[Review] Sink Again

[R e i]

Sink Again Game Informations

GENRE: Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy
DEVELOPER: Flatcoon
PUBLISHER: Flatcoon
RELEASE DATE: 17 Dec, 2020
EARLY ACCESS RELEASE DATE: 23 Oct, 2020

 

 

Sink Again mashes three distinctly different genres together and the end result is a polished, great looking game where all elements hold their own. This pirate adventure incorporates Divinity Original Sin style, turn-based strategy, Slither.io style, top-down action and Mount and Blade style economic management and it's all put into one very reasonably priced package. Sink Again feels different in a good way, it's fun, it runs very well, but it does get a bit repetitive after a while.Sink Again doesn't have a fully-fledged campaign with a progressive story, which is a shame because the setting and look of the game is begging for some sort of narrative. The game also doesn't feature any voice acting, which is a disappointment as that could have added a lot more to the Caribbean environment. What little story there is, is told through written passages which do have quite a few grammatical errors in them, but that is only a minor inconvenience.What Sink Again does have is a variety of scenarios that you can play, each with one overarching goal that needs to be completed. These scenarios all have entirely different objectives to complete, which helps to make them differ from each other, and there is quite a lot of them with more to come. What's clever is that when completing a scenario, you unlock new items, gear or ships, and these can then be used in the following scenarios. It's a good payoff for what can sometimes be long playthroughs and it creates an incentive to complete objectives and then move onto another. The problem is that the beginning of each scenario is always the same, and this can feel a bit repetitive after completing several scenarios.Sink Again is in early access; however, it is fleshed out enough to be released as a full game. The developers Flatcoon have stated that they are hoping to add more scenarios, different cosmetic items, side quests and a few more components in the next six months, however, the game holds it's own as it is. I didn't run into any bugs or crashes in the game, it ran at a steady 60 frames per second, and the game seamlessly transitions between the turn-based and top-down action elements without problems. 

 

 

Graphically, Sink Again adopts a stylised, cartoonish look and it looks excellent. It's similar to Sea of Thieves in its visuals, and that look suits the pirate setting. The procedurally generated islands and characters look great but they do lack variety, the ocean looks especially realistic and intriguing, especially in a storm. There isn't any voice acting in game which does take away from the charm of the look, however, the soundtrack is excellent. The pirate style music is perfectly suited to the game, and it adds a lot to the environment. The gameplay in Sink Again is an enjoyable mashup of three genres. The first of the three is the economic management and trade element. It's a hard life being a Pirate and gold is hard to come by, which isn't helped by the fact that everything in Sink Again costs gold. A new sword that costs gold, new cannons, gold, new ship, gold and although gold is relatively hard to come by, the work you have to put in to acquire it doesn't feel tedious or monotonous. That's because there are many ways to earn it. Much like Mount and Blade, Sink Again has a goods management system where you can purchase items for cheap, sail to another island and sell it for a significant profit. Start with something small like bananas and slowly progress to something nice like silk, then once you have accumulated enough gold, purchase a new ship, enhance it with more powerful cannons and armour and then destroy other ships and steal their loot. Or you could buy treasure maps and fight enemies in dungeons and acquire your gold that way, the choice is yours, and that is what makes Sink Again so great, the freedom to go about your pirating however you choose. The issue is that this element can get repetitive, as you have to go through all of this, every time you start a new scenario, and after a variety of scenarios it starts to feel more like a chore rather than an interesting mechanic. The turn-based strategy element feels like Divinity Original Sin but it lacks variety resulting in every battle feeling the same. Each engagement is based on a dice roll mechanic. First, you move, the spaces of which are decided by the numbers on your dice roll, then you perform an active action, this could be attacking an enemy, opening a chest or digging for treasure. When performing an action, the number of dice defined in the crew members respective trait are rolled, if the number of required succesful rolls is matched or beaten then the action is performed. These dice numbers are also impacted by crew member perks such as strength and resistance. 

 

 

 Sink Again is a challenging game, if your ship is destroyed, the scenario is over, and you have to start from the very beginning. The top-down action element is where this is most relevant. You can chase trading ships and destroy them firing cannonballs from either side of our ship but bumping into a massive pirate hunter ship, twice your size is intimidating, and it instils panic as the punishment for being sunk is starting all over again. This is a good thing, and it keeps you on your toes when fighting and sailing between islands, making the game far more enjoyable. The difficulty is a positive as opposed to a negative because it forces you to make choices and think about the decisions you make.Flatcoon has also made smart decisions to implement a speed-up function in the game. In normal speed, the game can feel slow and get monotonous, but the ability to speed it up is a smart and useful addition to the game. They also added physical dice falling from the sky, when in dungeons, and this looks great with the in game physics, however when you are continually rolling for every move and action it does feel slow. The developers also added an option to turn that off. These additions make the gameplay that much better, and it doesn't feel like a slog every time you do something. Sink Again doesn't have a multiplayer component, this hasn't affected my rating but a multiplayer mode in this open-world with other players sailing and shooting each other would be an excellent addition if it could happen.Overall, Flatcoon has done a great job at seamlessly combining three different genres together. Each element is excellent fun on its own, and when put together, they complement each other even more. The game is challenging and that's a good thing; however, after a few scenarios, they all start to feel the same and it does get repetitive and a little monotonous.This system seems complicated, and I probably explained it poorly, however, the game has a great tutorial that goes through everything in a concise and simple way and the perks and traits menus are easily understood with the floating information screens when resting the mouse on a piece of information. There isn't much strategy required here, all you need to do is deal as much damage as possible and generally, the dungeon will be cleared.

 

 

Sink Again System Requirements

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i3 3110M 2.4 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
Storage: 3 GB available space

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i5-8600K 3.60 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Storage: 3 GB available space