Okay, having only played the demo, here are my critiques:
- The executions were okay, but weren't terribly fun. I think I'd have more fun being able to throw enemies. If you played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time on the SNES, you know how fun throwing enemies into the screen can be. So, if there's going to be an overpowered move, like an instant execution, on lower-tier enemies, I suggest making it a throw move. Imagine going into a crowd of lower-tier enemies and just throwing guys around, whether it would be into the screen or into each other (or into higher-tier enemies to obstruct them) or into the water in the background. I think a throw would help to push back on other enemies, to keep them from crowding you.
- Blocking is okay, but I'd like to be able to do a solid counter after a block. For example, if I block an attack, I think it'd be cool if there was a window in which I could do a quick counter, like a kick that knocks the enemy backward. I could imagine blocking an attack from one guy, countering with a kick that knocks him backward, then grabbing a second guy to throw him into a third guy, then moving forward to attack the first guy. In other words, I think a good move set for Captain Blood would be based in crowd control. You know, I would ask the question, "How can I make fighting in a crowd of enemies fun and like a strong pirate in a movie?".
- The difficulty ramps up way too much on that boss fight on the ship. He's got two guys with him that I have to handle while trying to avoid or handle the boss. And this is on Normal difficulty, which is why I stopped playing when I died at that part, because I wasn't about to stress myself out trying to beat those guys and the boss (the boss' health meter was going down too slow as it was; I don't like a boss taking seemingly forever to beat). If it was Hard difficulty, that would be fine, but even then, I'd want to be able to use the smaller guys against the boss somehow. Maybe I could throw them into the boss to slow the boss down. But I think difficulty and how it ramps up is something to address.
- Firing the canon at the incoming ships was cool, but I didn't like being shot off the canon. That broke up the fun factor of shooting the canon at the ships, especially since the ships seemed to be bullet sponges (canon sponges?) anyway. Maybe something to do with the canon part is making it so that I can shoot whatever is being shot at me. And that would be a way of allowing me to stay on the canon without being shot off, but it would also distract me a bit from shooting at an incoming ship. Also, I think it'd really fun if that canon part was tweaked so that I'm only shooting at the incoming ships for a certain amount of time, but when a ship inevitably docks, and enemies are running off the ship to come attack me, I think it'd great if the game prompted me to pull the canon from its base (you know, it could be like, "They're overwhelming us from the docks! Pull the canon!" and I'd press the button shown on-screen to pull the canon), and I could just run and gun and shoot up enemies (for a limited time) with the canon, like how Master Chief in Halo 3 could pull a gun turret and walk around, firing a huge gun at enemies. I think that'd be seriously cool.
- I didn't care for the QTEs. I just don't like QTEs in games. The whole, "Press X within the next couple of seconds to dodge this attack; now press B to dodge this attack", thing doesn't work for me. I've never found QTEs to be fun, not in any game. It's trying to make a cutscene interactive, but it never works because it's trying to combine cutscene with gameplay but without offering the full options of gameplay. QTEs are so limited that they're just annoying chores to do until returning to gameplay, and they take away from enjoying the action in a cutscene.
And I think that's about all, since I only played the demo and not the full game. Overall, I did have some fun with the game. I think the basics are there; it just needs some tweaking in areas like combat and difficulty. I really enjoyed picking up barrels and crates and smashing them on my enemies. That was fun. And I think there are things that can be done to make the combat even more fun.
