Developer: Gaming Minds Studios
Publisher: Kalypso Media
Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X
Port Royale 3 – Review
YARR matey, get ready to set the sails and conquer the economic trade routes! Or if you like it more fancy, you can be a pirate!
This might sound promising, when you have enough time..
Story
Port Royale originally contained two main scenarios for you to explore and conquer. Some DLC’s added six more missions or quests. The first campaign you can play is the ‘Trader’. This scenario will guide you to earn money and glory by establishing several trade routes and a flourishing economy. You start out as a noobie but soon enough you’ll be sailing the seven seas and ripping towns of for cheap goods, whilst selling them for loads of money elsewhere! Long live the economy!
The second scenario is the ‘Adventurer’. You’ll get the opportunity to sail the seas to extinguish the evil pirates in naval battles. Next to the victories at sea, you’ll also have to defend the towns from several invasions.
When you want to go to ‘the dark side’, you can always choose for the exciting life of a pirate. You’ll need to raid traders and towns and as quick as possible if you can. There is even an Ironman – mode that challenges you to complete the campaign without save points.
If you want to test your skills with other players, you can play the five extra scenarios and upload your score. These campaigns can go from finding treasure chests as soon as possible to raising the population of a town.
These different scenarios don’t seem to have a deep storyline, as you are mostly trying to earn money and completing the quests. The ‘Trader’ and ‘Adventurer’ have a similar turn of events, as you are a young man that falls in love and does everything he can to earn her affection. Although this is a game that fixates more on the simulation of trading and naval battles, some extra attention would’ve been nice.
Graphics
The graphics are a mixture of good and bad points. The cinematic at the main screen is high quality and the menu is nicely finished. Both give the game an authentic feel. When you start a campaign you’ll notice the graphics are lower quality. The quality of the different encounters with traders takes you back a few years in time. This isn’t something you expect when you play the game in the graphical possibilities we have today. The naval chart and the towns are very nice, when you zoom in of course. If you zoom out, the same happens as with the traders.
Sound
The soundtracks and the sound effects are really nice and they take the game to the next level. There are a few tracks that give you that 17th century feel (or how you think it should be). The music changes when you enter a town, which is a nice addition. There are voice overs in the game as well, and the voices are clear and understandable. A minor remark is that the voice you hear doesn’t align with the text that is displayed on the screen. Several words are systematically replaced by synonyms and this might get on your nerves after a while.
Gameplay
Port Royale 3 is a trading and economic simulation game that also has some adventuring elements as well. There are quite some good points but some remarks as well.
Navigating on the map and controlling your fleet is quite easy and straightforward. You click the town you want to visit and your ship just sails with full speed towards his destination. Don’t mind other boats or fleet by the way, you can just sail through them without going shipwreck. Buying and selling items are piece of cake as well, but earning money is something else. You’ll need to know the different prices of every good before you can start calculating your profit.
Next to the trading, you’ll also have to develop your town, Port Royale. This will be done when you advance in the scenario. You get the chance to build an asset of buildings and factories so the town attracts more visitors and residents.
The tutorials are nicely done and you can see that the developers put in a lot of effort, but they are sometimes very brief and lack quite some information (f.e. not every menu or the different buttons are explained ). The same goes for the mission objectives. The essence of the quest is explained but it lacks some extra information regarding how to complete it.
Another minor remark is the battle system. You’ll get in contact with naval warfare at the start of the Adventurer scenario. When you initiate a battle, you can choose to take up responsibility and do the deed yourself or you can let AI do the fighting. When you try to conquer the enemy on your own, you’ll probably fail. There are so many buttons or actions that aren’t explained and you’ll be more busy trying to figure out what to do instead of shooting the enemy.
You can speed up the games pace, but this doesn’t have a lot effect. Port Royale 3 feels really slow to play. You can experience this when you play an hour and revise how many missions or money you have completed or earned.
Conclusion
Port Royale 3 is a trading and economic simulation game that has its ups and downs. The graphics are average but the music and sound effects are quite decent. The gameplay has some good points but also quite some minor remarks. It is a game that you can play when you like the simulation genre and
Port Royale 3 - Review,
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