a unique feel.

In terms of presentation, Flinthook is fantastic, using well-animated pixel art visuals that really do a great job of conveying the game’s unique personality, which absolutely oozes out of every element of the game, from its bizarre characters to its unusual world of space pirate ships and strange alien creatures. This is paired with a wonderful chiptune soundtrack that perfectly fits the high-energy nature of the game.

When it comes to the gameplay, I have to say that this game’s core gameplay is immediately engrossing, with its high-speed action-packed gunplay made to feel really unique due to the way you can latch onto hooks that usually litter each room to send yourself flying their way. The game uses fluid controls that allow you to move, aim, and target hooks to latch on to all using the left stick, and when it works well, it feels amazing just to move around in this game. There are occasional times when it doesn’t work quite so well though, particularly when there are two hooks right next to one another and the game doesn’t know which one you want to target.

As mentioned earlier, this game’s rooms are organized in a Roguelike style, which means randomness and a high difficulty level, and one of this game’s bigger flaws is that here those elements work against one another. This game’s difficulty level is pretty high, though it’s usually fair. The exception is those occasions I mentioned when the game has you latching on to the wrong hook, as well as occasional rooms where it seems virtually impossible to pass without taking a hit. This would be a bit more tolerable if it wasn’t for the fact that the randomized rooms the game throws at you repeat a bit more often than is ideal. If either of these issues were less prominent, it might not be so noticeable, but since you’ll likely be dying a lot in this game, that means you’ll also quickly recognize some common rooms.

This is frustrating, to be sure, but it’s not enough to change the fact that Flinthook is a joy to play, with a great presentation and some wonderful mechanics that make the action tons of fun. It’s not perfect, and the Roguelike elements here sometimes work against the game, and the high difficulty level means this isn’t for everyone, but those who like a good Action-Platformer and enjoy a challenge should absolutely give this game a try.

tl;dr – Flinthook is an Action-Platformer with Roguelike elements that has you fighting through room after room of space pirates with a blaster gun and a grappling hook. The game looks and sounds great, and the grappling hook makes for some really fun gameplay that makes just moving around a joy. It’s a tough game, and the Roguelike elements do have a few issues, but overall this is an excellent Action-Platformer well worth playing.

Grade: A-

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