Over the years, a number of games, some high profile and some not as much, have entered what we too affectionately describe as ‘development hell.’ Duke Nukem Forever is a notable example of this, but it bucked the trend by eventually being released. Many other projects weren’t so lucky, and ended up being canned instead. They never got to see the light of day, and a number of people are still sad about some of those failures.
One game that folks never expected to see the light of day, due to it having gone through extreme developmental hell, is Captain Blood. However, to their (and our) surprise, it just recently released after approximately twenty years in development, if not more.
Originally announced in 2003, Captain Blood — which was based on Sabatini’s novels — was originally scheduled to be an original Xbox and PC game. Then, after being rebooted so that it would be more mature, and going through publisher changes, it turned into an Xbox 360 game and was scheduled for release in 2006. That obviously never happened, and close to two decades of development limbo followed. Then, in recent years, the game was revived by SNEG, who obtained its rights, and development was given to Malaysia’s General Arcade.
Following that, the team worked on bringing the long ailing project to retail, and finally released a finished and fully playable version of Captain Blood this spring. Before that happened, it apparently even leaked in an at least partially playable form.
Although I have always paid close attention to this industry, and used to devour both video game magazines, online news/previews/reviews and TV shows like Electric Playground, I don’t remember this title. Then again, it’s possible that I heard about it and then completely forgot it existed. Either way, I can tell you that I’ve completed the game, as of this afternoon, which means that I can share my honest opinion with you.
Captain Blood is set on the Spanish Main, and takes place in the 17th century. There, we have our playable character — a British pirate — and his small crew, which includes a young blonde man with metallic gauntlets on his arm(s). As is par for the course, they are in search of treasure, but get wrapped up in a plot by Spaniards to steal a pretty girl who must be rescued. Thus begins a multi- stage campaign, which took me about 6.5 hours to complete, though I did notice a trophy for completing it in 2.5 hours.
The game, itself, is best described as being a themed hack n’ slash mixed with a character action game from the first decade of this millennium. If you played titles like Conan and Viking: Battle for Asgard on the 360, or the original God of War games then you will have a good idea of what I’m talking about. It’s a genre in which the player controls a badass character, who goes from one end of a 3D environment to another while kicking ass. Mix in quicktime events, themed boss battles and both combos and special moves, and you have the recipe.
To be honest, I’ve always enjoyed this type of game, dating back decades. I rented and bought far too many 360 and PS3 games, and beat hundreds, including the forgotten titles I mentioned above. While both of those 360 games (Conan and Viking) were rough around the edges and unspectacular overall, I did enjoy them and ended up beating both thoroughly.
Aping those like it, Captain Blood predominantly features combat system wherein the player presses square or triangle to attack, allowing for different combos to be created by mixing those up. The idea is that you hack and slash each enemy until an icon appears over its head, and then you press circle (and one additional face button) to do a player selected execution. You can even use collected coins to purchase and upgrade combos, unlock different executions and upgrade the playable characters’ health, pistol and grenade collection. This gives you up to four grenades, which occasionally replenish, and can allow your pistol to be fired more than once at a time. However, the pistol attack is something that is timed, meaning that it must regenerate after use.
In lieu of blocking, one can flick the right joystick to roll away from danger or to avoid enemies. This was quite helpful. Furthermore, there is a rage meter than fills up, and can be used for a short period of invincibility. Needless to say, it also comes in handy during what isn’t a particularly easy game.
It’s not surprising given the game’s genre, and its history, but this devolves into a very repetitive experience. At first, the enemies are limited and are pretty easy to defeat. Hell, you can almost instantaneously grab and execute the first type of foes. However, it eventually progresses to where it throws everything but the kitchen sink at you, creating choke points where you’re trying to break a door or a cannon and have large groups of small, medium and large sized enemies coming at you.
At first, hacking away at each enemy and occasionally blocking (which I hated doing and likely didn’t do enough) was kind of fun. However, frustration took over around the halfway point. Even the first boss was quite challenging, at least on normal. Then again, health problems have made me less of a gamer than I used to be. Maybe I wouldn’t have had much of an issue when I was young and spry.
I got better at dealing with these more challenging fights, but I was often close to dying due to the crazy onslaughts that occurred. Some of the latter stages were honestly overkill, due to the amount of foes that they’d unleash, including the 3-4 large and mixed groups that came after me while I was trying to break the large cannon. That took several tries as a result, because health is very limited, and you only seldomly get it back by executing enemies or completing QTEs. I had unlocked an execution that promised health returns, but they were rare. However, I always used it because it often left me holding the dead enemy’s weapons, and those larger melee weapons were very helpful. The same goes for the pistols and muskets some would drop.
Speaking of guns, it’s important to note how annoying they are in this game. Sure, the player’s gun is great at knocking enemies down and causing a bit of damage, but it’s annoying when most groups of enemies arrive with one or two gun toting jerks in tow. They’ll stand off to the side and, surprisingly quickly, shoot and stun you. This can make it hard to move, fight, and survive. The best option is to take them out first.
Later on in the game, a more fancifully dressed pistol carrier appears, and they’re common in the mobs that surround you at the cannon. Not only do they have a good amount of health (each enemy’s health bar appears in the top right-hand corner), but they fire their two pistols very quickly and in bursts. This can reduce your health bar quickly.
As I got closer to the end credits, I started running past more and more enemies. Despite having all of the health upgrades, I didn’t have enough to fight them all, nor did I have the patience. With the ease at which some foes could hurt and stun me, and the limited health pickups or boosts from combat, fighting wasn’t always an option. Plus, there were so, so many damned enemies.
This gameplay loop is slightly broken up by several different boss battles, some of which have very fast QTEs to complete, otherwise you’ll have to fight more damage sponge foes while they watch. It’s further broken up by naval battles, but those boil down to running around your ship and firing cannons at other ships, while dealing with the pirates who’ve already boarded. Once a cannon is fired, it needs to cool down. Plus, each cannon faces a certain direction and ships can come from each. You usually have to kill all of the unwanted boarders before the level will finish, and it’s really annoying when they interrupt your cannon firing.
The main character does have allies who battle alongside him, but that’s just for looks. They don’t actually do any damage!
Visually, Captain Blood is dated, and it’s meant to be. The fact that this thing released is huge, so it’s understandable that it still looks and feels like a 360 game, albeit one that pops and shines more than it would have back then. The art direction is dated and the graphics engine is, too, so the character models are stylized and a bit cartoony. The action is also pretty basic, but it gets the job done.
There exists a decent amount of stage variety, including the sea-based ship battles, the coastal towns you’ll fight through, the old style buildings and pubs you’ll battle in, and the dank sewers you’ll also explore. There’s even a bit of fighting on a rope bridge, as well as a boss that’s on a rising platform you can almost fall off of.
The game looks better than I expected, and it ran fine. Its sound mixing is some of the worst I’ve ever experienced, though. It was often hard to hear the dialogue, because the environmental effects were so damned loud. It got a bit better when I changed some volume settings, but that didn’t do a whole lot.
At the end of the day, with all things having been said and discussed, Captain Blood is a tough game to rate. I’d been following this title for the last year or so, and honestly didn’t expect much. Then, when I started to play it and saw how competent it was, I was kind of impressed by it despite its obvious dated ways and drawbacks. However, when the repetition, choke points and frustration set in, I didn’t enjoy it as much, and found myself just trying to survive while worrying that I would never see the credits. It was tough, but I did.
This is now a rather old-school experience, and what does that say about me? However, I enjoyed playing through a lot of that era’s similar releases, so Captain Blood brought forth some nostalgia and benefited from that, despite its frustrations, its repetition, its troublesome camera and the like. Still, if this game had released back then, it’s not like it would’ve set the world on fire. It would’ve been middling at best, even then. It doesn’t help that the story is utterly forgettable, and the hero isn’t memorable or unique, either.
This review is based on the PS5 Pro version of the game, which we were provided with.