Flint: Treasure of Oblivion Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Have you ever played a video game, where you are convinced there’s a good game in there somewhere – maybe even a great game – it’s just that you can’t quite reach it? That you can’t connect with it, despite your best efforts. The game in question does enough to convince you something brilliant is coming and it’s right around the corner, but you never actually reach it. It’s like the developers have constructed a veritable wall of nonsensical game mechanics, a moat of lacklustre tutorials, and a maze of unappealing level design, to stop you from finding the good game hidden within. Well, Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is that game.

Set before the events of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic adventure story Treasure Island, Flint: Treasures of Oblivion follows the escapades of the eponymous Captain Flint. Taking place in the 17^th century, during the so-called ‘Golden Age of Piracy’, Treasure of Oblivion really does deliver on all of the Piratey shenanigans that anyone could ask for. Double crosses, betrayals, parrots and peg legs, this certainly ticks all the boxes that a fandom brought up on Pirates of the Caribbean movies could ask for. Storyline-wise, this is a fairly standard tale interestingly told.

Thanks to the expertly drawn comic book panels and speech bubbles that crop up during gameplay, Treasure of Oblivion rather nostalgically brings to mind the much-underrated Sega comic-inspired beat ‘em up Comix Zone; though without the fourth wall-breaking which defined that 1995 classic. As a big fan of comic books, I found this stylish method of storytelling immensely engaging, even if the narrative itself was a tired amalgam of a stereotypical pirate yarn.

Played from an isometric viewpoint, Treasure of Oblivion is ostensibly a strategy RPG, though, unfortunately, Savage Level have rather over-sugared the rum. Shoved into your standard TBS mechanics are card collection – to power your crews’ abilities – and dice rolling – to decide who hits who. Sure, many strategy games