If you were to ask me which genre of games is sorely lacking on the Nintendo Switch I might say something like MMO games or sandbox styleIf you were to ask me which genre of games is sorely lacking on the Nintendo Switch I might say something like MMO games or sandbox style action games. I would have never thought to say Pirate Simulators. Aside from a couple of One Piece, Half Genie Hero, sea themed adventure, and party games. Pirates are not very well represented in the Nintendo Switch library. It's a good thing that HeroCraft answered the call and brought us the thing we needed yet never knew we wanted.
The game is Under the Jolly Roger. Aside from Skies of Arcadia, Wind Waker, and One Piece games, I haven't had much experience with Pirate games. The first thing I noticed when I saw Under the Jolly Roger was the similarity to Sid Meier's Pirates with that old school PC Pirate RPG feel. It's like a real time strategy game with crew management and exploration. You can do a lot of things from raiding ships, stealing crew from other ships, changing alliances, fighting mystical sea creatures, and even some 3rd person combat. You can pilot your ship on an ancient pirate map or you can sail the whole thing in third person or first person view. The fact that you can do both is pretty damn impressive! All of this and it is a mere $19.99
So how does it play though? First off, the game starts rather abruptly by throwing you right into the action with no introduction or story. You have to figure out how to fight on the open seas with little advice from the poop deck. It took me awhile to figure out that you had to go to the nearest town to get the rest of the tutorial missions. There is a lot to unpack with this game and eventhough the tutorial runs through everything fairly quickly, it will still take a lot of time for you to figure everything out. There are still somethings that are either broken or I just can't figure out how to do them. Take for instance equipping ship jobs to a particular sailor, as you go through the game you find various sailors to join your party. You can assign specific named sailors to Masts, Fighters Reserve, or Gun Deck. As you go through the game you pick up more and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to equip them all. Even with multiples spots available I still could only assign the first one. This seems like just a small overlooked thing but I wish that there had been more testing on the game.
I feel that if this game would have stayed in the cooker for a little bit longer we would have had a much better game. Thankfully the ship battles work really well, which is great since that is where you spend most of your time. Unfortunately moving the boat around is not as easy as you would think. For example you when you sail there is a blue wind pattern on the screen that you need to be in front of in order to move. If the wind is not in your favor, you move slow and sometimes not at all. It becomes incredibly tiresome when you are trying to chase a boat or collect the booty of a downed boat. I know this takes place in the 1700s but would it kill them to put a motor on the boat?(or a speed sale!) Make some of those sailors get out and paddle! It's stuff like this that make me wish that the game was more arcade like and less simulator.
Verdict:
There is a lot to love about Under the Jolly Roger and I would recommend it to most people looking for some exciting Piracy in their life. It's good, but with some shortcomings. The shortcoming being the wonky 3rd person fighting, lack of polish, and slow boating without the wind. If you think these things won't hinder your experience and your heart craves adventure, Then grab that virtual steering wheel, get out into the open ocean with the wind at your back load your cargo hold with booty, and check out this game. Just remember that there may be a few bumps in the wake of your pirate journey.
Score 7/10… Expand
