Indie publisher Team17 is well known for putting out some of the best indie games on the market. Their latest title is a pirate RPG game called King of Seas from developer 3DClouds. While you may see that name and be reminded of Sea of Thieves by Rare, let me assure you that these two games are very, very different.
King of Seas has a story to it but I didn’t find it very interesting. It basically revolves a king that was assassinated and you play as their son or daughter. You are ambushed early on but end up being rescued by some pirates. You then are given a ship and set off to reclaim your stolen kingdom and find out who killed your father. You’ll have text conversations along the way but I honestly don’t remember much of it as it just wasn’t interesting.
You’ll start off learning how to control your ship. You can use the L1 button to adjust your ship’s sails to go faster or slower while the triggers fire your weapons. You steer with the left analog stick while your DualShock face buttons allow you to perform special attacks. The oceans are procedurally generated so you never know what you’ll encounter while sailing. There are all kinds of dangers out there whether they be enemies or various hazards. When you encounter enemies of any kind you can fire on them with the cannons on your ship or use the special abilities on the face buttons to perform moves like shooting fire and other special things. You really just want to try to avoid taking hits while lining up your cannons to dish out damage yourself.
There are plenty of ways to customize your ship ranging from different sails, cannons, mastheads and more. You can do all these by earning money and XP. Completing side missions and defeating enemies will reward you with those things which then allows you to make your ship and crew better. While all of this is good and all I think my main issue with the game is just how slow it can feel to do things. A lot of time is just spent sailing to where you need to go and then when you get there you quickly finish what you need to do and then have to sail back. I just grew kind of bored with the constant sailing more than anything else.
King of Seas has some appealing bits to it like building up your ship and seeking out treasure but it gets repetitious and takes a long time to get anywhere. It looks good and can be fun for a little while but if you’re seeking the pirate life there may be better options out there.
*King of Seas is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. PlayStation 4 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
King of Seas
$24.99
Pros
- Sailing and combat mechanics work well
- Visuals look good
- Working to upgrade your ship can be fun
Cons
- Boring story
- Not a lot of variety
- Spend too much time sailing and grinding
