Under The Jolly Roger Review (PlayStation 4)

Under The Jolly Roger is a Pirate Open World Action RPG where you rove the seas across three continents filled with dozens of colonies and forts, hundreds of quests, and countless ships to plunder. Customize your ship, trade, challenge fellow pirates and face terrible mythical monsters such as Kraken and Leviathan.

Pros:

• Nice graphics.
• 1.94GB download size.
• Platinum trophy with new trophy descriptions.
• Opening tutorial section.
• Pirate RPG gameplay.
• Re-release of the previous game called Tempest Pirate Action RPG.
• Optional replayable tutorial missions after a mandatory opening fight that shows off the controls.
• Open world.
• Sail around in your ship, run around by foot in set locations and enemy boats.
• World map- select destination and optional fight instances pop up.
• Map uncovers as you move around.
• Ports-buy/sell goods, upgrade/repair ship, take tasks/jobs and manage the crew.
• Scrolls-collect in fights and use to upgrade your crewmen.
• Customize your ship-sails/color/flags and decorations.
• Play how you want and do what you want.
• Can use the map to travel or go into free roam and sail around.
• Factions-unlock new factions and swap between them at will and factions dictate jobs, tasks, alliances, and buffs.
• Captain and officers-unlock them/find them to equip them and get buffs for your crew and ship.
• Boarding-damage an enemy ship enough and you can board it. You go into 3rd person view on foot and can attack and block. For rewards, you can choose to take the ship, take the crew or break the ship and repair your boat.
• Night and day with weather effects.
• Sea monsters inhabit the world and can strike randomly.
• Can see wind direction.
• Hire crew members from the pub and you can get different types and assign them to posts on the ship.
• Combat-depends on the ammo used but a line will show the range and you just line it up with the enemy ship and a percentage bar goes up and at 100 percent you do your attack.
• View-can zooms in and out including first person at the wheel.
• Ship upgrade-buy and equip new parts from Sails to cannons. Shards are used for an overall buff like faster reloading etc.
• Item management as you can become encumbered and unable to move.
• The ship has a set of health bars for each part of the ship.
• Your crew earn exp and can be leveled up using scrolls that increase their stats and abilities.
• Can go on land and take on supernatural enemies and solve simple puzzles for treasure.
• Huge time sink.
• Cannonballs-different types do different damage like some do the whole ship whereas some will do the masts quicker or attack the crewman.

Cons:

• Feels just like the other game.
• Fiddly controls.
• Hard to understand initially.
• Frustrating combat and movement.
• 3rd person events run badly and are zoomed in too close.
• The mission structure is obtuse and messy.
• Constant difficulty spikes.
• Little explanation.
• Vague mission /task descriptions.
• Very grind-heavy.
• Missions in port don’t disappear once complete.