Pirates Outlaws is a rogue like card game with some serious inspiration from Slay the Spire.
Slay The Spire is a game that has been sweeping the gaming market recently, with its innovative turn based card gameplay, all focused on roguelike elements and a huge amount of required restarting.
This has obviously bled over into other mediums, meaning that other game platforms besides PC want to get in on the action. Until Slay The Spire finally arrives on mobile, Pirates Outlaws will have to do.[sc name=”quote” text=”Until Slay The Spire finally arrives on mobile, Pirates Outlaws will have to do.”]
Pirates Outlaws plays pretty much exactly the same as Slay The Spire, albeit with a pirate motif and an entirely different cast of different characters and cards to choose from. The base gameplay is the same; develop your hand by defeating enemies and progressing along the level until you fight the boss at the end, with opportunities to upgrade cards, heal and buy relics along the way.
The new innovations to this system appear to be ammo, which is a replacement of Slay The Spire’s energy. By relying on ammo as a requirement for the majority of cards, Pirates Outlaws is able to have its gameplay be based on ammo conservation.
However, there are far more cards that give ammo than in Slay The Spire, meaning that the average cost of cards has gone up. Additionally, you only draw 5 cards each turn, with all of them being discarded and no conserving, making the base gameplay at least slightly different.
There is a whole list of different status effects, things to watch out for and apparent strategies to perfect, however there is one significant problem; it just isn’t clear enough.
With Slay The Spire, the visual motif only served to provide a background with which to experiment with different decks and progress. The individual statuses were clear and concise, offering up all the information that you could possibly want.
With Pirates Outlaws, however, that just isn’t the case. You can’t tell which enemies are going to be harder, what things are going to be better or what strategies are stronger, due to the ever shifting nature of the cards.
Additionally, there are a LOT of different characters that require obscene amounts of playtime to unlock, forcing you to either play this for several hours at a time or to spend real money and unlock them early – additionally, many of them are just plain better.
What’s more, there is just not enough clarity in both the UI and the individual combat rounds to make it clear what exactly is going on at any one time.[sc name=”quote” text=”What’s more, there is just not enough clarity in both the UI and the individual combat rounds to make it clear what exactly is going on at any one time.”]
Though the inherent strategy and gameplay of Pirates Outlaws is familiar and riffing on an established, successful game, this mobile, pirate themed version of Slay The Spire serves only as a reminder of all the things that Slay The Spire is better at.
Without better UI or more visual clarity, Pirates Outlaws remains difficult and clunky to use, if still rather addictive.
[review pros=”An addictive, enjoyable gameplay, ripped straight from Slay The Spire. A decent balance of different card and character types.” cons=The visual aesthetic is far too cluttered to be usable. There just isn’t enough apparent strategy combinations to make accurate deck building possible.” score=5]
[appbox appstore id1442776789]
[appbox googleplay com.piratesoutlaws.fabledgame]
