Do not let the witch and her pirate crew get you RATtled. Get it?
There isn’t a scarcity of 2D metroidvanias within the present indie house, a sentence I’m constructive I’ve typed not less than 3 times earlier than this. Because of this, in case you’re going so as to add on to the pile, you must be sure you have some facet of your recreation that makes it stand out from the remainder, and whereas we’ve seen a big uptick in metroidvanias with hand-drawn artwork in recent times, it nonetheless tends to be sufficient to seize my consideration on the very least. Enter Curse of the Sea Rats, a recreation that first got here into my view throughout one in all final yr’s Steam Festivals. The demo confirmed quite a lot of promise: 4 playable characters, hand-drawn artwork harking back to a 2D animated movie, a enjoyable pirate aesthetic, and so forth. Nevertheless, the sport sadly doesn’t fairly dwell as much as the promise it reveals, and whereas it’s not a failure, it sadly incorporates issues that maintain it again from reaching its true potential.
Curse of the Sea Rats begins on a British ship carrying a number of prisoners, together with our 4 important characters. When the ship crashes someplace on the Irish coast, the pirate witch Flora Burn takes the chance to rework all people on board right into a rat. She then escapes together with her crew, kidnapping the Admiral’s son on her method out. Determined to get his son again and break Flora’s curse, the Admiral provides a deal to those prisoners: he’ll set them free and strike down expenses that they had towards them in the event that they defeat the witch and return his son safely. The 4 agree and set off in the hunt for the witch, studying of her energy supply: a medallion with a connection to historic magic. Nevertheless, this medallion is incomplete, with our four-prisoner staff having the lacking piece in hand. With a purpose to attain Flora Burn, the quartet should discover the island of their new rat varieties, participating with Flora’s crew on the best way to interrupt the curse and take her medallion away.
You’ll be able to play as one in all 4 characters, every with their very own model of fight. David Douglas is an American revolutionary soldier armed with a cutlass, Buffalo Calf is a Cheyenne huntress making use of daggers for each shut and ranged preventing, Bussa is a fugitive slave from Barbados who fights utilizing his large fists, and Akane Yamakawa is a Japanese warrior wielding a naginata. The place this forged differentiates itself is of their total moveset, with their common combos, parrying talents, air assaults, and magic being distinctive to every character. Sadly, that is actually the one factor completely different between them, as none of them have any type of traversal talents to themselves. Outdoors of fight, each character performs the identical, goes the identical pace, jumps the identical peak, and shares the identical total upgrades. Every character does have their very own ability tree, however fully filling only one character’s ability tree is very easy and quick, and sometimes makes them so highly effective that there’s little incentive to ever swap to a different one. All the recreation might be performed in native co-op with as much as 4 gamers, however that is seemingly the one method you’ll ever see any character apart from the one you instantly gravitate to and take by means of the entire recreation.
Fight total feels effective in Sea Rats; hits really feel like they’ve a superb influence, and blocking an enemy’s assault is normally fairly satisfying. I personally gravitated in direction of Akane, because the longer attain of her naginata match greatest with my private playstyle, as did her water-based magic. Bosses are properly animated and distinctive sufficient from one another, with a few of them even referencing different video games (together with one that’s actually simply Dracula from Castlevania however a rat). The voice appearing for many characters is a bit questionable total, however I personally discovered the cheesiness of the road reads so as to add to the attraction ultimately. Sadly what took away from the attraction was the multitude of bugs I skilled over the course of my playthrough. If I switched characters proper earlier than a cutscene, there would generally be an issue the place the mistaken voice would learn the traces. For instance at one level I talked to a bunch of drunk pirates as Akane, however as I had only in the near past converted from Douglas, it was his voice that learn the road in query. Additionally, in case you’re questioning whether or not or not the 4 characters have their very own dialogue in conditions like that, sadly they don’t, each character seems to be studying from the identical script for many of the recreation.
One other bug I skilled was the sport forgetting I had acquired a listing improve that was presupposed to let me purchase a better variety of well being potions, due to this fact maintaining me on the base quantity for a big portion of the sport. This ultimately mounted itself, but it surely was annoying for the time it occurred. Lots of the issues I bumped into have been or will quickly be patched in line with the builders, however sadly it was a tad too late to not paint my expertise not less than a little bit bit. General, Curse of the Sea Rats is a recreation I feel has quite a lot of potential, however the samey characters and bugs maintain it again from being what it looks like it actually may very well be. In case you’re actually itching for a brand new metroidvania expertise, or simply actually like rats for some cause, you may positively do rather a lot worse than this one, however I sadly can’t say I’d suggest you sprint to the eshop as quick as you’ll be able to for it.