Buccaneers!
Review
On the high seas
by Howie Howard
reviewed on PC
Back on the high seas
Buccaneers! is a classic pirate RPG game where the player is tasked with sailing around the Caribbean Sea in a wooden sailing vessel plundering and fighting for the nation of choice. The game is developed by indie game house Skyward Digital with the publisher being Valkyrie Initiative. Buccaneers! covers basically the same pirate related theme that legendary game guru Sid Meier covered with his Pirates! game 35 years ago. Pirates! was so popular that during following years Sid used the same Pirate theme for a total of 4 pirate games which were actually just upgrades of the original. The pirate theme has been covered numerous times and Buccaneers is the latest.
Buccaneers! takes place during the Golden Age of Sail with England, France, Spain and the Pirate nation all fighting against each other for land, treasure and glory. Players start out as an English captain sent on a suicide mission to take back a port that was plundered and taken over by pirates. Of course, the mission is a failure but serves as a good tutorial. After losing the mission you are awakened in your cell by the commotion of being rescued by surviving crew members. You sneak out of town and steal a leaky ship - thus regaining your freedom. Once on the ship the choice, players decide upon joining one of the four factions. Unfortunately, the English are angry at you for losing the battle but they of course will take you back after you explain that you were set up to fail by an evil Spaniard.
Each faction has pluses and minuses. British ships have crews that are trained to load cannons faster and they have marine boarding crew that have quicker ranged fire reloads. The French have stronger sail rigging and sails that make the ship go faster and their boarding crew can cause extra ranged damage. The Spanish have stronger ship hulls with extra armour and the boarding crew is more resistant to damage. The Pirate faction on the other hand has larger crews that are deadlier with sword melee attacks. Since ship and crew upgrades in the game are quite detailed, that means even more upgrades can be made after gaining experience and money.
Stuck On the Poop Deck
Buccaneers! differs from the Sid Meier games in several areas. Ship sailing and battle takes place in the first person with no option to switch to third person. As a result Buccaneers can feel like a ship driving simulator. It would be nice to be able to walk around and visit different areas on the ship but there are only two spots for the captain to be. The captain can be at the steering wheel changing ship direction, adjusting sails, giving orders to fire the cannons or using a spy glass. For those that aren't aware, this area is called the navigation or poop deck on old time sailing ships. The captain can also go to his quarters to look at the map or to change the quarters decor. Everything else involving the ship is taken care of in the shipyard. Since the ship really can't be sailed from port to port manually then the map is used for ship movement from place to place.
When at port, players can walk around and visit the sights with the shipyard being the main attraction. While at the shipyard, players can change the name and colours of their ship. The shipyard provides for ship upgrades such as having makeshift armour added, installing higher quality sails or the installation of hammocks that add 10% additional crew. Captains can also choose to increase storage space which increases the cargo load. Doing this will slow the ship down and make it's turn radius larger. Removing storage space will have the opposite effect of making the ship faster. Upgrading ships to match your fighting style is important but they can always be changed back if there's enough gold on hand.
Towns Are Where The Action Is
There is really not a whole lot of action going on in town other than the shipyard, but the tavern provides a place where crew can be hired and a bartender that can be persuaded into supplying information. I was hoping for a stranger offering “other information” like in Pirates! but he wasn't there. The blacksmith is where guns and swords can be purchased and practiced with against human looking targets. The Governor’s office is where missions are assigned and where you report upon mission completion to collect a reward and get new missions. There are a lot of towns folk around but they really don't have any purpose at all other than to tell you to check in with the governor.
The entire game is based on missions that a Governor has available upon talking to him. The missions get more difficult as experience is gained. Missions that advance the story line can consist of simple missions that require the observation of an enemy ship in the area. Advanced missions consist of attacking and taking over enemy ports. The town attack missions can be handled in one of two ways and that is to carry out a frontal attack of the ports garrison or by sneaking in at night to capture it covertly. After accepting missions, they are then shown on the map in the captain’s quarters. The gold reward for mission completion is based on how difficult a battle might be and the ship-to-ship battles don't seem to be all that difficult.
In Charge Of Everything
While on ship, the captain is in charge of everything with the crew doing all the cannon reloading and nothing more. For some reason the crew can't even aim the cannons, so the captain needs to aim and then pull the trigger and hope to get some hits. Unfortunately, the gold reward for mission completion might be less than it costs to repair fleet damage. Make sure to repair all ships at the shipyard before leaving port. It's important to note that lower level shipyards won't be able to upgrade higher level ships. There is a maximum of four ships that can be under command. Ships can be added to the fleet by purchasing them in the shipyard or by capturing instead of sinking them. I made the mistake of forgetting to repair my ship before going on a mission and I paid the price of being sent back to the reload game page after my ships were sunk. There's no being stranded on a deserted island in this pirate game.
Graphics in Buccaneers! is simple in nature but their clear low count poly styled polygons are visually appealing and colourful. As an added bonus the developers added a VR option. Although it is not required to play the game, it certainly adds some added fun for those with a supported headset. There are some similarities to other pirate themed games but in reality how many different ways are there to sail the Caribbean fighting pirates? This pirate says not many. I would have liked to see the option to use a third person perspective while in battle but the first person works fine. In all, Buccaneers lets players having fun playing a pirate, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
8.7
fun score
Pros
A good hearty pirate game sure to bring smiles to all that play
Cons
Would like to see third party perspective in battle and more interactions with the environment
