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Mixed or average reviews - based on 23 Critic Reviews What's this?

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5.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 37 Ratings

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  • Summary: Generations of poisonous decisions and treason swirl in the deep, as factions collide. Become the Falconeer and soar through the skies aboard a devastatingly powerful Warbird. Uncover secrets lost to the sea as you join or oppose different factions and clans scattered throughout The GreatGenerations of poisonous decisions and treason swirl in the deep, as factions collide. Become the Falconeer and soar through the skies aboard a devastatingly powerful Warbird. Uncover secrets lost to the sea as you join or oppose different factions and clans scattered throughout The Great Ursee. Take advantage of multiple Falconeer classes with individual stats, weapons and warbirds that can be upgraded through winning battles, completing quests, discovering secrets, or applying Mutagens or Chants. Use ocean thermals and energy to dive, dodge, barrel-roll, and twist to gain an advantage. The Falconeer is an open-world air combat game, featuring fast, brutal aerial dogfights and deep exploration of an incredible fantasy open-world set not only above the clouds, but also amongst the waves and down through the sunken, ocean depths. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 23
  2. Negative: 1 out of 23
  1. Nov 16, 2020
    80
    The Falconeer is a resounding success in every major area. It’s a gorgeous game that plays like a dream and has more ambition than most games of its type. It has a nice, fair challenge to it and helps ease players into the action by wisely teaching you without going out of its way hold your hand beyond the early going. It’s got an intuitive design and is a must for anyone who loves games like Panzer Dragoon Orta or Crimson Skies. Anyone in the mood for a new dogfighting-style game will instantly fall in love with The Falconeer.
  2. Nov 6, 2020
    75
    The Falconeer is one of those games that forgets that it can be more than just a game, giving more importance to its mechanical elements than to the experience itself. However, even with its design flaws, Tomas Sala still manages to create a great title that can be fun, beautiful and really human, thus becoming one of the most singular products of this year.
  3. Dec 22, 2020
    75
    The Falconeer absolutely has its high points, and all of the elements of a great game are there. It’s just disappointing that they don’t gel enough to be wholly satisfying. Visually, the game is stunning, without caveat. The combat can be exhilarating … at its best. The story can be interesting, even fascinating … sometimes. The game’s heights are extreme, but so are its lulls.
  4. Nov 6, 2020
    70
    I find myself a little perplexed by The Falconeer. I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game, but it almost felt like I was doing so in spite of how I felt about the gameplay. I do think The Falconeer is going to find an audience that loves it wholeheartedly, but also that there will be plenty of others for whom this falls a bit flat too.
  5. Nov 12, 2020
    70
    The biggest flaw in The Falconeer is trying to be an aerial action RPG. While this isn't going to be your type of game if you are looking for a more traditional RPG, The Falconeer invites you to disconnect and start flying without any limits, an experience that no one should miss.
  6. Nov 8, 2020
    70
    It would be ungenerous to deny the good basic qualities of Tomas Sala's work, such as to ensure that this peculiar "bird's eye" combat simulator has a certain solidity, at least on the technical-artistic front. What emerges after a few hours strolling through the skies of the Ursee, however, is that The Falconeer is a product that shines more for aesthetics than for the actual ability to involve the player within the wet world that he chooses to tell.
  7. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 4, 2021
    40
    Falconeer shoutouts get boring way too easy and no matter how well crafted are the basic game mechanics, it simply lacks anything special or fun in the long run. [Issue#308]

See all 24 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 13
  2. Negative: 7 out of 13
  1. Nov 15, 2020
    10
    Excellent aerial shooter!
    The grip is a little rough in the first hour, you have to take the time to study the different gameplay
    Excellent aerial shooter!
    The grip is a little rough in the first hour, you have to take the time to study the different gameplay possibilities. In keyboard-mouse the game offers by default an eagle control with the mouse and the camera with the keyboard. We have the possibility to reverse the control of the eagle on the keyboard and the camera / aim with the mouse, which seems more instinctive and more comfortable to me. It's a shame that players don't take the time to read and navigate the options before criticizing the game for handling.
    Like any self-respecting aviation game, the configurations are numerous so that everyone can find the controls that suit them best.
    The difficulty of the game is based on the player's choices to equip themselves with upgrades (which are numerous) that correspond to their gameplay and for that, you have to explore, discover and meet the different factions who exchange different goods and upgrades. Indeed, the open world leaves the player free to go where he wants and to progress as he wishes. The game does not take the player by the hand, consequence: the first dogfights are very confused and the learning is brutal. Regardless of the level of your equipment, it is your movements and your position that will depend on your success or your death. Once the controls and gameplay are in hand, it's a treat to engage in combat, pilot and maneuver epic dodges or air chases, bombard or protect a fleet, or even attack an island/fortress.
    The universe is splendid and its lore is rich. The campaign is presented in the form of a chapter where we embody each faction to experience the story from different angles, as Starcraft.
    The game does not have great pretension but it has the merit of existing and unearthing a genre that we no longer see.
    Expand
  2. Nov 14, 2020
    9
    Well, I was lucky to start with a controller on my computer so I may have had a better start than other straight-PC players.

    After
    Well, I was lucky to start with a controller on my computer so I may have had a better start than other straight-PC players.

    After acclimating to the gameplay, story and economy I quickly found myself in an interesting environment. The setting of The Falconeer is an old world wherein history and myth coalesce into a dramatically revealed story. The main part of the game is the mechanic of flying on your giant falcon, and after I got used to it (and traded the starter bird and guns out) I had a fantastic time. I beat the main game in just 20 hours while taking my time and gathering resources, and I want to say the game was definitely worth the price tag. I loved the snappy aerial dogfights, I loved the interplay between the characters as missions were setup and I loved the over-all tone of the story. There have been comparisons to past flight-sims, but to me the game is very reminiscent of Zelda: The Wind Waker in that the scenery evokes the same sense of aww and wonder as you traverse the oceanic map and fly among the clouds.

    There's a lot to love about the game, among them that there are no game-breaking bugs after the release date, it's very affordable and I think it's a great game to hold you over until you can get your hands on something bigger. Considering this game was largely made by one guy it's mind boggling how much better it is in certain regards than so-called AAA Games on the market.

    The only reason I don't give this game a perfect score right now is that it can be a bit grindy (and you need to know when to grind) and you have to discover some things on your own. It doesn't hold your hands, but it certainly rewards being explorative.

    So get out there Falconeer and Fly!
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  3. Nov 16, 2020
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Con un muy bello mundo abierto se queda estancado con las misiones repetitivas pero es algo que cualquier juego de ahora posee Expand
  4. Jan 6, 2021
    3
    A good looking and unique game that falls completely flat in terms of gameplay. Both flight and combat controls are unforgivably appalling. PCA good looking and unique game that falls completely flat in terms of gameplay. Both flight and combat controls are unforgivably appalling. PC gamers without joysticks or controllers will suffer particularly badly from this but it is not purely down to poorly implemented input devices, the way the bird fuctions is inherently broken. There is a complete lack of control and weapons feel ineffectual, with a leading 'target' that does not seem to have any bearing on where you need to shoot to hit an enemy. Visuals are nice to look at and it's a fantastically realised world, but this should be a movie, not a game... Expand
  5. Feb 5, 2022
    2
    The Falconeer looks good. You check the screenshots, looks cool. Check videos, looks even better. You start it up, and the story bits roll outThe Falconeer looks good. You check the screenshots, looks cool. Check videos, looks even better. You start it up, and the story bits roll out and start pulling you into this post-apocalyptic / mythical combo world. Then you actually get to play the game, and oh boy...

    Things go to sh-t faster than the reactor at Chernobyl.

    The controls in this game are absolutely atrocious. The game suggests gamepad or joystick. Don't have joystick, so went with game pad. Flying around when nothing is going on is already a bit clunky, but the cumbersome controls and the janky as f-ck flightmodels turn combat into an infinitely frustrating ordeal as you struggle to force your bird to fly and turn where you want it to go and hitting enemies is a pain despite the very generous autoaim. It was actually a bit better after I switched to mouse+keyboard, but still borderline unplayable.

    The combat itself would be fun though, a bit chaotic and quite fast. It's a damn shame it's so frustrating to participate in it.

    The graphics are very stylized and the world is well designed and looks great for the most part, with some pretty distinct locations, but the color palette is very bland for the most part, seeped in shades of greys, blues and such. While it certainly helps build atmosphere, after some time, it's just too dull. Also, some particle and weather effects are just terrible. Looks like someone thought the overall style of the game would hide their lack of effort, but the PS2 era whirlwinds, for example, are very distinct - very distinctly bad.

    Sound is good, for the most part, great ambience, etc. Voiceacting is also great - but some of the npc-s are not voiceacted, and it's very jarring, when you swap between merchants and some of them talk, but others don't. This applies to non-story relevant characters, the story relevant ones are, as far as I know, all voiced. But still... Honestly, if you did not have the money or time to voice all of the low level NPCs, would have been better to not have any of them voiced. Consistency would be better choice than random NPCs of the same level speaking and others not speaking.

    The game is also not very good at communicating information. Your warbird has stats, but they are displayed graphically and it's hard to quantify them, especially at the beginning when you did not yet get the opportunity to try more than a few. You can also upgrade them, but some of the descriptions of upgrade items are pretty confusing and mention effects that don't really show anywhere in the gameplay, or they appear to have no effect at all - the yellow line representing your bird's agility gets longer, but there's no real change, etc. Then again, anything modifying the movement may simply get lost due to the atrocious controls.

    The game also does not explain its economy very well. You can buy trading permits, but they are not mentioned at least at first, so you just randomly stumble upon them, and so on. I guess the game tries to go with the "show, don't tell" approach, but it does a terrible job of it. You get a lot of stuff in merchant inventories and it just isn't explained what this stuff does. Or, on your map, straight from the first mission, you get "Found Seachantress 0/3" - but nowhere is it explained what that is. There's a lorekeeper in the harbor, which is supposedly providing the lore, but all he does is tell you two or three sentences about the current location and timeline. No interesting or useful information. And so you just stumble in the dark... The game doesn't even tell you dead enemies drop currency - I learned this again from a merchant's inventory where I found a related item, increasing radius at which it is picked up - because you see, the currency drops to the ground or water below you, or perhaps even spawns there, no idea. But you fight high in the sky. So I never noticed, until I found this item, and actively went looking for it...

    The world is great, the lore has some great parts, the fantasy tech is pretty interesting, but the game is uncontrollable, and has some mind numbingly stupid gameplay design decisions where I can't fathom why they were made. Was it some deliberate attempt to make the game harder because the game was too easy, and the devs just did not playtest them? Did they run out of time and is the game simply unfinished? Or did they know the gameplay is trash, but just could not be bothered to fix it, sure that at least some people would buy it for the way the game looks in screenshots? Are they just not good at gameplay design? Or is there some other reason? I don't know.

    What I do know is that the end result is an frustrating, unplayable mess.
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  6. Nov 21, 2020
    1
    Very buggy and unflattering to look at, it’s fun for a few minutes I guess
  7. Aug 7, 2021
    0
    You can't even play this game without a controller or flightstick. Even koei tecmo games have some kind of m kb support.

See all 13 User Reviews