Do not let the witch and her pirate crew get you RATtled. Get it?
There isn’t any scarcity of 2D metroidvanias within the present indie area, a sentence I’m optimistic I’ve typed at the very least thrice earlier than this. Because of this, when you’re going so as to add on to the pile, it’s essential to ensure you have some side 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 considered one of final 12 months’s Steam Festivals. The demo confirmed a number of promise: 4 playable characters, hand-drawn artwork harking back to a 2D animated movie, a enjoyable pirate aesthetic, and so on. Nonetheless, the sport sadly doesn’t fairly dwell as much as the promise it exhibits, and whereas it’s not a failure, it sadly comprises issues that maintain it again from attaining its true potential.
Curse of the Sea Rats begins on a British ship carrying a number of prisoners, together with our 4 primary characters. When the ship crashes someplace on the Irish coast, the pirate witch Flora Burn takes the chance to rework everyone on board right into a rat. She then escapes together with her crew, kidnapping the Admiral’s son on her means out. Determined to get his son again and break Flora’s curse, the Admiral presents a deal to those prisoners: he’ll set them free and strike down prices they’d in opposition to them in the event that they defeat the witch and return his son safely. The 4 agree and set off looking for the witch, studying of her energy supply: a medallion with a connection to historical magic. Nonetheless, this medallion is incomplete, with our four-prisoner workforce having the lacking piece in hand. With the intention to attain Flora Burn, the quartet should discover the island of their new rat varieties, participating with Flora’s crew on the way in which to interrupt the curse and take her medallion away.
You possibly can play as considered one of 4 characters, every with their very own fashion 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 combating, 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 general 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. Exterior of fight, each character performs the identical, goes the identical pace, jumps the identical top, and shares the identical general upgrades. Every character does have their very own talent tree, however utterly filling only one character’s talent 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. Your complete recreation might be performed in native co-op with as much as 4 gamers, however that is probably the one means you’ll ever see any character apart from the one you instantly gravitate to and take by the entire recreation.
Fight general feels fantastic in Sea Rats; hits really feel like they’ve a great affect, 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 finest with my private playstyle, as did her water-based magic. Bosses are nicely 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 performing for many characters is a bit questionable general, however I personally discovered the cheesiness of the road reads so as to add to the appeal ultimately. Sadly what took away from the appeal was the multitude of bugs I skilled over the course of my playthrough. If I switched characters proper earlier than a cutscene, there would typically be an issue the place the unsuitable voice would learn the strains. For instance at one level I talked to a gaggle of drunk pirates as Akane, however as I had only recently converted from Douglas, it was his voice that learn the road in query. Additionally, when 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, subsequently conserving me on the base quantity for a big portion of the sport. This ultimately fastened itself, but it surely was annoying for the time it occurred. Most of the issues I bumped into have been or will quickly be patched based on the builders, however sadly it was a tad too late to not paint my expertise at the very least slightly bit. General, Curse of the Sea Rats is a recreation I feel has a number of potential, however the samey characters and bugs maintain it again from being what it looks like it actually may very well be. For those who’re actually itching for a brand new metroidvania expertise, or simply actually like rats for some cause, you may positively do lots worse than this one, however I sadly can not say I’d suggest you sprint to the eshop as quick as you’ll be able to for it.
