Hey all. I've been playing for a few days, and I thought I'd share some of my thoughts with y'all.
My concern is that this game is a flashy pretty face on what is otherwise a dull, repetitive game. Please don't take this post as an attack, but rather an opening to a discussin.
I guess my first reaction to the game was that it is wonderful. The graphics are great and the control is perfect. The sword fights are cool and well animated, the dancing sequences seem to fit well, you can see all of the other ships on the sea, and so much more. I was really jawed for my first few hours of play.
I first decided that there might be less to this game than meets the eye after I got the first section of the map for my missing sister. After defeating the evil Baron Raymondo I got a tip on how to find more about my sister. I had to capture the Evil Baron Raymondo. What?? Didn't I just do that? How did this guy get at large again so quickly? SO I went and got him again, got another corner of map, and got my next clue: Go get the Evil Baron Raymondo. Are you kidding? I JUST did that. And there isn't anything different to do. Raise a small army, track down his ship, beat him, get a map corner. There are many more missing family members, and I have to track them all by this same mthod? Four corners for three memebers means that I have to track and defeat the Baron Raymondo exactly the same way tweleve times to finish the story. Super Mario Brothers anyone?
Then, it got worse. Rogue level is pretty easy (except for that insane dancing) but Swashbuckler is damn near impossible. Maybe I'll get better at swordfighting and be able to handle myself, but it feels like there should be an in between. Sneaking into or out of a town was the most painful experience of my life. I can't for the life of me imagine what they were thinking when the developed that. It's slow, plodding, aimless, and almost always ends in defeat. Hell, when you're sneaking out of town you don't even have a clue as to which direction to go. Dancing is similar. It takes forever and is a very finger twitch sensitve game. I don't really know if it gets any better because I can't successfully complete a single dance.
Sailing east is usually an exercise in pain. I realize that the wind in the Carribbean doesn't blow that way, but I'm not getting a particularly realistic vibe from anywhere else in the game, why do that here? It's supposed to be a light, fun game except all of the sudden I need to know about things like tacking and wind angles just to travel around the game world. By the end of my long holiday weekend I actually got anxious every time I wanted to travel East. That's absurd.
What about attacking a town? How come I have to be an enemy of that particular nation before I can attack? If I know that the treasure fleet just landed there and they are loaded with $$, I may just decide to throw that Spanish title right out the window and go get me some dough. Oops, no can do. I've got to defeat a bunch of their ships first, then go into another `long-winded` exercise in order to defeat the town.
Finally, none of the advances are really meaningful. I saw someone else on these forums point out that Diablo is a repetitive game as well, so what's the issue? Well, in Diablo the basic gameplay was repetitive but with each successive level you got new items, armor, skills, magic, etc... that changed the way you looked and the way you played and opened up new areas to explore. In Pirates!, I can barely tell the difference between my starting character and my `ten-year`-later, `all-pirates`-killed, `large-frigate`-sailing, `40-fame` character. Searching for treasure is the same, swordfighting is the same, nothing changes ever.
Anyways, that's my rant and I'm sitcking to it. I would LOVE to be proven wrong or told what I'm missing because really think this had the potential to be a great game.
--Ben
My concern is that this game is a flashy pretty face on what is otherwise a dull, repetitive game. Please don't take this post as an attack, but rather an opening to a discussin.
I guess my first reaction to the game was that it is wonderful. The graphics are great and the control is perfect. The sword fights are cool and well animated, the dancing sequences seem to fit well, you can see all of the other ships on the sea, and so much more. I was really jawed for my first few hours of play.
I first decided that there might be less to this game than meets the eye after I got the first section of the map for my missing sister. After defeating the evil Baron Raymondo I got a tip on how to find more about my sister. I had to capture the Evil Baron Raymondo. What?? Didn't I just do that? How did this guy get at large again so quickly? SO I went and got him again, got another corner of map, and got my next clue: Go get the Evil Baron Raymondo. Are you kidding? I JUST did that. And there isn't anything different to do. Raise a small army, track down his ship, beat him, get a map corner. There are many more missing family members, and I have to track them all by this same mthod? Four corners for three memebers means that I have to track and defeat the Baron Raymondo exactly the same way tweleve times to finish the story. Super Mario Brothers anyone?
Then, it got worse. Rogue level is pretty easy (except for that insane dancing) but Swashbuckler is damn near impossible. Maybe I'll get better at swordfighting and be able to handle myself, but it feels like there should be an in between. Sneaking into or out of a town was the most painful experience of my life. I can't for the life of me imagine what they were thinking when the developed that. It's slow, plodding, aimless, and almost always ends in defeat. Hell, when you're sneaking out of town you don't even have a clue as to which direction to go. Dancing is similar. It takes forever and is a very finger twitch sensitve game. I don't really know if it gets any better because I can't successfully complete a single dance.
Sailing east is usually an exercise in pain. I realize that the wind in the Carribbean doesn't blow that way, but I'm not getting a particularly realistic vibe from anywhere else in the game, why do that here? It's supposed to be a light, fun game except all of the sudden I need to know about things like tacking and wind angles just to travel around the game world. By the end of my long holiday weekend I actually got anxious every time I wanted to travel East. That's absurd.
What about attacking a town? How come I have to be an enemy of that particular nation before I can attack? If I know that the treasure fleet just landed there and they are loaded with $$, I may just decide to throw that Spanish title right out the window and go get me some dough. Oops, no can do. I've got to defeat a bunch of their ships first, then go into another `long-winded` exercise in order to defeat the town.
Finally, none of the advances are really meaningful. I saw someone else on these forums point out that Diablo is a repetitive game as well, so what's the issue? Well, in Diablo the basic gameplay was repetitive but with each successive level you got new items, armor, skills, magic, etc... that changed the way you looked and the way you played and opened up new areas to explore. In Pirates!, I can barely tell the difference between my starting character and my `ten-year`-later, `all-pirates`-killed, `large-frigate`-sailing, `40-fame` character. Searching for treasure is the same, swordfighting is the same, nothing changes ever.
Anyways, that's my rant and I'm sitcking to it. I would LOVE to be proven wrong or told what I'm missing because really think this had the potential to be a great game.
--Ben