Although they’re rarely very
polished, budget titles can be very interesting. Since there isn’t huge money
riding on their success or failure, developers can try some riskier, more
inventive ideas. Sometimes those ideas make for an innovative, imaginative
sleeper hit — look no further than Katamari Damacy. Other times, the risks don’t
pan out, and you’ve got a title that’s no more worth 20 dollars than it would be
worth 50. The developers of Swashbucklers: Blue vs. Grey have definitely made an
interesting title, and while it might not be the greatest game you ever put in
your PS2, it’s not terrible.
Swashbucklers puts you in control of
Captain Abraham Gray, a combination pirate/cowboy who hears voices in his head.
As he hasn’t really got much to do, Captain Gray begins taking missions from
either side of the ongoing American Civil War, and from plenty of random people
in between. While the back of the game’s box claims it to be historically
accurate, it does so right next to a picture of one of the game’s characters,
who has a robot arm. In short, the game’s storyline is about as historically
accurate as a box of Captain Crunch. But that’s not a bad thing; a realistic
pirate game wouldn’t be nearly as ridiculous and entertaining as this.
Realism? Bah! I’ll take blood sprays and
dismemberments any day.
The actual gameplay, like Sid
Meier’s Pirates, switches back and forth from various styles. There’s
ship-to-ship combat, hack-and-slash sequences when you board an enemy ship,
one-on-one fencing duels, boxing matches, even a stock market-style trading
game. Each of the various gameplay modes is reasonably fun, although none of
them are particularly deep; by about the half-hour mark, you’ve probably seen
every type of gameplay and pretty much mastered each. Most of the game’s
missions are of the “take this item to this location” variety, although between
missions, you can pretty much do as you please. This gives the game a bit of the
freedom that the Elder Scrolls games are so good at: with 19 different towns and
plenty of water and islands in between, there’s a decent sized world to explore,
and plenty of opportunities to attack random ships, trade supplies, and level up
your character. Like many open-world games, there’s often more fun to be had in
between quests, just goofing off, than there is following the storyline. This
would be made a lot more tolerable were it not for the abysmal load times that
pop up between each different gameplay segment. While they’re not a deal
breaker, it’s still pretty annoying.
The graphics are pretty good for a budget
title.
Swashbucklers looks fairly good for
a PS2 game, especially a budget release. Highly detailed characters populate the
game world, but the environments look a little too similar to each other.
Ship-to-ship combat is also pretty impressive; good water effects, detailed ship
models, and explosive effects make every battle feel like an action set-piece
from a big-budget movie. Less impressive is the game’s audio elements. The music
is appropriately pirate-y, but not all that much fun to listen to, especially
when the same song plays over and over again, which is pretty much all the time.
Even stranger is the dialogue: instead of voice acting, the game’s dialogue is
presented via text accompanied by Simlish-style gibberish. It got annoying
pretty quickly, but sadly there’s no option to turn the “voices” off.
Swashbucklers is the very definition
of a mediocre game. On the one hand, it’s got an interesting style, there’s
plenty to see and do, and most of the gameplay segments are pretty fun. On the
other hand, it’s repetitive, far too easy to be challenging, and quirky to the
point of irritation. At the end of the day, it’s pretty much a wash. If you like
pirates, RPGs, or a combination thereof, you might give the game a try. Anybody
who passes over it, though, won’t be missing out on a whole lot.
Review Scoring Details for Swashbuckler: Blue Vs. Gray |
Gameplay: 6.3
Each of the different gameplay styles is relatively fun, although they fail to
combine to make a cohesive whole. Some strong hack-and-slash sequences kind of
make up for the weaker dueling/boxing elements.
Graphics: 7.2
Pretty good for a PS2 game. The characters are highly detailed and animate well,
but the environments kind of blend together after a while. The ship sequences
look great. Overall, the game suffers from questionable art direction.
Sound: 5.6
The music rips off the score to every pirate-related film of all time, but not
very well. The nonsense dialogue got really annoying really quick, and can’t be
disabled.
Difficulty: Easy
Sure, the game throws tons of enemies your way, but your character starts off so
powerful (and levels up frequently) that they never really pose much of a
threat. If you attack a vastly more powerful ship, it can get pretty tough, but
the game indicates how strong enemy ships are before you confront them, so you
can easily avoid the real tough guys.
Concept: 6.1
While there are some good ideas here, everything’s thrown together in a
mish-mash that never really comes together to feel like you’re playing one
continuous game.
Overall: 6.4
Swashbucklers: Blue vs. Grey is a strange little game that isn’t terrible by any
means, but it’s not really very good, either. While I could definitely see the
game developing a (tiny) cult following, every interesting element in the game
is balanced out by something bad. Definitely a case of rent-before-you-buy.
