Recent reviews by Tanku

Sadly, all I can say about this game is "not yet".

It's not yet ready.

While the tactical aspect of a PT boat action/management game is fantastic, it dies a death of a thousand cuts due to small but relevant balancing issues. And keep in mind, this is all with keeping in mind that you're literally a small fish in a very big pond, and not expected to survive or succeed too much on your own.

First some positives: the game feels responsive, controls are good enough and the micromanagement aspect is sufficiently simple. You can focus on the combat most of the time without needing to direct everyone manually. The sound is also pretty good, with guns feeling meaty.

However, here are some of the things that ultimately add up to a less than stellar experience, putting it just below the "recommend" line:

- in any engagement, ships start maneuvering wildly, regardless of whether you've been spotted or not. Lining up a hit-and-run torpedo attack on any fleet is pointless, as your target just randomly goes in all sorts of directions. It's as if the helmsman got drunk, fell on the rudder wheel and then his mates decided to have a fight over who gets to drive next.
- you are outranged by basically anything, at least early on. Even some of the piddlier boats can keep you at range and whittle you down.
- Progression is awful. You can play and do your job well for hours with literally no reward. This is due to how the resource points work:
- Resource points need to be manually collected from directly above the ship you sank, or they are lost, which is frustrating. If you intend to do hit and run, you need to go stand on the corpse of your enemies, taking heavy fire, like a Halo teabagger to even get your pittance of points.

These, however, can be fixed. Stuff can be tweaked:

- have ships sail straight, or in a predictable formation until you are spotted. This allows you to be stealthy and rewards care instead of charging in.
- obtain RP automatically when leaving a battle. If I sink a destroyer or a tanker, it's still sunk, whether I stand on top of it like a Manowar album cover or not. Should still get the RP.
- add RP to small boats as well. Even if small amounts, whittling down the IJN in the area should still count.

A lot of small tweaks can make this a very fun experience over what is overall an innovative and interesting game.

A great experience, especially with friends.

Depth of the game can be quite amazing and exploring never feels repetitive (unlike OTHER games).

10/10, would blow up a penguin again!

Let me be clear in stating that the "navy combat" genre today is severely lacking in products. I've yet to come across a title that lets me command my little fleet and feel the satisfaction of a well-placed cannonade or the yells of helm officers, stating that we have hull damage.

While Victory at Sea doesn't quite cover those requirements - it certainly does come close! And here's why:

Victory at Sea is a neat little game, reminiscent of Mount and Blade and Sid Meier's Pirates! in terms of gameplay. The prospect is very simple. You are a Captain and you're given charge of a certain navy's dinghies. Sorry, i meant 'destroyers'. With said rustbucket, you must take it upon yourself to sail the seas (under orders or not) and violently introduce the opponent navy's ships to the bottom of the ocean.

The overmap gameplay is simple. You navigate the open seas in "Sid Meier's Pirates!" style, running across friendly fleets, enemy fleets and ports of varying allegiances. Now, unless 'swabbing the deck' is too complicated a task for you, you can guess the way to interact with each. Friendly ports repair and replace crew and planes automatically, enemy ports and ships are commonly known as 'targets', and your own ships can be helped or escorted.

Simple? Yes. Too simple? Sadly, also yes. While the game has a nice, straightforward concept, I was left dearly wishing it had more to offer. It has the skeleton gameplay down, but not much meat on the bones. For example - your ship's systems can get damaged in combat, but said damage has very little effect (except for guns or engine being disabled). Your guns seem to also be ridiculously accurate, making low-level fights a breeze, even in your first rustbucket.

Happily, though, what it lacks in gameplay 'muscle', it more than makes up for in content. The maps are huge, players can buy ships from a petty torpedo boat to late-war Battleships and every battle feels different. There's always a subtle change in objectives, enemies and tactics that always lets you feel satisfied when downing an enemy fleet while sustaining minimal damage.

Graphically, the game does indeed look rather terrible. This is especially bad in ports, where you get a close-up of your low-def textured ships. Most of the time, the camera's sufficiently far up that you don't see it, but maybe some better textures would have been in order. Ship models are also heavily simplified, with only the largest batttleships showing some decent level of detail. While it doesn't distract too much from the experience, it would be a welcome update to get a higher-def texture pack for it!

Conclusion? Yes, i do heartily recommend it. If you've been missing a proper fleet command game as I have, then this will help you alleviate that urge.

What would one hope for in the future? More complexity. An accuracy system for guns, based on level. Higher detail in ships, ship damage and feeling.

Sometimes a game comes along, from an independent, small-ish company, that trues and manages to introduce new, fascinating ideas and implement them as a staple of genre design for the future.

Unfortunately, Bound by Flame is not such a game. It's actually quite the opposite. It doesn't create a new experience but rather it seems to want to emulate what it thinks an RPG should have. Like a child, swinging around a toy sword, claming 'that's what the people on Game of Thrones do'.

From its first trailers, the game promised a rich storyline, fun and varied combat and the big choice between power to overcome enemies or maintaining your humanity. While I can't talk about the last one, it's safe to say that it fails on the first two.

Dialogue and characters are bland at best, outright stupid at worst. Horrible writing, cheesy one-liners and a voice acting that makes The Room seem like Titanic make it a gruesome, facepalm-inducing experience. Coupled with the fact that the designers thought adding the f-word in the game would make it all better, makes it even worse. Most of the time any dialogue you have makes very little sense...i'm sorry... very little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense. See what I did, writers? So no, that aspect falls flat on its ass.

What about the combat then? Well, you're in for a shock. That's a mess too. The biggest dismay of combat is its painfully slow pace. Enemies seem to have huge health bars, even the crappiest of scouts takes a number of hits to finally go down. Moreso, it lacks feedback. Whatever you hit won't react to the blow, won't be stunned or impeded unless the blow is specifically designed to (see the guard-dropping kick). However any attack on YOU will stunlock. So it will indeed feel like you're swinging a cardboard tube around. Want more? How about adding in a lock-on system that is horribly shoddy (lock on to an enemy, yet launching a fireball at another for no reason) ? Does that pique your interest? No? Who would've guessed...

The music is okay, but becomes repetitive early on, having the same menu tune pop up almost every other cutscene. However the graphics are beautiful, with the grim exception of human faces and lip-sync.

All in all, it's not a good game. Don't waste your money on something even Two Worlds or Risen can do a lot better!