Pirates of Gravitae is a fun roguelike adventure bustling with challenges featuring one of the more unique aesthetics in any game.
Innerverse Games’ first title, Pirates of Gravitae is already in a unique spot in the gaming sphere. The game possesses a very unique aesthetic of flying pirate ships that feels like it was taken from the Disney film Treasure Planet released all the way back in 2002. While this game does not feature exploration into space, it does portray pirate ships fitted with rockets blasting their way across the skies.
The game has no narrative to speak of. With the majority of the players, motivation boiling down to; “Argh, I be a rocket ship pirate” as you blast your way across the world of Pirates of Gravitae. While that is not a problem necessarily, it does in some ways make the motivation feel somewhat stale and some players may not wish to push forward, especially when other roguelikes like Hades have more compelling narratives accompanying their ‘runs’.
Its unique premise ties in nicely with the game’s best and most important quality. Gameplay. The combat is fun and frenetic with the player’s ship having access to various unique abilities and upgrades. Firing the cannons and watching as an enemy ship explodes into smithereens is continuously satisfying and never truly gets old. This in conjunction with fantastic sound design leads to the combat becoming an adrenaline addled thrill ride.
The unique abilities and the possibility to upgrade your ship allow for more careful planning ahead of an adventure. Players can choose from a number of unique additions to the ship such as a ramming boost or an auto cannon. These provide huge buffs in the midst of combat and while it may not be the most important, the upgrades also mildly affect the ship’s appearance which really helps in terms of the game’s aesthetic and the feeling of progression.
Additionally, players can also upgrade their crew. This leads to the more basic upgrades of ship speed, health, turn speed, and more. These all affect the game and how you will play through Pirates of Gravitae. Will you be a speedy ship zipping through the skies? Or a juggernaut crushing everything in your path? This is the kind of freedom of selection that Pirates of Gravitae allows for.
The game does have a few issues in terms of its gameplay, however. The controls can be rather clunky and difficult to handle. Specifically, in terms of firing the basic cannons, it can quickly become frustrating when you are being hounded by an ungodly number of enemies and every one of your cannon shots miss over and over again simply because of how irritating the scheme is.
Furthermore, the clunky controls are not helped by the difficulty of the game. This game is hard. Some enemy ships can simply one shot you even with health upgrades and in addition to this, the number of enemies can quickly become unnecessarily difficult to manage. This isn’t aided by the camera which almost feels like it has a will of its own in some cases.
The difficulty can in some cases be somewhat mitigated depending on your choice of ‘in-game’ upgrades. Once you start a run after each level you clear, players are given a screen that gives various ‘salvage and loot’ (upgrades) for the rest of the run. These upgrades can sometimes make the difficulty a little bit easier to swallow, but it depends on the options that you pick.
Similarly, at the beginning of every run, you will be able to choose from a selection of captains. The selection of captains is randomised which is in part a good thing as it adds to replay value, but also frustrating as there are plenty of captain abilities that outperform others in a massive way, meanwhile some other captain abilities are almost completely useless.
In addition to this, the game suffers from an issue of level design. Despite some environmental aspects like high/low winds or dense/sparse rocks or whether it is day or night. Ultimately the levels feel the same. Because of this it can on occasion feel somewhat stale as players are faced with the same levels over and over again.
Despite this, the game’s aesthetics and appearance are stellar. The ship designs are amazing and truly feel like a sort of steampunk-esque pirate addled world. Each enemy ship looks unique and interesting, with their abilities nicely coinciding with their appearance. Ironically, the ship’s unique appearance also makes it easier to notice that there is not a huge abundance of enemy types throughout the game. The game is still in early access, however, so it is more than likely that more enemies will be added in the future.
One other thing has to be mentioned and that is the music. Whether you’re in the main menu, the shop, or more, the music really helps in terms of atmosphere and fun as you are constantly played the epic pirate-style tunes throughout the game. It’s a small thing that has a way larger impact in the grand scheme of the game as an experience.
Finally, in terms of performance, PIrates of Gravitae runs exceptionally well. I found little to no bugs throughout the entire experience and everything felt like it worked as it was intended. I did, however, encounter some frame rate drops, particularly on the missions that contained any of the larger ship types. It was not consistent 100% of the time but did crop up every now and then.
Overall, Pirates of Gravitae is an exceptionally fun, if unjustifiably difficult, a roguelike that allows players to experience the life of a pirate in a literal rocket powered pirate ship. It possesses fun and fast gameplay intermingled with one of the most unique aesthetics found in the gaming sphere. In addition to this, the game features many upgrades and bonuses allowing players a potentially endless number of ways to play.
Pirates of Gravitae is out on early access now via Steam. Here at GamesCreed, we cover everything gaming. From the latest news to stellar reviews, GamesCreed has you covered.
