This will be my first post on these forums. I just wanted to take a few moments to say some things about this game, my thoughts and opinion on it, and to express my gratitude.

I'm an adult Male, I have a job and annoying grown up things I Have to do, like pay bills and worry about the economy and junk. So when I first saw the advertisement for this game I scoffed and rolled my eyes. I Said to myself, cute idea I guess but I don't think I will ever play it. So it was a moment of supreme boredom that lead em to download the game client and give it a shot. You see I do love pirates and I figured I had nothing to lose by trying out this game.

To be entirely honest, from the moment I logged in and experience the exceptionally clever yet simple character creation system I found the game to be both charming, and well done. Im going to take a moment to go over what I like about the game and it is my hope that the Dev's get a chance to take a look at this little review. Im sure they will be surprised, and delighted by what I have to say, I know I'm surprised.

Before I get started on breaking this down, I'm a gamer, this is my thing, it's my life. it's my hobby, it's what I love to do more then anything else in the world. I love video games. RPG games are the main focus of my hobby so I have played allot, and I do mean ALLOT of RPG's. In recent years that includes an impressive amount of MMO's. The list includes but is not limited to Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, The Secret World, Rift, Phantasy star Online Episode 1 & 2, Final fantasy 11, Final Fantasy 14, Startrek Online, City of Heros, Champions Online, DC universe, AION, Age of Conan and countless terrible free to play Korean grindfests. I have been down this road a few times, but Pirate101 has something special that I felt I just needed to point out.

First off the game is executed in a absolutely exceptional way. It's simplistic, but that's were it gets allot of it's charm. For a game supposedly aimed at children and there family's, I was expecting VERY little form this game. It's not that I was expecting the game to be terrible, it's just that It happens to be the norm for most Free to play mmo's. heck even many triple A mmo's fail because the games just not fun. This is one of the places Pirates 101 Absolutely SHINES!

With a Name like pirates101 I expected this to be an amusing distraction at best, not something to interest a "hard core gamer" like myself. I am very happy to say I was dead wrong. From the moment you log into the game, it's fun. There is no 60 level grind to get to the fun, there's no requirement of class skills or learning curve to earn "the fun" the way the game is designed it is simply, fun. Right from the start. Im impressed, m absolutely AMAZED! I wanted to say so much more...but i've hit the limit. You done good KingsIsle, You done real good. I only wish I had the Character limit to say more.

Where's that Like Button when you need it!

Welcome!

One-Eyed Jack on Dec 19, 2012 wrote:

Where's that Like Button when you need it!

Welcome!

Your welcome...I'm a little embarrassed to say I actually came up with a brake down, piece by piece, of what I liked about the game including one or two suggestions for minor improvements. Just ran out of space I can legitimately complain about XD even with my "tough guy game reviewer" goggles on.

I guess to try and sum things up, The game just drips charm. Last night I thought I Knew what i was in for for most of the rest of the game as I wrapped up the tradewinds area story line. Only to be surprised when the game LITERALLY had my SAIL across some sort of inter special void to reach not a new country, but literally a new world.

It was like Disney and Skys of Arcadia had a baby, and that baby's named was Awesome!

Honestly you could tweak this game a bit, redesign a few things and release this as a very good offline RPG the story and game play carry this game so far im surprised. Most of the time in an mmo, the story is there to take you from one place to another, even when the dev's try it's just so hard to feel involved, it's hard to CARE at all about the world your in, there's this seance of being disconnected. This story line focus's on you, as if you were the only player and in some regards that might be helping it stay so strong and so engaging.

That's were this MMO has so far been pleasantly different from the Norm. I'm not expecting some amazing end game but that's ok, but this feels and plays like an offline experience. I'm enjoying the ride, all the way, not cursing the grind and praying for the end game to arrive.

As a gamer by life style I had to say something XD I wanted the Developers to know they have something great here, it's simple but it's great. The other thing I loved about it was the combat, MMO combat is useualy pretty dull. This is system is great! Allot of recent mmo's are trying the action RPG approach to combat and thats fine but it still feels like a sub par console Brawler. I could compare the tactical system this game uses to Shineing Force or even final fantasy tactics. It's got so much depth it's hard to buy this is a "kids game" Yet it's never so heavy with complexity that it cant be easily understood.

If I diddent despise card battle systems so much this game would easaly be enough to get me to try Wizard101, I just try it ANYWAY. If playing this game has proven anything to me, it's that king's Isle knows what there doing.

The only major beef I Have with the game so far is it can be a little grindy in the gold department but it's not a game breaker, and the character creation options are tragically limited for something so precious as this. The player avatar models are a little...iffy to. there not bad I love my little Swashbuckler, but my companions and stuff all look so cool. XD I realize the characters had to be kept some what simple but so much love went into making the NPC's that the PC avatars are a little less impressive by comparison.

Well when i say Grinding I don's mean the traditional grid of killing monsters in offline RPG's for money and exp. As long as it's paced well the combat system is fun and the fights are rewarding thats fine. MMO grind is designed to be a time sink, not a rewording experience were you grow stronger. So theres good and bad grind I supoose.

this game has some grind you grind bosses and stuff for gear but there's very little pointless stuff were I feel like im just wasting my time and that im very thankful for.