During the 80s and 90s the video game world, for many of us, was already a very important part of our lives. The birth of the first journals dedicated to the interactive medium was a revolution in terms of the way to bring the information to the fine
user . At that time, see the new advances in 2D graphics, where the number of sprites , their size and the evolution in their animation system were throwing jewels like Day of the Tentacle or Earthworm Jim ,
was only possible through those pages of paper and, on rare occasions, through Demos (unforgettable Micro Hobby magazine) or VHS tapes that
we burned to the point of satiety in the living room of our houses (who still remembers Super Nintendo Super Super ?).
A title like the one that concerns us, whose objective is to build a playable proposal based on mechanics, aesthetic resources and interactive factors inspired by the 8 and 16 bit era, can easily bring out the nostalgic factor in us . And it is that, to travel
the space aboard your ship as an intergalactic pirate while you face many dangers, it is easy to fall back on the almost forgotten habitual phrase
while we looked through the last issue of Micromania: if you already look good looking at the images and reading what they say about him, imagine when we see him moving.
His character Roguelike will make us face complicated situations.
PIXEL ART
It is very possible that this contemporary side is already, for many, a concept so established in the independent scene that its capacity
for surprise has been extinguished and even iterated so many times that it is something trite. But when things are done
with love, taste for detail and, above all, vocation in terms of playable design is concerned, appear-let us once again the eternal paradox- small great jewels as programmed by the Canadian studio Tribute Games .
Under a cartoon wrap of great sympathy and remarkable artistic direction hides a multidisciplinary title. With a Rogue-lite structure based on
the overcoming of random generation dungeons without save points (in this case stations, barges and starships) inspired by original titles such as
Sword of Fargoal or the most recent Rogue Legacy , a charisma of action plataformera with flashes of Eartworm Jim or Super Metroid , and the use of the
hook as the main playable resource when moving around the stage (in true Bionic Commando style ), FlintHookit is claimed as a challenging
two-dimensional experience. Tribute ensures that the dozens of rooms that make up its procedural system are carefully designed by hand, both in arrangement of elements and in placement of traps and enemies, a fact that is truly meritorious.
Slowing down time will be essential to get out of some other quagmire.
The argument does not have too much chicha; namely, in the role of a small pirate with a bounty-hunting vocation, we will
travel the galaxy in search of treasure and fortune, overcoming a multitude of space criminals , while we obtain artifacts that allow us to govern our ship (at the stroke of a stellar anchor). the most inhospitable places we can imagine.
Our ultimate goal? To defeat a malevolent treasure hunter whose intentions go to dominate the entire universe awakening an ancestral being. But, beyond this backdrop, it is in its playable facet where we will find the true magnitude of Flinthook.
LIGHTS, SHOTS, PLATFORMS AND …. ACTION!
And is that Flinthook has an agile, deep and more than sufficient control to get over the (sometimes very difficult) challenges that the title poses through various mechanisms.
The first time we got to the controls of the game we were surprised not to use the crosshead to control the protagonist: we understood i
t ipso facto. Despite its retro character, once we get into the core we will see ourselves jumping from platform to pla
tform while we help ourselves from our hook to reach points of grip and push ourselves towards different zones, while we shoot right and left
with our Plasma gun by means of an analog sight. This means that, at the level of control, we are not tied to the classic 8 directions proposed by the pad neither to shoot nor to launch our hook, fact that allows us a freedom of 360º.
The use of the hook, another fundamental part for the Flinthook domain.
In less than singing a pirate parrot we will see ourselves immersed in a salad of shots, jumps, traps, lightning, guns and battles against
final enemies that will make our life bar shrink quickly if we are not careful. And that happens to control two important factors of the
game that concerns us: the use of the hook and the use of one of the basic powers of Blinthook : slow down the passage of time for a brief moment .
Once we have passed the test we will see ourselves entering a room, advancing in a brilliant way between grabs while we destroy several
enemies (quite varied by the way), we slow down the time to cross force fields, we throw a grenade to a group of corsairs that were at our
feet (effectively there are secondary items), dodging lethal laser traps and collect our deserved booty without having suffered damage during the brawl. It sounds exciting, right?
