Abandon Ship , Boat Duels and A Few Kraken Encounters

Disclosure: This game copy was bought by the reviewer.

You are a cultist that decided to abandon the cult once a kraken was brought into the picture. From this point on, the game throws random text events at you to progress from one zone to another. For the first portion of the story, the game does have an interesting timed mechanic that will throw a boat, melee encounters or the kraken at you if you are not near a port. Once you defeat the kraken, the mechanic is removed and you have no sense of urgency to compel you forward. The lack of permanent saves made the urgency factor crucial to the experience, but now that it is removed, you have no issues going back from one section to another for repairs (outside running out of supplies, but the amount of money and supplies you run into makes this mechanic easy to deal with).

It isn't a bad game at the end of the day, just not that engaging. The limited amount of upgrades and the max crew size of 6 makes the difficulty spike in the latter parts of the available story, but it also creates this sense of repetition for every fight. Once you get the automated pumps, winch and set your cannons, you are basically clicking mortars and side guns while holes and bracing becomes a mute concern. You can try to stick to only capturing ships instead of sinking them to changes things up, but you don't really need too outside a few story battles. Story length is around 9 hours, so you have a good chunk of content (including a ship battle mode where each fight gets progressively harder). Visual presentation is fine, no noticeable technical issues and the music does help set the mood. The major issue stems from the lack of upgrade options and lack of variety in combat, which made it harder for me to keep playing. Wait for a sale or for some more updates.