FLAMBERGE

This game was abandoned by the person working on it years ago. Despite not being cancelled officially the dev has said nothing on it for several years and ghosted the discord set up for news and updates.

It's honestly a shame given the potential it has to be a great game once finished.

Last update was 5 years ago. Safe to say this game is abandoned.

Charming visuals and soundtrack, with really interesting combat.

Unfortunately also abandonware, which is a shame, because the parts of it playable are quite fun.

Super cool concept with lots of potential, but the dev abandoned it and moved on to other projects/became a politically outraged activist on twitter.

Abandoned game. Bought it 5 years ago, and since very little has happened.
Quite unfortunate since the premise and artstyle was promising...

There's about as much content as a demo...and there hasn't been much more in 4 years. What there is is lovely and fun and awesome, but I can't in good conscience recommend spending $10 for it. It would be honorable for the developer to make the price $3 or so, take responsibility for the fact that it's not getting finished any time soon, and let people make an honest exchange for the value on offer.

Great concept, nice pixelart, fun mechanics.

To the dev: You'll better finish this or you'll regret it all your life. It really is a diamond in the rough! Looking forward to any projects you start after this.

One update in May of 2019, nothing since then... Another vaporware title, my faith in Early Access titles these days is dubious at best. Too bad, it was an interesting premise, but unless it actually begins development look else where.

Update:

I did some digging on Discord. Had to go really rouse the town for information. From those that know (knew?) him, the dev seems to have really just... Disappeared. Straight up ghosted everyone after the multiplayer update a few years ago. That said, he has apparently been sighted at game jams from time to time... (so it's not like he's been spirited away or anything)
Yes, I would say it is possible he ran with the money after he got enough sales.
The prevailing theory from those I spoke with was that it was too ambitious for the guy, and he just decided to silently drop the game.
That said, the lack of communication is extremely unprofessional. And it does border on a scam: the store page still implies that there is an intent to finish the game, despite it clearly being dropped, notwithstanding the disclaimer that the game has little content.

It is still a good game though. Legit fun, though criminally short. I haven't tried the multiplayer update, but it's apparently quite fun.

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Original review:

Despite statements as to the opposite, this game appears to be on hiatus indefinitely. The game hasn't been updated since mid-2018 (someone please correct me), and the developer has been silent about the game on his Twitter (although nevertheless, in his bio he states that he's working on it), and the game's official twitter page hasn't posted since January of 2020.
I bought this game because I saw great potential, and I expected it to be finished. 90% chance it will stay in its current state, until the heat death of the universe puts an end to the last of Valve's servers. It has some content, yes - but to be honest, I am quite irritated about how I was mislead, and I would urge you to not buy this game until the dev gets his stuff together and finishes this shit.

No updates to continue the story since August 2018.

probably a scam.

Flamberge is a genuinely interesting game.

It is a 2D Turn Based Strategy RPG, with real-time action delicately mixed in, and is viewed from above the battlefield, like X-COM, Fire Emblem, or Advance Wars.

Combat is, while interesting and in-depth, a bit awkward. Each class has an attack, a defensive maneuver, and a third special ability, which keeps things simple. However, the application of these abilities in an actual fight is where things get interesting.

PLANNING PHASE: During this phase, you decide where your characters move to, and what action they will take. Unlike the games listed above, your characters do not move when you give them the command, instead "executing" your commands in real time after ending the planning phase. Movement is not placed on a grid, allowing for more freedom of movement. which is important when attempting to gauge your enemy's possible moves. You can also use "totems", which I'll explain later. During this time, you can also see the movement range, the vision range, and the intent of enemies, whether they're going to move, attack, and who they're planning on attacking.

EXECUTION PHASE: Once you've planned out all of your party's actions, both your units and the enemy units move at the same time, which means planning ahead, predicting movements, and careful positioning is key to winning a fight. Characters will move along the designated line you give them, and will perform actions when they finish moving, whether that be an attack or an item.

COMBAT: Notably, most attacks have 3 different targeting styles: Auto, Adjusted, and Manual. Auto will wait and detect a target within a large radius, and automatically attack them, but will deal the least damage. Adjusted deals more, but covers a smaller, targeted area. Manual is the strongest, but there is no room for error when it comes to aiming it. This creates an interesting dynamic: Risky or calculated plays for big damage, or safe attacks that guarantee a hit, but doing less?

Unfortunately, the answer is rarely Auto. Hit points and Damage numbers start small, and the damage reduction from Auto attacks early on are not as punishing. However, once enemies gain flat damage reduction through armor, Auto attacks deal literally 0 damage. This isn't a problem for a more experience or calculating player, but for others, it'll hamper the experience and make combat nigh impossible. However, there are some design features, intentional or not, that push back these problems.

1. Large-scale fights are also escape missions. Instead of taking on a legion of foes that require perfect aim and precision to defeat each enemy, most maps that feature mobs of foes also allow you to win by bringing your units to the other side of the map and escaping, thus eliminating the need for a player who may be crutched by Auto to suddenly switch up their play style.

2. Big fights that don't allow escapes are typically featured in tight environments. Cave systems and tunnels don't allow enemies much freedom of movement, and hitting an enemy in these areas is typically a straight shot, regardless of whether they're moving or not.

3. Sprawling battlefields are taken in small steps. Enemies will spot your characters individually, and do not raise alarms to every other enemy on the map, allowing weaker players to more easily digest longer missions.

4. Totems. Totems are special powers usable once per map each, and they also are used instantly, plus they tend to adapt to whatever play style the player is using. Bloodthirsty commanders will be able to buff their party's damage. Stealthy players can stun and ambush foes. Evasive players can grant invisibility to their units.

While these don't solve the issue of a skill floor in Flamberge, they do allow for less experienced players to progress through the game without hitting a brick wall because of how they chose to play the game.

STORY: The story is intriguing, and sets up a cool scenario, but the story is not yet finished or detailed, as it's early access. The world is very beautiful and despite its art limitations, the pixel art is exceptionally done.

MUSIC and ART: Each song brings me back to old school JRPGS and Pokemon, specifically from the old GBA era, which meshes with the art style extremely well.

This game is fantastic. Its battle system, story, music, art, everything strikes a chord with me. I'm just sad that it's still early access, and that HYDEZEKE hasn't touched the game for some time. Currently, I have 4 hours in the game, from start to finish. It's not quite worth $10 currently, but if and when the game is finished, it definitely will be worth it.

this game has changed plenty of times since i first played it, while unfinished its gameplay is totally unique unique and fun, with the turns of both your party and the enemy playing out simultaneously. the game is only unfinished, i would say in it's campaign and story which sadly i have hit the end of multiple times before an update brought new content. i have at least 10 more hours of playtime offline from playing this game while travelling on laptop.

It's interesting variation of hide-and-strike game with elements of strategy. There is also a story.

Every unit (quite a lot of them so far: soldier, swordsman, knight, rouge, etc. and a RAM, loool) have a bit different abilities. You are to position your troops and strike enemy down in one turn. There are some interesting mechanics like planting bushes where you can then hide.

My biggest grip is auto-finishing battles while there are some items still lying around. But why?
I have executed this Black Knight and now I want to TAKE this YELLOW SUPER SWORD!!

I recommend helping a fellow developer to finish this game.

The combat system has some cool ideas, but the game does very little with them, battles just increase in scale slightly, no new mechanics are added. Plus, this game simply has way too little content to be worth 10€. If you really want to support these developers and don't care that the campaign is over in 2 hours, buy it, but if you actually want something to play, I suggest you wait a year or two and then see what they have added.

Flamberge is actually a very fun game for the brief duration of its campaign.

The "part turn based, part real time" combat system is surprisingly well made. It certainly adds a deeper level of strategy to the game and it keeps you on your toes. The graphics, music, and general themex are reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, although there are no "magic" elements like wizards. (at least so far) It is also slightly reminiscent of SNES or DS games.

Unfortunately the campaign is only about 3 hours long. And the "Challenge Editor" which allows you to design skirmish fights still needs work and, at least to me, wasn't that appealing.

I think Flamberge has a lot of potential, and I am certainly open to changing the review after some major updates, but with the amount of content the game has to offer I can't recommend it for the price.

This is a great take on 2-D, turn-based strategy games, very similar in design to the Combat Mission series of games, but with a Fantasy-RPG perspective. The game's core game-play (so far) focuses on the Planning and Execute phase.

During the Planning Phase, you move your characters around the map within the limitations of your characters movement ability in 5 second segments and issue orders to attack based on (typically) 3 different parameters: Auto, Adjusted, and Manual. Auto involves a zone-of-control where any visible enemy that falls within that radius gets attacked, but enemies take less damage; Adjusted allows you to place a smaller attack radius within a certain distance of your character and attacks any enemy that falls within that radius, for normal damage; Manual has no attack radius and relies on direct contact and inflicts the most damage of the three, but requires being able to predict the enemies location precisely.

Once you've planned all your character's actions, you can then hit the Execute button to watch it all play out in 5 seconds of real-time. Rinse-wash-repeat. It takes a little bit of time to get the hang of it, but the game-play emphasizes predicting your enemies movements and attacks (there is an indicator to tell you which character a specific enemy is targeting) which I do like, but can be a bit easy fighting an enemy one-on-one. Fortunately, many of the fights involve multiple characters and enemies to juggle and to me, that's where the complexity lies.

On paper, you would think it would turn into a "they're attacking so I defend, ad nauseam" kind of game-play, but there are things you can do to affect the outcome of battle, like intercepting other enemies and applying an attack or defensive option as they attack a weaker or near-dead character (thereby protecting them), so long as you can get in the way of the enemy. Because of this, the combat doesn't turn into a simple slug-fest and is very refreshing, forcing you to consider many options, and not just in terms of pure statistics.

Graphic-wise, the game has a really nice pixel-art, 8-bit aesthetic, reminiscent of "Sword & Sorcery" (but then again, it could just be the limitations of pixel art games) with beautifully rendered environments and character designs (within the limitations of pixel art, again), with the characters a nice mix of eastern and western influences (it seems). Throughout the game there are numerous little touches here and there (such as on the world map, how the clouds seem to move and part, revealing some areas of the map) that add to the feel and look of the world and give it a level of ambiance that some games are sorely lacking.

Music-wise, they have done an incredible job as well, with the style of music bringing me back to the days of Chrono-trigger, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics, not in the sense of a carbon copy, but one that has the trappings and nostalgia of the era, with a personality all its own. The tracks are varied, beautiful, appropriate to the mood, and are a key component in providing a sense of wonder (along with the graphics). They go hand in hand very well.

Story-wise, the game is good, although key elements of the story are not really revealed in the current build of the game (purposely done) and it's understandable since the game isn't complete as of yet. What exists is definitely intriguing, although it's too early to say whether it's something of a standard fare or something different, or maybe a bit of both. I'm hoping it strays more from its JRPG roots to give something less standard, but I also appreciate an uncompromising story told by the author, as long as it is told well.

I personally love the game so far, although it should be said that this game is far from complete and is being made by an extremely small team (of 2, I believe), so you should consider that if you plan to purchase the game. I would expect to see infrequent updates due to the time commitments of the two developers, with patience and understanding being a prerequisite when purchasing this game.

The reason I bought the game was because I tried the demo and loved it, and the $10 price tag was a small sum to pay for an interesting game like this, with the expectation that, as more content is developed and expanded upon, it will be well worth my time and money in the long run (plus a developer needs to eat), but it isn't without it's caveats. Balance and design seems to still be in process, so expect things to change for better or worse, depending on your mindset.

I definitely recommend this game, but only if you are prepared to deal with it's long gestation time and the constraints of the developers. Going into the game like that, it made it much easier for me to accept the 3 hours of game-play that it offers, but if this is a tip of the iceberg, then the rest, once developed, should be a very unique and enjoyable experience.

A real gem amongst the indie RPG genre. The combat is fun and engaging, although I'd hope that in the end product there was a higher amount of character customization / classes / class options.

It's sort of like a single-player Atlas Reactor with a pixel art style. At this point, it's only worth your dollar if you like supporting really cool concepts; the content only spans a couple hours, so you may want to hold off if you were craving a full game.

I still highly recommend it to you if you think this is your cup of tea. It's very charming and well-done, such as it is.

EDIT: After playing through this game after a few content updates, I really, really noticed the excellent sound design and soundtrack this game offers. It's really amazing and beautiful. Still highly recommend, probably even more than when I orginally wrote this review because there's a little more to do!

It is a charming game with unique gameplay and a lot of personality. Current content took me just 2 hours to complete, though. It has potential, but currently relies too much on stealth and puzzle-like elements and less in tactics. If it went more into the direction of Fire Emblem or other SRPGs, with more emphasys on stats and unit rock-paper-scissors it could be really great.

Only buy right now if you wish to support the devs. The content available right now is a mere preview.

Although the game is still in development I'd recommend supporting it. It's got a long road ahead of it. From what I played I'd be happy to see it through to the end.

Pros:

-Simplistic yet beautiful art style that does a good job of capturing the scale of things, especially when looking at scenery while zoomed out.

-The Gameplay is new and fresh, with a unique style and spin on tactics that makes you think on your toes and really makes having good tactics a necessary measure for success. I can't see myself being bored of it, kind of like Fire Emblem although very different in a lot of major ways.

-New mechanics are added quite frequently making each level more fresh and interesting especially when the stealth feature comes along.

-The soundtrack is amazing... A perfect blend of old and new, with undertones of pixely noises and an explosion of gushing fantasy adventure melodies that really speaks the game's nature without you even seeing it. The one track that really stands out is The Steppe which I might have to start listening to on a daily basis.

-Boss fights that are spectacular and really force you to use the mechanics of the game to your advantage.

Cons:

-The game of course, is still in development, I haven't encountered any game-breaking bugs but error messages do occasionally pop up on screen when dealing with a certain type of enemy. Which can get annoying.

-Again, it's in early access for a reason. I was able to complete it in two hours which is an incredibly short amount of time, but the game is not finished. There are only currently two sort-of chapters in the game, each ending with a boss fight. And while I enjoyed my time with it, I find myself only wishing there was more I could play.

-The story... This one is a bit in the middle I would say. At the beginning the story is a bit run-of-the-mill not really anything to get too excited over or really be invested in. But I can clearly see it picking up later on as at the end of the second boss fight I did find myself wanting to know what was going to happen.

Conclusion:

All and all, I'd urge you to put your money into this and support it. It's going somewhere, even though it was released two years ago it clearly has places that need to be visited and ideas that need exploring. I see myself coming back to this game each time they announce that something new is being added. I'm very saddened to see such an amazing work fall under the radar, this game really needs a spotlight, it's clearly something more than the usual thousands of games that get released each month. I want Flamberge to succeed and I think you should too.

CARFUL - VERY LITTLE CONTENT!

And yet I'd recommend it, if you can throw money at a good gameidea.
The fighting system is rather unique, letting you choose between straight up skillshots for extra damage, semi-guided and lock on attacks for the least DMG.

I like it.
But if you don't want to support indies, its not worth it, since the content is about 2-3 hours at the time of this review.

Got this game on release, and I've loved it since. Development does come in patches, but I personally have no problem with that. The gameplay is extremely solid. You and the enemy plan out your move, then it's executed at the same time. It's easy to understand, but can take a decent amount of strategy. In Singleplayer you can equip items for your characters and promote them. The multiplayer is some of the most fun I've had in PvP in a long time. It's currently down as of this review, but will be put back in when the game is finished. It also has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game.