If you're like me and you enjoy combat based RPGs, and you're searching for that one pirate game since the day when Pirates of the Caribbean online ended, you may have thought this game will be the answer to your prayers.
Unfortunately, this game will disappoint you if you wanted a Mount and Blade game with a pirate theme, because this is at best what can be said about this game. It is just a poor copy of the original Mount and Blade, which I've played and enjoyed for about 3 years now. So why was i disappointed with a pirate themed Warband that I should have liked?
First, the entire map is completely changed so that you can't rotate the camera and do a 3D angle of you roaming the land. Instead, the map is held down and you can do minimal zoom-ins of your character.
Second, land combat, which was based on the successful Warband combat mechanics, is also changed where you are forced to look at a starting map of the battle every time the battle begins. If you want to do a map view the battle, you will have to pause the game, and load a page of the map, taking you completely out of the mood for combat by the time you are ready to fight again. Furthermore, the commands of your troops are more limited than the original Warband game, allowing you to only charge, retreat, and lead your army, rather than command certain troops. As if that wasn't bad enough, you have no commands to give nor a map view of your troops when besieging an enemy fortress. you can't even tell them to charge, or follow you.
Third, naval combat is still incredibly unsatisfying, and nonsensical at some aspects. Apparently, even if you have a lot of troops on your ship, you will board the enemy (or they will board you) with not even half of what your army size is. Also, it appears to make complete sense when your enemies can board your ship when they're not even close to you, or set it on fire when their cannonballs completely miss you. Either this was intentional, or one of several game breaking bugs that need to be addressed.
Now for general combat, where you actually fight the enemies. Even on the easiest settings, it seems like you are the weakest person in the game. Putting your skill points in Ironflesh and Power strike, and leveling only your Strength attribute does nothing like it did in the original Warband. Even with gear with high armor rating, you are still easy prey. Guns miss your target practically half the time, and that's with a musket that has about 90 or 80 accuracy. Spears are overpowered, especially when you fight the Spanish faction, where there pikemen don't give a chance to retaliate.
But enough about combat. The most frustrating case i have to deal with is the constant lag and loading when you go from one area to another. Even with a laptop with enough strength to support Skyrim on high graphics, even when i set this game to low texture quality, few spawning enemies, and pretty much the lowest quality in general, i still lag every time i start a battle. Or go to a city. Or walk into a tavern in the city. Or go to the shipwright, the mansion, the garrison, or anywhere! i have to wait about 20 seconds between areas! You even have to wait for the the textures of inventory food to load, even if you loaded them before and click to see them again!
But what about the good aspects of this game? Surely there have to be some worth to this?!
If you can stomach all the above annoyances, maybe you can enjoy the textures? Maybe you can enjoy the scenic view of the city you visit, which sadly is the exact same scene with every city you go to: a glimmering ocean, bushy trees in the background, and several textured mini-buildings you can click on to visit. Maybe you will enjoy the European factions fighting against the Brethren of the Coast pirates?
I will end with this: so far, i have played the 1.047 version, and even though it is arguably still an "alpha" stage game, it is not worth the 20 dollars on steam. Overall, you don't feel like a pirate, or a privateer working for the European nations. You feel like an army commander with a ship. After about 2 weeks of desperately trying to give this game a chance, my frustrations built up and i uninstalled this game, and made an account on Gamespot just to give this review!
Maybe in future updates this game can improve its lackluster combat and lagging performance, but until then, this game isn't worth it. If you want an RPG similar to Warband, or uses its engine, there are plenty of Mods for it that do the game more justice than this disaster. If you want a Pirate game, and not just a conquering RPG with a pirate theme, i would try Sid Meier's Pirates, maybe Assassin's Creed Black Flag for its pirate theme.