Review #554: Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer

 He can take me sailing any time.

Voodoo Pirates never went out of style.

 2006 marked the year in which Bully, Black, Final Fantasy XII, Godhand and... Pirates - Legend of the Black Buccaneer were released. Critically panned, the very few reviews you can find on it are less than kind. But I think they are wrong. As a lover of all things Metroidvania, this game made me think of Knytt in 3D. I know the game is sloppy, but boy if it isn't fun.

 The game's story is pathetic, featuring a pirate who's out for a famous treasure, there's no voice acting but the narrator, and cutscenes are made up of hand-drawn art with the narrator's voice. The story is bland, and there's very little of it. What you need to know is that 'our Hero', as the game calls Francis, comes upon a voodoo talisman that lets him turn into the Hulk AKA the Black Buccaneer, and now must fix a ship, get some booty and get the hell out of the island he's trapped in.

The talisman lets Francis go Mr.Hyde on his enemies.

 Upon starting the game you'll probably feel very lost. There're many different paths, some you can traverse, some you cannot(at the time), and the map will tell you of all the different collectibles you can find in any of the game's 18 interconnected, different areas. At first you'll feel that the map is useless, but you'll get the hang of it eventually. The game's primary strength, and what makes it so good as a Metroidvania, is how many ways there are to tackle it. There's a lot of freedom in how you go through the game. Will you collect anything that you can as you explore the Island? Will you instead focus on completing objectives, one at a time? Will you focus on activating the shrines first, so as to upgrade your stats, or will you go after the Gilded Gates, challenge rooms that reward you with new powers? It's up to you.

 A Metroidvania at heart, there're two main components to the gameplay: Fighting and exploring. Fighting is alright at first, you can mix weak and strong attacks to produce different combos, you can unlock more by finding scrolls, or use a gun(or a bomb, once unlocked) that run on a cooldown. If the going gets tough, and it will, you can also turn into the Black Buccaneer, on the purple gauge is full, to deal massive damage and sap health from your enemies. There're also Voodoo spells, like summoning a Zombie or possessing an enemy, but... they sap your health while activated, so I found them quite useless.... although maxing their levels make the cost negligible. Your stats can be upgraded by spending 'Offerings', dropped by defeated enemies, on different shrines throughout the Island. Combat was decent at first, but I will admit that it grew boring on the latter half of the game.

There're very few enemy types, get ready to face a lot of Gorillas. And Zombie Pirates. And Voodoo Natives.

 There's a LOT of platforming in the game, and it kinda sucks. The X button is used to roll or to jump, depending on the context, but sometimes the game won't get the right context, plummeting to your death. Some jumps can inexplicably fall short on their mark too. All in all, it's pretty wonky, and I guarantee that you'll die a lot of times due to this. Thankfully, you can spend an increasing amount of Offerings in order to revive. The platforming is easily the game's worst part, but it's not horrible. I could stand it thanks to how fun it was to explore the island. There're so many things for you to collect in every area that earning a new ability, such as burning rotten trees or grenades, to destroy weakened walls, feels rewarding and you'll want to backtrack in order to get what you missed. The map does a great job of tracking what you're missing too. Puzzles in the game consist mostly of pushing boxes around, and they are fairly simple to solve.

 I was midway past the three hour mark when I defeated the second-to-last boss, and hit five hours when I finally got every single collectible and upgraded every stat. I had a lot of fun with the game. I think it's short length, but decently sized areas, make for a fun game to replay. It's not a very polished game, that's for sure. But the punishment is lenient enough so that even if the wonky platforming killed you, you can jump right back in in a few seconds flat. This is not a game for people wanting a competent hack-and-slash, because it's not, nor for people looking for a Pirate game, because the Pirate theme is little more than decor, but a game for people that love Metroidvanias. It's a game that rewards exploration with tools for even more exploration, and pretty open ended in that regard, which is were it really shines.
 7.5 out of 10