So a couple of weeks ago I was watching someone on Twitch play Shovel Knight: Dig. To avoid going too deep into it, I'll just say the game didn't look that great to me. But while watching, I couldn't help but be reminded of another misguided, disappointing rogue-lite 2D platformer with great pixel art...
I remember Flinthook having a decent amount of hype behind it as it was coming out. Previews for the game were positive. The game's great pixel art, endearing protagonist design, and pitch of 2D platforming centered around using a grappling hook caught the attention of many people. But when the game came out, pretty much everyone was underwhelmed by what's actually present in this game. I was among them, but it's been long enough that I wondered to myself "maybe that game is good?" I certainly would live in a happier world if this game was good instead of bad, so I decided to try and give it a second chance, and unfortunately, I've only come out more negative than I did back in 2017.
One of Flinthook's biggest problems is that it doesn't take advantage of the strengths of roguelikes/lites (going to say lite from now on sorry if it's wrong). You pick up perks, but they're all very mundane stuff like "increase your HP" or "increase your rate of fire", or trade-offs like "get more XP but at the cost of recovering less health". My favorite roguelites all involve being able to find stuff that will completely turn a run on its head. Something like a completely different weapon that requires a different of gameplay, a passive ability or inflicted curse that makes you reconsider your plan for the run, or something so overpowered that you end up rinsing the first parts of the game. That spontaneity and excitement are why I would ever seek this genre out, and none of that energy is here. You have your pistol, and you can make it do slightly different things, but you still play basically the same way throughout the entire game.
This is another thing the game fumbles: the length, or rather the game's entire structure. Rather than have you try to get as far in one run of the entire game, Flinthook divides itself into distinct "ships", each made up of several stages. The stages must all be finished in one run, but the ships are separate from each other, and beating one unlocks the other. Once one is beaten, you don't have to do it again. This honestly doesn't sound like a bad idea and may allow for a more accessible roguelite. The problem is that these levels feel and look almost exactly alike, the only difference being increased difficulty through adding more shit to hurt you in every room. Sometimes there are new enemies or obstacles, but they just feel like slightly adjusted versions of stuff earlier in the game. So when you beat one stage of mostly similar rooms and repetitive combat scenarios, only to be told you need to go through 3 more just for the chance to fight the boss and proceed to the next ship that will also have the same kinds of rooms and gameplay, it weirdly ends up being even more demoralizing than losing in a regular roguelite, the road ahead ends up seeming longer and not as rewarding.
It doesn't help that leveling up mostly just gets you a new perk, which we've established are all kind of boring, and you often end up getting multiple of the same perk rather than something new. There's an upgrades shop, but it's all stuff like increasing health and the number of perks you can equip. There are sub-weapons to unlock, but, at least from what I've played, they are not weapons you start with in a run. Rather, you find them in a stage, and you can use them exactly once. You can't even carry multiple of the same weapon, so I ended up just carrying this one bomb for the entire ship because I never found a place I wanted to waste it. The game outright refuses to have any actual customization in play or spontaneity, it very much has one specific idea of what it wants to be and works against the structure of a roguelite to do so.
Unfortunately, I forgot where I read this claim or who wrote it but I believe it was from a review on this website. This person, in a review of a game with roguelite mechanics, said that 2D platformers are not compatible with these mechanics and that 2D platformer roguelites are in general bad. I hesitated to agree with this when I read it at the time, but Flinthook provides the perfect example of why this kind of take can exist. I already mentioned how every level looks the same and rooms are so generic in structure that playing through them immediately becomes a slog, but it's not helped by how basic the gameplay itself is. Since there's no spontaneity in mechanics and power-ups, you would hope that good game feel and moment-to-moment gameplay would still hold this game up, but combat and platforming feel unremarkable outside of how off they feel. Combat involves walking up to enemies, shooting them with your gun, and maybe grappling onto them to remove a shield. You have to avoid their attacks at the same time, but the only options to do so are to run away or grapple somewhere, and the grapple more often than not will just throw you into another enemy to take damage from. Despite the entire game being built around a grappling hook, you only really use it to swing by grappling points and open doors, and occasionally take a shield off an enemy. So combat very quickly gets stale, and traversing the ship isn't that rewarding due to how cramped the space is, as well as how repetitive the level design is. Imagine a Wily stage in a Mega Man game that went on forever and also you could only use the standard blaster. The grappling mechanic doesn't allow for very precise movement, so trying to avoid obstacles can become a chore. The game has a slowing down time mechanic that isn't even fun to use and is mostly for making it past obstacles that require it. Also, if you're using a controller, you can only use the analog stick for movement, which just feels worse than moving with a d-pad. This means the strengths of 2D platforming are missing here, and if this isn't a good roguelite or a good 2D platformer then there's nothing here for anyone.
A feel kind of bad ragging on a now 5-year-old indie game most people have forgotten about, but I've weirdly always had this game in the back of my mind as something I should finish one day. I tend to try my best to finish games, even if I don't like them very much, but the really bad structure of this game dissuaded me from trying that, so I'm glad I revisited this just to reassure myself there isn't anything here for me. It's sad though because I do love the character design of the main guy (is his name Flinthook?), I simply wish he was in a better game.
I remember Flinthook having a decent amount of hype behind it as it was coming out. Previews for the game were positive. The game's great pixel art, endearing protagonist design, and pitch of 2D platforming centered around using a grappling hook caught the attention of many people. But when the game came out, pretty much everyone was underwhelmed by what's actually present in this game. I was among them, but it's been long enough that I wondered to myself "maybe that game is good?" I certainly would live in a happier world if this game was good instead of bad, so I decided to try and give it a second chance, and unfortunately, I've only come out more negative than I did back in 2017.
One of Flinthook's biggest problems is that it doesn't take advantage of the strengths of roguelikes/lites (going to say lite from now on sorry if it's wrong). You pick up perks, but they're all very mundane stuff like "increase your HP" or "increase your rate of fire", or trade-offs like "get more XP but at the cost of recovering less health". My favorite roguelites all involve being able to find stuff that will completely turn a run on its head. Something like a completely different weapon that requires a different of gameplay, a passive ability or inflicted curse that makes you reconsider your plan for the run, or something so overpowered that you end up rinsing the first parts of the game. That spontaneity and excitement are why I would ever seek this genre out, and none of that energy is here. You have your pistol, and you can make it do slightly different things, but you still play basically the same way throughout the entire game.
This is another thing the game fumbles: the length, or rather the game's entire structure. Rather than have you try to get as far in one run of the entire game, Flinthook divides itself into distinct "ships", each made up of several stages. The stages must all be finished in one run, but the ships are separate from each other, and beating one unlocks the other. Once one is beaten, you don't have to do it again. This honestly doesn't sound like a bad idea and may allow for a more accessible roguelite. The problem is that these levels feel and look almost exactly alike, the only difference being increased difficulty through adding more shit to hurt you in every room. Sometimes there are new enemies or obstacles, but they just feel like slightly adjusted versions of stuff earlier in the game. So when you beat one stage of mostly similar rooms and repetitive combat scenarios, only to be told you need to go through 3 more just for the chance to fight the boss and proceed to the next ship that will also have the same kinds of rooms and gameplay, it weirdly ends up being even more demoralizing than losing in a regular roguelite, the road ahead ends up seeming longer and not as rewarding.
It doesn't help that leveling up mostly just gets you a new perk, which we've established are all kind of boring, and you often end up getting multiple of the same perk rather than something new. There's an upgrades shop, but it's all stuff like increasing health and the number of perks you can equip. There are sub-weapons to unlock, but, at least from what I've played, they are not weapons you start with in a run. Rather, you find them in a stage, and you can use them exactly once. You can't even carry multiple of the same weapon, so I ended up just carrying this one bomb for the entire ship because I never found a place I wanted to waste it. The game outright refuses to have any actual customization in play or spontaneity, it very much has one specific idea of what it wants to be and works against the structure of a roguelite to do so.
Unfortunately, I forgot where I read this claim or who wrote it but I believe it was from a review on this website. This person, in a review of a game with roguelite mechanics, said that 2D platformers are not compatible with these mechanics and that 2D platformer roguelites are in general bad. I hesitated to agree with this when I read it at the time, but Flinthook provides the perfect example of why this kind of take can exist. I already mentioned how every level looks the same and rooms are so generic in structure that playing through them immediately becomes a slog, but it's not helped by how basic the gameplay itself is. Since there's no spontaneity in mechanics and power-ups, you would hope that good game feel and moment-to-moment gameplay would still hold this game up, but combat and platforming feel unremarkable outside of how off they feel. Combat involves walking up to enemies, shooting them with your gun, and maybe grappling onto them to remove a shield. You have to avoid their attacks at the same time, but the only options to do so are to run away or grapple somewhere, and the grapple more often than not will just throw you into another enemy to take damage from. Despite the entire game being built around a grappling hook, you only really use it to swing by grappling points and open doors, and occasionally take a shield off an enemy. So combat very quickly gets stale, and traversing the ship isn't that rewarding due to how cramped the space is, as well as how repetitive the level design is. Imagine a Wily stage in a Mega Man game that went on forever and also you could only use the standard blaster. The grappling mechanic doesn't allow for very precise movement, so trying to avoid obstacles can become a chore. The game has a slowing down time mechanic that isn't even fun to use and is mostly for making it past obstacles that require it. Also, if you're using a controller, you can only use the analog stick for movement, which just feels worse than moving with a d-pad. This means the strengths of 2D platforming are missing here, and if this isn't a good roguelite or a good 2D platformer then there's nothing here for anyone.
A feel kind of bad ragging on a now 5-year-old indie game most people have forgotten about, but I've weirdly always had this game in the back of my mind as something I should finish one day. I tend to try my best to finish games, even if I don't like them very much, but the really bad structure of this game dissuaded me from trying that, so I'm glad I revisited this just to reassure myself there isn't anything here for me. It's sad though because I do love the character design of the main guy (is his name Flinthook?), I simply wish he was in a better game.
AlexTheGerman
10 months ago
Too bad about Flinthook, this really could have been something great.