[Short Disclaimer: I purchased The First Templar solely as a co-op romp, which I played with a friend. The game is completely capable of single player action, but I have not played through the game by myself with the AI controlling the second character.]
The Good
- All three playable characters have unique combos with plenty of varied skills
- Levels switch between action and puzzling to provide a break between the two
- Storyline is historically accurate in relation to the Templar organization (history geek!)
- Customizable character outfits with amazing textures
The Bad
- Guest players cannot assign XP points to their character by themselves
- Facebook integration seems broken for now
- Voice acting ranges from competent to "Wtf were they thinking?"
- Stealth mechanics are a little iffy and seem to work sporadically
I'm going to lay all my cards on the table up front. I'm a history geek and I have a bad habit of getting really excited about history games regardless if they're pre-destined to be mediocre. The last history game that snagged my money and provided me with lukewarm gameplay was Rise of the Argonauts. I left the game feeling somewhat disillusioned and wishing I hadn't plunked down the $25 for that tale, despite the historical setting. Thankfully, The First Templar doesn't count itself among the list of many historically based titles that have disappointed me.
Admittedly, my first experience with the game was a little off-putting, as it has Facebook integration that is supposed to make finding your friend's games easier. I'm always wary of games that want to link up to my Facebook account, but the permissions asked for by the app didn't seem too threatening. The problem I ran into was after setting up the integration, it failed to work. In order to find my friend's game, I had to constantly refresh the lobby menu that features no scrollbar.
However, once we were past the initial hiccup of finding each other, my experience with the game became much more enjoyable. The game starts with both players controlling either Celian, a sword and board tank style character, and Roland, a berserker fellow with a wicked temper. While players can seamlessly switch between these characters using RB, I found it's best to play the character suited to your play style without constant switching.
Each character has their own subset of skills that requires different button presses to execute the attacks, so sticking with the character you're familiar with makes it easier to master those attacks. Surprisingly, these attacks are quite varied. For example, playing as Celian, you can learn a charge, taunt, and whirlwind skills that will keep your partner safe while devastating enemies forced to attack you.
Some measure of tactics are required in fighting, as enemies come equipped with shields that are able to block most of your attacks until they are broken, while others have long reaching spears and pikes that can be devastating when attacking in groups. Understanding which attacks work best in certain situations means you and your partner can combine the longevity of Celian with the absolute devastation that both Roland and Marie bring to the table for an amazing co-op romp.
While the action portion of the combat is engaging and provides a number of tactics you can employ against groups of enemies, the game insists on featuring a stealth mechanic that feels like a tacked on piece of gameplay instead of one well thought out. Sneaking around is easy enough and in certain environments you can throw pots to distract your enemies, but more often than not as you run up to a group in order to take them out silently, they'll turn around for no reason and then the whole camp will spot you. This is frustrating in one particular mission where you must get through an entire camp of marauders without raising an alarm.
One thing that really impressed me with the game was the finishing moves afforded to each character. For example, Marie can vault over an enemy, quickly grab their neck with her thighs, and use her forward momentum to snap the neck all before tucking into a roll that brings her to her feet and ready to attack. For a budget game, I expected one or two attack finishers in this manner, but I counted no less than five different finishing animations for each character.
Unfortunately, the vocal portions of the game are much less polished than the animations. Marie d'Ibelin, described as a French noblewoman, speaks with an accent that seems as though she walked right out of a London pub. I really can't understand why the developers chose to go with an accent that clearly doesn't match the background of the character, when minor characters who yell at your party during battle sound as though they should be following up their jabs with a typical French laugh.
Voice acting problems aside, the story told within The First Templar is actually fairly historically accurate. Players must survive the infamous Friday the 13th hunt during which King Philip IV had all Templars arrested and tried for treason, as well as defending the city of Acre from siege by the Saracens. A nice touch that I enjoyed were a number of tablets hidden around the various levels called Chronicles. These chronicles contained bits of Templar history so if you're not familiar with the trials of the organization, you're not left wondering what the characters are going on about.
Another form of collectible items that are hidden throughout the game are numerous outfits for each of the three characters. These pieces are hidden throughout the levels in chests, so players are encouraged to go off the beaten path in order to find them. The two main characters, Celian and Marie, both have four outfits a piece with matching weapons, for a total of eight different sets of items to find per character. The textures for each of these sets has amazing detail, so while they afford no combat advantage and are purely cosmetic, I still found myself hunting for the pieces just to see them.
The game's main campaign is surprisingly lengthy for an action game. It took my partner and I around 15 hours to beat it, but there were a few backtracking moments in the levels to make sure we got all the treasure chests. The story is a very competent historical action game, if you can forgive the completely misplaced accents of Marie and a few other minor characters. Overall my partner and I had tons of fun coordinating our attacks to take down the enemy groups, and the break up of action and puzzling gameplay throughout the levels is balanced enough to keep you from getting bored of one or the other througout the course of the campaign.
The Steam version of the game came with exclusive content called the Arena, which we have yet to try. It appears to be a wave of enemies type challenge, similar to what Mad Moxxie was for Borderlands, which neither of us really have an interest in.
