A surprising licensed adventure, Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion Anti-Review

Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion (PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Steam, Xbox One)

(Video Review)

When you buy a game like this, it's for one of three reasons, you either love the genre, the developers, or the license the game is based on; now, if you bought the game for any other reason, it is likely your going to have a bad time. That is of course unless you bought the game for one of those three reasons, or if by some magic for all three, then I think you're going to be in for a treat; one that might not be the most technically impressive, but, it is a fantastic treat all the same. Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion is a turn-based RPG, with very light platforming and puzzle elements, this is probably the best format for an Adventure Time game. You get to explore The Land Of Ooo, fight baddies and most of all, you get to go on a fun adventure with your friends from Ooo.

The catalyst for this grand adventure is a mysterious flood threatening The Land of Ooo, this causes a kind of Pirate virus to spread through Ooo; and only Finn, Jake, Marceline, and BMO can save the day, yet again. The story is clearly written by fans of the show; while it is lacking the show's strong sense of character development, it does not lack the humor or the most important factor of all, the voice cast. The entire game is fully voice acted, and it is done so well, that it seems like one long episode of the show; except when the game has a glitch in the audio, causing you to miss some jokes or story beats. This only occurred a handful of times during my playthrough, however, it is the most annoying fault in the game.

While the framerate can experience major slowdowns, and some animations can look questionable; for the most part, the game looks and runs well. Although, I think some gamers may disagree with me. Nothing is game breaking, and I never faced an issue that hampered the experience; yet, it does feel unpolished due to poor load times, and most of all the freeze frame quality of the framerate. These issues pop up now and again, and they all go away in a matter of moments; it just takes a bit of patience, then its right as rain again.

Those issues are sadly unfortunate, yet, that is only because they may blind some gamers, to the buried treasure lurking just beneath the surface. Beyond a greatly realized Adventure Time story, there is the fun of exploring the most immersive Land Of Ooo that has graced a video game; and on top of that, there is the ridiculously enjoyable combat and leveling mechanics. The combat system may seem simple, but I had more fun with it than the combat featured in South Park's The Stick Of Truth. As a matter of fact, that is probably the best game to compare Pirates of the Enchiridion with; the combat is fairly similar, yet it lacks the constant quick time events, and instead focuses purely on strategic turn-based combat. Combat that I never expected to be as fun as it was, I fully expected to be bored of it before I even finished the game; yet, that never happened. Every battle is rewarding thanks to the game's addictive leveling system and plentiful character abilities; leveling is not only based on gaining experience, but spending Dosh the game's form of currency to level up your different abilities.

You will spend Dosh to get the games many items as well, the number of items on offer may seem overwhelming at first, but eventually, they come to form a huge portion of the game's tactics. The platforming and puzzle sections are here mostly to add to the interactivity of the world, leaping from platform to platform, feels rather satisfying and I enjoyed the simplicity of the game's puzzles; I found them a nice change of pace to offset what could have been monotonous levels of combat. These elements add up to a very relaxing, and yet, also surprisingly enthralling adventure.

I do lament the lack of polish, however, I also came to realize it may not be that simple of an issue. While it is possible that the game needed to be rushed, and that resulted in a lack of overall polish; there is, however, another possibility. This game, like most by Outright Games, is built on the Unity engine; sure, it can do great top-down and 2D types of games, but an open world adventure? I have never seen one created like this with the Unity engine, and I am incredibly impressed by it. You sail around a fairly large world, that is open, albeit not in a seamless manner, there are a lot of loading screens, but it is open all the same; furthermore, the game looks as close to the show as I have seen a game get, and most of all, it totally captures the feeling of the show. So back to the possible reason for the game's issues. It is likely that the only way to fix them, would have been to rebuild the game from scratch; could that have resulted in a more polished experience? Most likely, but not everything has to be perfect, somethings just work and are fun; honestly, that's enough for me. I came for a fun Adventure Time experience, I got that and I would be happy to revisit The Land Of Ooo any time.