En Garde!

En Garde is a tactical action fencing game where you play Adalia de Volador and defend her family's honor. The game is set in the 17th century with Spanish flair. The graphic is warm and comicy.

The game certainly doesn't want to be taken too seriously. The character, dialogs, graphics, music, and puns really drive home that En Garde! is a fun game for everyone.

What is serious about this game is the fighting mechanics. These are just top notch. Fighting is mostly fencing but Adalia keeps learning new tricks, can jump over tables, throw barrels, use the environment, parry and so on.

New mechanics are introduced at a good pace so you are constantly in between mastering current mechanics and figuring out how to best use the new ones.

And you better learn how to fight properly! Not only is it super fun to stun your enemies, let them get shot by cannons, push them into water, let chandeliers fall on them, or just plain out-fence them, but you also need to fight well to progress. Bosses are no joke and you need your skills - unless you are a fan of souls-like games and think Sekiro is a piece of cake.

The game is best played with a gamepad which makes it a fun game for the couch!

The backstory behind En Garde is also quite interesting. The game was the final year project of eight French game design students who used Unreal Engine 4 to create a prototype (the final game uses Unreal Engine 5 which shows).

The students decided to build the game on three pillars: "Sword Mastery", "Improvisation", and "Panache". Sword mastery is clear, you need to know how to use your sword. Improvisation is about interacting skillfully with the environment. Every fight should feel new and different locations offer other ways of using the environment. The last pillar "Panache" is all about style and pride. The fights should feel like spectacles, not boring chores. And this I think makes the game really stand out. Of course, you can often just blast through levels beating the enemies with more or less basic sword fighting but the fun really comes out once you taunt your enemies (Adalia will always have a nice line on her lips), jump over tables, and make a mess of the room you're fighting in.