A Pirate Adventure That Sinks Without a Trace
When news broke through the reviewer’s network (well, when my editor told me about it) of a new game involving pirates, I was immediately interested. The trailer looked quite good for Trident’s Tale, the latest from 3DClouds, and so I put my hand up to write the review.
Pirates, ship battles, upgrades, what could possibly go wrong? Well, have you ever made one of those calls that you ended up regretting?
A Cliched Quest
It’s with the story of the game where I traditionally like to begin these reviews, so I’ll stick to my plan. We play as Ocean, a young girl who wants to be a pirate, and one day our carer is kidnapped by some evil skeletons. Luckily we have found a fragment of the mythical Storm Trident, and so we set off on an adventure to rescue the man who raised us and put the Trident together. Whilst we’re at it, we’ll batter any and all naughty skeletons that we come across.
With a series of quests to follow and crew mates to recruit, Trident’s Tale certainly promises to be a rollicking adventure. Echoing my first paragraph, what could go wrong?
Wooden Animations and Wayward Cameras
Well, in terms of presentation (our next port of call (see what I did there?)), the news is a bit mixed. Trident’s Tale certainly looks like it is being aimed at the younger gaming audience, with big, bold, cartoony characters in place, both for ourselves and the enemies to interact with. The game is split between a third person adventure/platform type affair, utilising a boat for some exploration. Remember Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and how good that was? Well, forget all about that game, because this one isn’t fit to scrape the barnacles off the hull of ACIV.
You see, while Trident’s Tale looks okay when it is still, the minute that Ocean starts moving, I’m put in mind of the Thunderbirds from the 60’s. She runs in a very peculiar way, and the animation of her attacks is equally wooden and strange to look at. Further to that, the camera does its level best to make you fail; every single jump, as well as the way that the controls react is measured with a calendar rather than a stopwatch.
Sound is again a pretty poor affair, to be honest, with amazingly poor lip syncing in the cutscenes. In fact, it is so bad I found myself watching that lip syncing rather than paying attention to the story. Granted, the voice work is reasonable, but nothing to write home about, and all in all, the wheels are already looking a bit wobbly.
Naval Nuisances
It’s about now where I feel it best to move on to the ship based exploration; again, a place where the news is mixed. Sailing the boat around and finding new places to land is reasonably fun, however, there are other ships out on the sea, and if they come near us, we have to engage in a bit of ship to ship combat.
Sounds exciting, right? Well, there is a hiccup – the controls to select which guns we fire (from front, rear and the two sides) are selected with the right stick, but the camera is also controlled with the right stick. Can you guess what happens in practice? That’s right – when you try to turn the camera to get a better view of the enemy, you end up changing which cannons are selected and blasting all hell out of a passing school of fish. It is very tricky to get the camera facing the right way with the correct set of guns selected. This quickly robs the ship combat of being any fun, and you may well actively try to avoid the fights.
Land-Based Letdowns
Surely once we arrive on land, things must improve? Um, no, not at all. The combat is absolutely awful, with a real wooden feel. It’s usually a surprise when you die, as you literally have no idea you’ve even been hit. The restart points seem pretty random too, sometimes starting you near your fallen spot, and other times almost back at the beginning of the level. The cardinal sin is that if you die after a cutscene, you have to watch it again, at least until you can cancel it, and this really winds me up.
Boss fights are the worst for this, as you ineffectually flail around with your sword and try to dodge the enemy attacks. The most effective strategy I’ve found is to stand in the boss’s aggro zone, and then just keep hitting it, healing frequently. The winner is the one left standing, and usually it is us. Bosses have a pattern that you can try to learn, but to be honest there is very little point.
Exploring should be better, but the jumping is awful, as the distance and height that you seem to be able to jump happily changes from area to area. This makes planning where to go a crap shoot, as you basically end up jumping everywhere to try and figure out where to go.
The Temple in the second area is a particular example of this, as we need to get through a series of rooms filled with traps. Ocean gets hung up on every single thing in the room, from corners to tiny stones on the floor, and the room with the spikes in made me almost throw my controller out of the window. In fact, I had to play Elden Ring Nightreign to calm down!
A Troubled Tale of High Seas and Low Quality
All in all, the gameplay is as poor as the presentation, and at this point in time I’m struggling to find too much that will allow a recommendation. Yes, Trident’s Tale looks fine when static, and yes the narrative is okay (if cliched), but from there, this one is a huge struggle.
Important Links
Hoist the Sails for Adventure in 3DClouds’ Family-Friendly Pirate Epic, Trident’s Tale – https://www.thexboxhub.com/hoist-the-sails-for-adventure-in-3dclouds-family-friendly-pirate-epic-tridents-tale/
Set Sail for Adventure in Trident’s Tale, a New Pirate RPG from 3DClouds – https://www.thexboxhub.com/set-sail-for-adventure-in-tridents-tale-a-new-pirate-rpg-from-3dclouds/
Buy Trident’s Tale on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/tridents-tale/9n24nmz07zdx
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