Lord O' Pirates - Review (PC)

Yohoho and lots of cannons

Lord O’ Pirates is an action roguelite game, very much in the style of Vampire Survivors and other games of that ilk. It’s always a little difficult reviewing these sort of games when there is an established big hitter in the genre.

This is because, if you compare it directly to Vampire Survivors, you are being a little unfair. Vampire Survivors has been out for two and half years, and had countless updates and additions along the way, along with lots of feedback and time to polish up it’s systems. Lord O’ Pirates is only just coming out, so you can’t directly compare the two.

Nonetheless, Lord O’ Pirates offers a pretty complete package at launch. You start a run by picking a ship, then by picking a pirate to captain your vessel. Each ship and pirate have different characteristics and stats, and special bonuses, so there’s a good opportunity to mix and match selections to fit your game style.

Out on the open seas, you control your ship using controls that will be familiar to anyone that’s captained a ship in a game before. You move directly forward, turning left or right slowly. You can actually reverse which is interesting, but regardless, you have to move in a much more calculated manner in this game compared to other roguelites, as otherwise you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed.

The game is an auto-battler, so your weapons automatically fire and activate, all you do is control your ship. As you kill enough enemies, you level up, giving you the chance to pick a new weapon or upgrade an existing one. There’s a good variety of different weapons and upgrades available early on, including harpoons, cannons, flying parrots, lightning bolts, sharks, allied ships, and more. You can also get general upgrades to increase your speed or turn time.

I found the allied ships to be the most useful upgrade, as they ram into enemies which pushes them away from you, giving you more space to operate. Enemies pop up in waves, gradually getting more difficult and numerous as time marches on. Some enemies drop treasure chests, which either contain upgrades, gold, or treasure maps. These maps point to some secret chests in different corners of the map, which contain special weapons guarded by a boss. The first one I came across was a cursed cannon, which fired continuously with no reload time - very helpful.

Enemies also drop gold when they die, which can be used later to give permanent upgrades, in standard roguelite fashion. These upgrades are the usual fare, permanent boosts to damage, speed, enemy spawn rate, etc. Interestingly, in this game the pickups aren’t what increase your experience required to level up, they are simply gold for later, and occasionally a health item or treasure chest. Defeating enemies alone grants you the experience.

There are multiple maps, ranging from the standard pirate seas to more exotic locales. There are of course secrets and hidden stuff, and the game gives you quests to help you on the right path to finding them. One thing I will note though, on my first run of the game I managed to do a full run to the end without dying - and unlock 16% of the achievements in that single run. I think the game in it’s base state might be a little too easy, the balance is tipped slightly more towards the player than some of it’s other contemporaries.

Overall, Lord O’ Pirates is an alright action roguelite. It hits all of the expected points a game like this is supposed too, but I think doesn’t do quite enough to set itself out from the crowd. The pirate ship aesthetic is a nice touch, but I think the game needs to do more to stand out. Over time, with enough updates and additions, I think it could be really cool game, but at this point I think it needs just a little more too it to be competitive.

Rating - 3/5

Game key provided by Keymailer.

I want to point out one thing before I finish this article. I know a lot of gamers are very sensitive to the idea of AI being used in video games - and they are not alone in that, I am as well. I would like to make mention of what the developer has posted about their usage of AI in their game, so you can make up your own mind if you are happy with it or not.

This is taken directly from the steam page as of the time of writing -

Generative AI was used to generate reference art for our pixel artist for some sprites.

An IDE integrated with a generative code completion plugin was used throughout production of the game.

An LLM was used at times to help brainstorm ideas, learn new concepts, and provide emotional therapy to the developer in times of doubt and overwhelming stress.

Generative AI was used to create part of our steam page logos.

Generative AI was used to generate a select few meme songs in the game, the most prominent being the title screen music. All level soundtracks were otherwise created by a human (shoutout to my lifelong DJ TheMedisin).

I understand that AI is a sensitive topic for many reasons, and using any AI generated music was especially worrisome to me for fear of some backlash against my humble first project. However, I've been making music for 15+ years, I've performed at venues, I've got albums on every streaming service, and I just don't personally have a vendetta against AI. I think the "real" music it makes is kind of shallow and boring, it isn't fun to listen to, and the fact that there's no human on the other side of it kills the connection I feel with it. However, I think AI is still a lot of fun, and what we used it for in this case was just some fun stupid stuff. A goofy title screen song, and a couple equally goofy sounds for some secret events in the game. If I hadn't used it, I'd have made some inferior soundtracks myself, and it would have taken away a lot of time from other parts of the project.

I am sure AI will continue to evolve and these things will become even more complicated. Despite its questionable beginnings, if AI can help a solo dev or small team to add more polish to a game, or maybe even one day create something that can compete with a AAA studio, that is ultimately a good thing for society and the video game industry as a whole.