The Falconeer Review — Holds its Own, Despite a Shaky Takeoff

Flight combat simulators have gotten some rather unique takes over the years, including anthropomorphized animals piloting fighters in infinite and riders piloting dragons in a traditional fantasy world. The Falconeer puts another interesting twist on the genre, with pilots riding on giant falcons outfitted with powerful weaponry as they fight pirates and consummate a wide range of missions.

"What makes The Falconeer so highly-seasoned is how both the premise and shipping of choice, a giant falcon, makes the game uniquely attractive to those who ordinarily wouldn't be interested in the genre."

Players start in the prologue, as they witness a routine preparation session gone horribly wrong and fight a losing battle confronting an insurmountable foe. From there, y'all play as a new character and journey with them every bit they build up their status from a simple hired paw protecting a nation of merchants from sky pirates. Conversely, you lot could join a completely unlike faction, depending on how y'all choose your path at the start.

Foes at commencement are comprised of a basic variety of sky pirates, thugs who casualty on and plunder the weak. The enemy variety so grows to incorporate large airships, flight beetles, manta rays, and even the dragon-like weavers. And each enemy blazon features unique motion patterns and specialties that players must become accustomed to in order to prevail.

The controls for these aerial battles are precise and unproblematic enough to learn, nonetheless crave practise to fully chief techniques such as learning how to minimize energy lost during your ascents while gaining speed with rapid descents. It'due south likewise important to learn how to maintain proper positioning, and then the boxing to control the skies above your foes becomes even more crucial.

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Learning how to aim the reticle for precise firing is non only a necessary skill to efficiently have downwardly enemies, but too vital in conserving your charge for weapons. Said weapon packs tin can only be charged by entering a thunderstorm, so proper rationing of your express resources also becomes an of import cistron.

What makes The Falconeer then appealing is how both the premise and aircraft of choice, a giant falcon, makes the game uniquely attractive to those who normally wouldn't exist interested in the genre. Because honestly, who doesn't love the idea of getting to ride on a giant animal companion while fighting sky pirates and dragons in a gorgeous ocean world? Particularly when said warbird controls far smoother and more organically than whatever plane or ship could ever promise. Non to mention, it certainly injects a refreshing modify to a genre that suffers from a lack of variety.

Exterior the complexities of battle, however, lies a surprisingly empty world. The lore is fascinating with only enough intrigue and detail to captivate your attending immediately. Meanwhile, the visuals and architecture are stunning, as it uses its vibrant colour palette and stylized graphics to great upshot. But when y'all finally are able to fully dive into said earth, there's non much to do except explore the few areas to buy wares, fight, keep repetitive side quests to earn extra money, and push the primary story forward.

It's disappointing to say the least, and the main cause for information technology is clearly the over-ambitious open world environment. The Falconeer, like many other open up world titles, suffers from having very lilliputian to actually do in such a setting. This is a game that would have strongly benefited from being more linear, as something smaller in scope leaves far more room to fill with better-developed points of interest, flight paths, and a fully fleshed out lore that capitalizes on what was so tantalizing teased to us in the offset.

Some other substandard attribute of The Falconeer is the very limited character creation. While I enjoy the fact that I can cull from several variations of pilots and falcons, and you can even cull your own origin story, information technology'southward even so not a proper customization mode. Moreover, the origin story has little begetting on making the game experience any more engaging or distinct once started. Even worse, the pilot has absolutely no personality, which makes the determination to not take a full graphic symbol creator fifty-fifty more inexplainable.

Players have the pick of choosing from 4 classes: Falconeer, Mercenary, Imperial Freelancer, and Mancer Seeker. These classes not simply change what your falcon looks like and form role of your backstory, just besides determines said falcon'south stat and skill specialization. Though, despite the voiced guide, the game doesn't make this distinct class arrangement clear in the beginning so you're left experimenting with various configurations until yous larn this for yourself.

And where the game fails in customizing the looks of the falcon, at that place are some great options for customizing how they play in battle thanks to both the aforementioned class system and another mechanic. Substantially you earn splinters to upgrade your falcon's gear, mutagens, and chants. This can range from changing the weapons equipped on yous, to how yous boost your falcon's abilities, and more.

Having that kind of command over how your companion plays during dogfights and fine-tuning them to best suit your playstyle helps keep gameplay engaging when the story does zippo of the sort. You lot can even buy falcons as yous proceed in the story and earn more money, offer fifty-fifty more opportunities to create the perfect flyer that works for you.

"The selection to make this an open up earth championship truly holds information technology dorsum from the greatness it could have achieved."

The Falconeer is very much a labor of love — you can see how much time and effort its sole creator put into its development and that shines through in its gameplay and the beauty of the setting. Combat is fast, fun, with a fantastic strategic border while the graphics and designs are bright and striking. However, the pick to brand this an open world title truly holds information technology back from the greatness it could have achieved and results in a game filled with potential that'south simply partially realized.

That being said, considering that The Falconeer was developed past a single person makes it a far more than impressive attempt. And despite its pitfalls, information technology's a solid entry in the combat flight simulator genre that'south more than than worth checking out.

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Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/the-falconeer-review/

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