Re: Bookrage's choiceofgames reviews
Okay at risk of preempting Bookrage's next review, I just finished playing through choice of broadsides, so here are some thoughts.
I have played the game before, indeed I think it was the second I played after choice of the dragon, but it was a fair while ago and some bits I remembered better than others. I also got on better this time around which I suspect has influenced my opinion.
Firstly, I loved the clarity of stats here. Though I was occasionally waying up choices based on my character's strengths, EG whether cutting the anchor chain of an enemy vessel during a boarding action or climbing the sail would involve more of my characters' high fighting prowess, I was never under doubt as to what any of the stats actually did, which was a good thing.
My only miner issue with the stats, is that I got the distinct impression the game was tracking several other things behind the scenes which I didn't know such as the feelings of other characters like Bryson and Jones, or in the mutiny section tracking the happiness and diciplin of the ship's crew.
Unfortunately, this meant that whenever those stats changed the writing had to inform me, often somewhat clunkily of the over all stats.
Whilst on the one hand this made sections feel almost like minigames in themselves, EG the courting, on the other it might have been better to just track how different people felt about me and indicate the writing a bit more subtly.
For example, at the end of the game I chose one option and was told it was "a poor decision" but there was no clear indication to me as to why, and the ending still seemed happy enough.
The writing in general was reasonably atmospheric for the most part, even if a little too short and cursory in places, though I confess part of my affinity for the story comes from touring Hms Trincomaly, which is a fully restored destroyer from the napoleonic wars and the oldest ship still afloat in Europe, since even where the writing was briefer in describing say the conditions on a gunnery deck, I could imagine them myself having stood on one, ----- though not whilst the guns actually fired of course .
With the story being so brief I didn't particularly get the chance to build up an idea of many of the characters or relationships, indeed to say they mention jane austin, the romance section was basically a stat test and then a note overview.
unfortunately, a lot of the choices also had few options, indeed this one is definitely more like a set of challenges as Choice of the dragon was than an actual branching narrative, however I got the idea that my choices with respect to those challenges made a big difference, and that while I couldn't affect the choice of the narrative in a major way, I could at least have an impact and succeed or fail on my own merretts, though one major issue I did have is that there didn't seem to be any achievements, which was a shame since like choice of the dragon, it would've been nice to try and accomplish things another way and get rewarded for it, for example, that is one game where it might've been interesting to play a gay character.
Speaking of Gender, I gather that this one is similar to pendragon rising in that you can basically gender swap the game and have women doing the fighting and men staying at home.
Whilst I understand the thinking there to provide a gender choice, I will confess to me that always feels a little jarring in historical terms, or even alt historical terms.
I'm quite happy with a future, modern or fantasy setting with awesome women warriors (I played a lady carpenter in Zombie exodus), but to essentially alter history to make it equalitarian when it clearly wasn't seems a bit weird to me, plus it negates the idea of a female character being awesome despite gender restrictions.
Still, fair enough if people want the option, but where I tend to like to alternate gender characters in most games, this is one where I think I'd always play a man.
Btw, this time I played a really likable sailor with awesome leadership and combat but who had no idea how to sail a ship called Richard Blunt, again points for anyone who gets the reference .
So, all in all a game that was a surprising amount of fun. It had flaws, cursory, writing, occasional lack of choices and a major bummer in having no achievements, but stil worth a run through all the same.
I rated it a 7, though I admit had I noticed the lack of achievements I'd probably have rated it a 6.
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