Flint: Oblivion Treasure Review: A Pirate's Life for Some

Flint: Oblivion Treasure Review

Developed as the debut title from French studio Savage Level, Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is a tactical and engaging pirate experience. It's a drop of highly sought-after pirate content in a sea of ​​other stellar gaming properties. Beyond its story set during the Golden Age of Piracy, Flint's immediate appeal is its striking visuals. Running on Unreal Engine 5, Savage Level uses this technology in every beautiful frame.

The crisp animations and highly detailed environments do wonders for immersion. The waves crashing into the sea, the mud-soaked streets of France, and the magnificently built ship deck for an epic battle do wonders to draw players into the moment. Flint's story is told entirely through dialogue boxes. Mission-relevant moments are done in comic book style. Conversations between Flint and Billy Bones, among others, will also occur with small pop-ups. The font is a little small and the words appear too briefly to pay attention to what is being said and the game at the same time.

A beautiful and richly immersive world

Flint does a great job of establishing that there is a solid narrative in the game, but the execution of the dialogue makes it difficult to follow the story outside of the cutscenes. These conversations are the little details that help maintain immersion, so missing them is distracting to those trying to get into the experience. With all that said, the most notable feature I experienced while playing Flint is easily its innovative dice mechanic.

As an avid TTRPG fan, I've seen dozens of unique systems. Flint's combat system is ingenious, adding new layers to your strategy with each encounter. Your profession die and weapon die must reach a target number. As long as one is successful, one will still succeed. Different weapons have different dice combinations, so you can plan your chances of dealing significant damage accordingly. Along with individual character abilities and distance-based damage bonuses, there is a wealth of content to consider for the discerning strategist.

If a musket rolls 2d8, your profession die rolls a d8, and your target number is a 4, your chances of hitting the enemy are fantastic. If you don't like rolling and you have a lucky charm (which is plentiful), you can reroll all the dice. Certain weapons even have additional effects such as bleed, knockout, or even instant death. All of these features are attached to a d12 that rolls with great satisfaction after a successful attack.

Flint's dice mechanics are innovative and inspired

The combat in Flint also includes some cool interactions that I haven't experienced before in turn-based combat. Movement on the battlefield can include climbing to different heights, descending, and pushing. It doesn't always fire, but the pushing mechanic can make or break an encounter. If an enemy is at the end of your movement range, you can attempt to push them as part of the same movement action. A die is rolled. The target may resist, be pushed back one space, or you may miss and fall prone. However, you can also knock them to the ground. This leaves them vulnerable. You can stomp on them or attack them with a weapon while they are grounded.

I've had more than a few fights in Flint that turned the tide because I was able to knock an upset opponent to the ground. You may have noticed that this game uses a lot of dice rolls. It's something I'm sure Baldur's Gate 3 fans are already familiar with. Unfortunately, this also means that you are at the mercy of the RNG. I had to replay certain battles multiple times due to RNG.

Each character in your party has restrictive equipment. Consumables, weapons and armor occupy the same available slots. Instead of equipping them for what seems to be their optimal function, there have been situations where loadouts seem shoehorned in to counter RNG. In one battle, some enemy soldiers were seen wearing armor that absorbed some attacks and also had muskets and incredibly good dice rolls. Even equipping my entire crew with armor and sacrificing those valuable slots came down more to luck of the dice than skill in certain situations.

The (lack of) tutorial can turn players away

While Flint is absolutely covered in beauty, intrigue, and style, he fails with his tutorial. Instead of offering an interactive tutorial to teach the player the mechanics and features, Flint has a prompt on all loading screens to read the guide. Pressing a single button at any time will give you pages and pages of short descriptions. Even with my background in both video games and TTRPGs, it still took me a while to understand how things work. What is my target number to hit an enemy? How is it calculated? What do all these things do?

I still enjoyed my time with the game. Still, I often had to go back to this menu to figure out what an icon meant or how a feature worked. This broke the immersion that Flint had so carefully built for me to try to understand the notes. I would much rather have a tutorial (or even a series of small teaching segments) rather than having to stop the game to understand an icon.

The life of a pirate for me

Flint: Treasure of Oblivion is a beautiful, innovative and immersive pirate experience. The linear story, gorgeous settings, and multiple tactical layers of combat come together to create a much-needed story on the high seas. Their innovative dice system is truly inspiring. Unfortunately, the nature of RNG can make encounters sometimes feel unfair. Flint does a wonderful job of drawing players into this setting, but replacing a tutorial with a quick but brief manual shoots itself in the foot. Offering a little more guidance and easier-to-follow dialogue text would make this an accessible and fun adventure for players of all ages.

Its niche setting and multitude of combat options make Flint: Treasure of Oblivion best suited for methodical turn-based game fans and pirate enthusiasts. This is a game that will either frustrate you or make you fall in love with this classic pirate tale.

**A PS5 code was provided by the publisher**