When I saw this game was finally out in English (we’ll call it English anyway) I was thrilled and immediately bought it on Steam. I loved the original Sea Dogs and POTC (Sea Dogs II by another name) and couldn’t wait to play a “new” version of it. Within an hour I was pulling out what remains of my hair and curing the godless commie bastards who had the unmitigated gall to release this thing. But—I kept playing. The game has massive potential in the same ways its predecessors did but it is also an endless litany of fails at the same time. The game can become engrossing if you soldier through the pain of the early game where you desperately try to figure out how things work in spite of the “tutorial” missions which only seem to confuse matters further but once you hit level 25 or so you find yourself in an endless repetition of the same old same old, punctuated by infuriating hold-ups as yo0u are constantly beset by mobs of bounty-hunters on land and sea, hired by whatever power you made angry—often through no real fault of your own. I mostly have complaints about this game so let’s get to them. They include, but are by no means limited to:
*Horrid, broken missions: There are lots of missions which is nice—the previous games suffered from a terrible dearth of them so this is, in concept good. The problem is the mission, more often than not, just don’t work. You are frequently given timed missions that cannot possibly be completed in the time given. You are rarely told what Island the mission takes place on so you have to sail around for hours, constantly re-loading your save games—to locate it. Location names are often not only misspelled but are spelled differently in different places so you often have no idea what the hell is going on. Many missions require locating a specific ship which is hard enough but since you are CONSTANTLY being attacked by random encounters it is unlikely you will be in any condition to deal with your target if you actually do manage to find it.
*Annoying land combat: The new combat system is both a plus and minus. The changes, on the surface, seems very minor but they make a big difference. In one on one fights it’s great and makes the combat very dynamic. The trouble is that so many of the fights are melees and there it causes the combat to drag out FOREVER. This is especially obnoxious as your bounty starts to rise and you can’t go from one building to the next in any settlement without getting jacked by a gang of 12 guys.
*Too much sea combat. I am a big fan of this aspect of the game but it goes way too far. You are endlessly being attacked at sea. Half the ships out there are pirates and they always go straight for you as soon as you are on the world map. Eventually you can develop a trait that makes most of the mobs leave you be but by then you are in the same boat regarding the bounty hunters who are not affected by it.
The game can be fun but there are just too many flaws to recommend it. If the developers ever open the files to modding, they are encrypted at the moment, then something great could be made out of it. As it stands it is an inferior version of POTC a decade plus later with no real improvements.
*Horrid, broken missions: There are lots of missions which is nice—the previous games suffered from a terrible dearth of them so this is, in concept good. The problem is the mission, more often than not, just don’t work. You are frequently given timed missions that cannot possibly be completed in the time given. You are rarely told what Island the mission takes place on so you have to sail around for hours, constantly re-loading your save games—to locate it. Location names are often not only misspelled but are spelled differently in different places so you often have no idea what the hell is going on. Many missions require locating a specific ship which is hard enough but since you are CONSTANTLY being attacked by random encounters it is unlikely you will be in any condition to deal with your target if you actually do manage to find it.
*Annoying land combat: The new combat system is both a plus and minus. The changes, on the surface, seems very minor but they make a big difference. In one on one fights it’s great and makes the combat very dynamic. The trouble is that so many of the fights are melees and there it causes the combat to drag out FOREVER. This is especially obnoxious as your bounty starts to rise and you can’t go from one building to the next in any settlement without getting jacked by a gang of 12 guys.
*Too much sea combat. I am a big fan of this aspect of the game but it goes way too far. You are endlessly being attacked at sea. Half the ships out there are pirates and they always go straight for you as soon as you are on the world map. Eventually you can develop a trait that makes most of the mobs leave you be but by then you are in the same boat regarding the bounty hunters who are not affected by it.
The game can be fun but there are just too many flaws to recommend it. If the developers ever open the files to modding, they are encrypted at the moment, then something great could be made out of it. As it stands it is an inferior version of POTC a decade plus later with no real improvements.
