I saw news that there is a Pirates Outlaws 2 on the way so I decided to finally give the first a try.
This is what you would call a Slay the Spire clone. Pick a character, pick your node on a branching map, play cards to attack or defend. Enemies show their intentions. Collect cards and artifacts. Fine, if it’s good, I’ll play a clone.
The problem is that I’m not sure it’s good. For starters, it is quite the grind. You can conveniently buy a gold doubler for real money and I can’t help but feel that the prices were balanced to make grinding borderline prohibitive. Most of what is available for purchase can be bought with in-game currency with a couple card packs and a couple characters (out of a dozen or so) requiring actual money. There are a ton of cosmetics but at this point I couldn’t care less about those.
As for game play, it’s fine but feels repetitive. I don’t find myself constructing elaborate combos and looking for card synergy, just playing the best cards I can afford per turn. There are statuses to consider but so far they are more of an afterthought, though that could just be my incompetence.
Progress seems to be universal. As far as I can tell, the only thing that differentiates characters is their starting cards/skills/stats. The card pool that you unlock seems to be a singular pool. I don’t know how the cards are distributed in a given run, but so far it seems random.
Finally, the game is tough, but I also think this is artificial. You won’t be going on long runs until you unlock better cards.
I’ll keep playing when I’m bored but the game hasn’t gotten its hooks into me. As far as StS clones, I think Breach Wanderers does something similar but it just better overall (though it also has the income multiplier, which I actually bought because I enjoyed the game enough).
Oh, and that name? Why is “Pirates” plural? I hate it.
