Pirates have reached a mythological status in pop culture with more swashbuckling stories than I could possibly count (or at least care to) and in every medium. However, Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands, by developer Lemonbomb Entertainment and publisher Rokaplay, is quite a different approach to what we’ve seen recently and establishes a playful adventure right from the start.
Stranded Sails is a base building game where you seek to establish a camp on a remote island following a storm that wrecks your pirate ship. Relative to the characters, the map is huge. The story starts on a main island, but you are able to progress your town and expand out to other islands in the surrounding area making for quite a bit of territory to cover. The look and feel of the game resemble classic Nintendo style animation brought into an age of high definition. The colors and details of the map pop in every corner of every island and really brought me back to the days of getting lost in a Game Cube game. This really makes for a nice change of pace for the endless number of the hyper-realistic titles that are coming to consoles.
As with any base building game, Stranded Sails is objective-based and focuses on gathering tools and materials to build up your camp. The feature of spreading out beyond this first island to others is a unique aspect and made for a very entertaining twist to this title. My favorite component was the farming in addition to building physical buildings/bridges. The food that’s grown and cooked in the game serves to replenish the energy from traversing the map. You start out by growing corn that’s provided by one of the crew members, but there is a variety of vegetable seeds spread throughout the map. As you progress, you also gather more recipes that offer different energy gains.
There is a diverse cast of crew members with different skills that serve to teach you different skills. However, you have to interact with crew members before each new task, which serves for an interesting introduction to many of the game’s features at the beginning, but feels redundant later in the game. This takes away from the interaction between characters and makes many of them feel more like props than characters.
For a game that executes so well on almost every aspect of the adventure, there were times where traversing the map felt very limited. Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands seems to progress on very rigid paths through the islands, and it felt like I really missed out on some potential freedom in the game especially in reference to the huge number of recent open world games. Overall, Stranded Sails is a very well executed game and you can tell the thought that went into every corner of it.
Most importantly, Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands was an absolute blast. It didn’t try to be serious and it didn’t need to be. It needed to be fun and Stranded Sails more than delivered on that promise. This is a great addition to any Xbox collection and can deliver some serious nostalgia for games past.
8/10
Check Out the Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands Trailer:
Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Curse Islands is available for Consoles and PC via Steam.
For more information, please visit: https://www.mergegames.com/stranded-sails
Xbox One Review
My first console was the original Playstation and I would play Twisted Metal every now and then but games didn't hook me until I played the original Halo at my friend's house. As soon as I picked up that controller, I knew I needed an Xbox and I had to have that game. Since those early Halo days, I've branched out and played any game I could find with a great story and memorable characters but Master Chief is still my favorite. @thenotoriousTGT on Twitter
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