Captain Blood

Just look at it! If you like classic God of War style games it's worth playing, you can get the demo if you're unsure.

Swashbuckling, fixed-camera brawling action as Peter Blood, based on the Rafael Sabatini character. Quick time events during bosses and cutscenes. Game has good heart, and quite a story (has been in development hell since the 2000's), but after finally being fully released still suffers from some significant issues. Audio mixing is one of the most common complaints, as character dialogue is VERY quiet compared to music and sound effects. Parrying feels inconsistent, and one can easily get juggled by enemies if not careful. Character mouths move in less sync than Warcraft 3 portraits. Playing a character other than Captain Blood feels half-baked and unnecessary. At one point, after a weapon pick-up broke, I was stuck in the pose of the pick-up, unable to attack nor drop the invisible, unusable weapon, and had to restart from the checkpoint. Fix the bugs, adjust the volume, and give this just a little more polish and I could give this 4/5, with some REAL TLC, 4.5/5

Remember God of War original? It's like that, but pirates. Repetative. Short kinda fun, definitely has it moments. 3.5 stars

It's the 17th century, and England and Spain are fighting for the Caribbean, while pirates leech off both sides. You play as CaptainBlood, a wannabe privateer with a big cutlass and an even biger pistol. Blood mores through mostly linear arenas and corridors, doing light/heavy attacks, dodge rolls and blocks, with occasional pistol shots and dynamite tossed in the mix.enemies have beat'em'up health bars and when they get low, you can do a finisher. Collect gold to buy combos and new finishers- basically tou need the one that lets you steal enemy weapons, and that's it. There's a decent enemy variety, and the environments are nice. Few fun bosses. Basic, but serviceable story, albeit one that feels like it ends a bit abruptly, and leaves room for a sequel. Those are the positives. The negatives are all the typical issues of a mid 2000s game. There's no lock-on, so trying to face enemies with a keyboard can be a pain. QTEs are everywhere, including boss finishers (or, in one case, it's the entire boss sequence). There's also cannon sequences and ship battles, where you roll from cannon to cannon to hit flanking Spanish ships, and trying to prevent boarding boats from landing. YMMV on these. Lastly, there's bugs. They affect progression despite patches. Small stuff like optional chests not counting properly (messing up achievement progress) is one thing, but the game also stops saving progrees past a certain point. Reloading from chekpoints on death works, but exit to main menu, and clicking continue can sent you back a few levels. Latest patch didn't fix this, so right now, it's hard to recommend this one.

The game looks and plays like a b-title PS2 game from around 2006 without the charm or nostalgia. I'm not sure which is worse: the sound mix, or the visual anomalies. I figured I'd bite seeing as I love the golden age of sail, and I won't refund the game. But I can't recommend it.