Few game concepts are as timelessly cool as pirates. From the tongue-in-cheek mystery of The Secret of Monkey Island to the open-ocean warfare of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, a pirate’s life is definitely for us. It doesn’t, however, make you a great game by proxy. Slapping the word ‘pirate’ in your title doesn’t automatically grant you a seat at the table of history’s greatest plunderers.
Which brings us to Pirates: All Aboard! At first glance, it looks like it’s selling you something grand and worthy of a true virtual sea dog. With a logo that looks remarkably similar to the one used for Sid Meier’s Pirates (a game it so clearly hopes to aspire to), it appears you’re getting a slice of swashbuckling skullduggery on the high seas. But you’re not. Instead, you're getting something a game with very little 'game' to speak of.
The problem it has is a serious lack of any tangible content. It’s a concept, pure and simple, with no real meat to hang from its bones. If you’ve ever played the likes of Overboard! on PS1, you’ll be instantly familiar with its top-down sailing. Its controls are easy to pick up, at least - you hold down ‘X’ to speed up, and use the left analog stick to steer your ship. There are three types to choose from, ranging from a nippy little schooner to a slower yet more powerful galleon.
You fire your broadsides with either with either ‘R’/’ZR’ or ‘L’/’ZL’ and you can set off a special power-up with a simple click of the same stick. There are seven of these to use for a limited time, which are dotted at random around the oceanic arena. Four are ‘Active’ and buff stats such as speed or the damage dealt by ramming; others are ‘Passive’ and increase your shot range or max health. You can notice a modicum of difference when they're in effect, but everything ultimately boils down to who can sink the other the fastest with cannon fire.
The combat works competently, with the option to board your opponent if you get too close, but there’s no tangible short or long term benefits. There’s no means to level up your ship, no additional systems or mechanics to balance, and very little to keep you playing for long periods of time. With support for up to four-player local multiplayer, there’s certainly fun to be had trading cannon shot, but its a loop dependent on gameplay that’s ultimately inferior to the two-decade old games that clearly inspired it.
You can play multiplayer in a classic Deathmatch style, or go for a Battle Royale-esque Last Man Standing (why they didn’t call it ‘Last Ship Sailing’, we don’t know), but there’s very little to satisfy single-player sailors. There’s no story, no challenges or even a set of objectives to drive you around its map. There is a Practice mode, where you can test its mechanics against AI controlled ships, but it’s just a sandbox that feels like a tech demo rather than something you’d expect to publish on the eShop.
There’s also, rather inexplicably, an Endless mode included as well. Using a proper top-down view and automatic movement, it’s essentially an endless runner where you’ll need to guide a ship through a series of meandering channels, avoiding obstacles and cannon fire as you go. There’s a random selection of map layouts so there’s at least some challenge to be had, but by stripping its gameplay and controls down to a single analog stick feels out of place, like a mode tacked on to make a meager package seem that bit less spartan.
Conclusion
Pirates: All Aboard! could have been something special. The top-down sailing conceit has worked wonders for other games in the past, but it’s not a set of mechanics that can sail to glory on their own. If you’re looking for something to pass the time in local multiplayer, it’s a fun premise for a while, but there’s very little to keep you carving through its unfinished oceans in the long term.
Comments 24
Shovelware... Please go away...
I'll wait for the physical release
Ah, I was wondering if there was anything worth to plunder here... I see I have been mistaken. Carry on then.
It feels like Qubic games just keeps delivering below par games for the Switch.
My daughter demanded I picked this up, something to play in-between family bomberman sessions. We've had fun with it as a local skrimish sort of thing and it certainly needs more content (frankly I'd settle for multiplayer options like number of lives). Luckily I had some in used points to knock this down to £4, I'm only slightly bothered by it at that price point.
Sort no rambly version: I'd you have need for a quick four player game as a palette cleanser and you can get it below £4 you could do worse (and better)
I had hoped this would be a winner - like the recent flight games... boooo.
Might have to steer clear of this one......
Shame, the graphics style that looks like a throwback to long-abandoned digital rendering (or software rendering for a more familiar term) is interesting.
Got this for $3... almost worth that... it would help if they just took the time out to polish it better. Astro Bears and Robonaughts are better. Got them all together for $9
Everything about this game just screams cheap mobile game to me. I mean the menus are just ridiculously bad, they seem to just have the same song playing endlessly in the background that is pretty much all you can hear, and the only modes besides multiplayer are just some practice mode where you try to sink 3 different AI bot ships in 5 minutes, and an endless mode that essentially plays like an auto-runner where you need to steer a ship to avoid some randomly generated rocks.
The worst thing about this is the lack of polish. The combat seems really simple, lame, and slow, and there is essentially zero sound effects as far as I could tell. Like honestly, how hard could it have been to include some decent cannon fire sound effects, hit sound effects, or a ship wreck sound effect? Then they just suddenly end the game when you lose, no animations or sounds for your ship being destroyed, just a game over screen that instantly pops up and sends you back to the main menu.
I was hoping for something like the old Sid Meyers Pirates games where you can explore, build up your crew/ships, and interact with the world, but this just looks like some cheap mobile game shovelware.
The price on e-shop kinda gives it away really that there’s not a good game here.
Was hoping for something like Sid Meier's. Shame.
For the cheap price I didn't expect too much, but if they ever put it on sale, I might still consider it just for quick multiplayer matches
Maybe it’s time for the top ten Switch stinkers feature?
Glad to see Sea of Thieves finally got ported to Switch.
Jokes aside...what a shame.
more like butt pirates
Guess I will just stick to Sid Meiers Pirates on the original Xbox.
Looks like it's back to Monkey Island, Shantae and SteamWorld Heist for me!
Yeah... i rarely get a game on the eshop before reading a review or two, but jumped on this one as I was fond of Overboard!, and thought what's the worst it could be given the cheap price... what a waste of money at any price, worth less than a dollar! Learnt the lesson though. Shiver me timbers!
Next gen water effects are real technical wizardry.
Walk the plank!
This is pure crap, you don’t even have to read a review to know that it’s crap, suffice to watch a 5 minutes video of the gameplay to get bored at 2.
A port of the original game, Sid Meier’s Pirates would have been ten thousand times better, I would’ve even bought it.
Lol, even worse then Sea of thieves!
I got this game for free as part of a newsletter Christmas giveaway of some sort
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