Ship of Fools Review
Ship of Fools
Publisher: Fika Productions
Developer: Team17
Genre:
PEGI: E
Comments:
Just when you thought you’ve seen and done everything a rogue like game could offer….along comes Ship of Fools. Ship of Fools is a seafaring rogue like co-op game where you play the Fools, the only creatures fool enough to brave the sea.
The Great Lighthouse that once protected the Archipelago is broken and a storm of malice and corruption is coming. Together, you and your ship mate will jump aboard The Stormstrider and make your voyage across the sea.
Man the cannons, ready your sails and protect your ship from sea monsters over multiple runs. It’s up to you to defend your home from the almighty Aquapocalypse. Team 17 is already known for publishing some chaotic two player experiences, but this is a whole new world.
This game is very reminiscent of Overcooked a bit especially some of the boat levels they had, mashed up with a little Cult of the Lamb. I’ve recently gotten into some great Rogues over the last two years with games like Hades, Neon Abyss, Cult of the Lamb, so I was excited that Team17 (one of my favorite indie publishers) was putting one out.
The game has a pretty satisfying loop to it, you hop on a ship, chart a path, which is different every time as the game randomizes everything and on top of that you select the path to go, and explore.
You may encounter an attack which has you run from side to side of the ship to load (and shoot) the cannons or use melee combat if the enemies are close enough. It is easy to get overwhelmed and taken over so I strongly recommend you bring a friend along for the ride. I found the game ALOT harder to do alone, but like trying to play overcooked alone, it wasn’t a good experience. As you progress, you will be able to upgrade abilities, power ups and the like.
As you take turns throughout the map as you chart your course looking for trinkets, new fools, weapons, upgrades, treasure you uncover more of the map. However every couple of turns the boss begins to take over portions of the map eventually forcing you into battle even if you don’t want to.
If you aren’t fully prepared, it could be a very quick trip back to the light house. There are as a mentioned more fools (characters) to unlock, each with a unique style, personality and trinket (powerup) of their own to unlock which adds to that satisfying game play loop of even if you aren’t beating the game, you are at least advancing things and unlocking new things.
The art style is a lot of fun with a very cartoony look to it similar to what Cult of the Lamb did but less “cute”. The game ran flawlessly on my playthroughs with no crashes or system glitches which is impressive from first time game developer Fika Productions. Music and sound fit the atmosphere and style of the game as well.
All in all it was an extremely fun game to play through, even if you struggle as a gamer with Rogue likes give this one a whirl if you have someone else to play with. Typically the issue with some Rogues is the difficulty level, and thanks to Ship of Fools, you aren’t the only one on the plank,
Trailer
Article By Kevin Austin
Kevin Austin has been in gaming journalism in one way or another since the launch of the Nintendo Gamecube. Married and father of 3 children he has been gaming since the ripe age of 6 when he got his first NES system and over 30 years later he is still gaming almost daily. Kevin is also co-founder of the Play Some Video Games (PSVG) Podcast network which was founded over five years ago and is still going strong. Some of his favorite gaming series includes Fallout and Far Cry, he is a sucker for single player adventure games (hence his big reviews for Playstation), and can frequently be found getting down in one battle royale or another. If it's an oddball game, odds are he's all about it.
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