got > 1k hours of it, fun gameplay, recommended
[1.0] Release Review There is no contender to Sid Meiers Pirates and this game wont change that, however it has a good foundation to offer fun, for some time at least. The graphics are average - bad but the gameplay works. You start with a Sloop that cant kill enemies and, unless you instantly understand the system at hand, will die in a few hits. Once you get some gear and especially the overpowered but often fun Abilities you are able to overcome your enemies. Still, I found myself using damaging Abilities exclusively since using cannons exposes your ship to getting killed by return fire. The game is in need of some more balancing. Trading is possible but doesnt really work since ports only buy 1 ware and sell you 1 other and there is far more profit to make by salvaging wrecked ships found around the map or killing enemies once youre stronger. There is currently no map in that ports arent marked anywhere so trading just doesnt work. The story is nice - you can play as male or female - but it isnt a driving point. The gear / loot system seems to be the main focus of the game, yet I didnt find as much good loot as I hoped and was most often than not selling what I got and buying the best gear in ports as opposed to looting it. There is a skill tree that works but since there is a level cap most players will stop at that point. For games like this there really needs to be an incentive to continue playing the game. Borderlands gave you small % boosts on top of your skills and it worked for every character you created thereafter. Ship selection is average, with only 5 possible ships, but items change the look of your hull and sails so there is variation to these. I hope the developers got the means to improve on this foundation. A few patches could improve the games looting and fun moments and bring it closer to what Sid Meiers Pirates offered. Id currently rate it a 3/5 but its reasonably priced.
Same Open World again / Deja-V The same city with the same look everywhere gets old fast and a small deserty area around it doesnt help. 1 romance option per gender preferance in a sexualized world Dont like Pam or Judy ? Your problem ! The game outright lacks bi characters outside of a few short one-night stands. Hassle of Hacking The Hacking minigame is one of the worst minigames in history. Having to enter 3 (!) or more different codes is probably the most infuriating thing the game throws at you. Why craft when you can loot ? Im collecting tons of crafting components but why should I craft anything ? Loot drops are sufficient to play through the game and crafting blueprints are very hard to come by. Cars ? Im walking ! Why should I use a car ? Often, enemy groups are found in side streets so you have to get in and out of your car constantly. Very Rare Random Encounters These are spawned around the map but they are often so far away from each other that it takes minutes to find the next group of enemies. Killed 100 Thugs ... anyone trying to hunt me down ? Nope ! What is worse than having to search for random encounters is walking towards people that should know you killed their friends to remain peaceful. Progression ? Just grind some more hours for 1 point ... I have a 100 hours savegame but Im only at level 17. Odd thing is, my Street Credibility is almost 50. Enemies yield between 5 and 10 XP while needing 2000 XP and rising. Broken Skill System Leveling a Skill to max level shoud reward you with something good right ? Riiight ? Nope ! In Cyberpunk there are these 'ultimate' 20th Skill level Perks and they do ... nothing. Choices ? Bad Ending anyway ... Mass Effect 3 all over again. Why are such endings created ? Did Ron and Hermione die in HP7 ? Did Anna die in Frozen ? No, they stay with the MC because people grow accustomed to them.
During Sublight Travel a permanent forced light effect on a massive scale outright disallowed me to continue playing the game for more than a few minutes. I quickly noticed I had to turn my head away from the screen each time I entered Sublight Travel but eventually I couldnt do so any longer due to the all the Sublight Travel involved in the game and being instantly attacked in most occasions when leaving it. As a Kickstarter backer I was happy to get what I hoped would replace Freelancer but this is the worst outcome possible. I cant think of a sane developer not noticing that these effects outright damage the eyes of the player. These effects are harmful. They serve no purpose.
There are countless and sometimes gamebreaking bugs, so numerous that bugreports get swallowed in the general forum as there is shockingly no bugreport forum at Steam or any such function in-game. Ive encountered a bug that broke my entire main characters progression and had to start over. Regarding loading times, the game should be called: Waste Time 3x. It takes several minutes to load a savegame or to load an area, all of which are very small so even more loading screens. Half my time was wasted while loading and using an SSD. Often, dialogues with NPCs have skill requirements and if you dont meet them you may want to reload since you had some skill points left over and can choose the option. Then you reload and pick the option only to be presented another line thereafter that asks for another skill you have points left but of course you dont know which skills NPCs ask for. Point is, in NPC areas you load dozens of times and each time thats several minutes. After an hour you could very well still be at the same spot and find out how to allocate the points so you can meet as many requirements as possible for that extra XP.
For rating I will compare it to the last Wizardry series game, Wizardry 8, a masterpiece of an RPG, since its named Wizardry. Con means its worse than Wizardry 8, Pro means its better. Con - no free movement - it was vastly before Wizardry 8 when movement was unlocked, more than 20 years ago > the current year is 2020, not 1990 or so because it feels like the game should have come out decades ago > Wizardry evolved over the years, this entry looks like it was made decades ago Con - less races - Wizardry 8 had 11 meaningful different races > while this game has only a few humanoid choices, not even half as many Con - less classes - Wizardry 8 had 15 meaningful differnt classes > while this game has only half as many Con - schoolgirl characters - Wizardry 8 had a lot of different voice options and you could always find the right one for your race - Wizardry 8 had a lot of unique portraits that felt like your character is an adventurer > while in this game female voices sounds like childs / girls, that sound a lot like they are ... E.g. - but not restricted to - when hit > and their portraits ALL look like schoolgirls Con - leveling is abstruse > +1 HP ... reloaded ... > +3 HP > +4 HP, LOST 1 STR + AGI stat point > +10 HP > +13 HP, LOST 1 VIT stat point > +6 HP > +3 HP, LOST 1 AGI stat Point > a joke, really a joke > I cannot remember any game where the character gets a permanent LOSS by leveling Conclusion: A barebone dungeon crawler that is neither anything remotely Wizardry or good in anything it tries for compared to prior titles of the series as well as every single other contender. What little motivation you might have because this game fails so much is gone after your characters leveled up and PERMANENTLY lost stat points. Imagine Baldurs Gate removed stat points at random. Noone would remember it anymore as anything more than a joke. Why play when you get penalized for playing. Cannot ever Recommend.
