Captain Edward Continues Review (PC)

Nothing says swashbuckling adventure like a time-traveling privateer who romps around with a semi-automatic assault rifle and an unshakable love of crass quips and the frequent sea shanty. If you haven’t heard that one before, then let me introduce you to Captain Edward Continues, a tall tale that doesn’t necessarily keep in tune with the times, but instead chooses to add a whole bunch of ingredients into a pot and the peg leg for good measure. Is it a pirate game? Gee, I’m not really sure — but it’s something. It’s a cog with oh-so many moving parts—periodic changes, questionable weaponry, hit-and-miss comedic effects, and a structure that I think works well under its own weight. But then again I’m not sure. Having seen one too many farting dolphins, I’m just not sure what to think anymore. Hey-ho!

I’d like to imagine that Blue Slayer Gaming had a whale of a time building the cutscenes and recording the voiceover work for Captain Edward. There’s a lot of that adolescent humor that its creator uses to flesh out its vessel—the sort you would half expect to have heard on a playground in second grade—farting, giggling, and bashing heads over the cheesiest things that would’ve made absolutely no sense to the seasoned student whatsoever. And yet, seeing as comedy is a subjective matter, I can’t quite bring myself to dampen Captain Edward’s enthusiasm for deadpan jokes. It isn’t an intellectual game by any stretch, and so, if that’s the fodder that does it for you, then you might want to point your flintlock elsewhere; it’s farting and frat-like humor that bring about the wind beneath these sails, friend.

Flintlock & Fart Fodder

To state the obvious, Captain Edward isn’t your usual pirate-based first-person shooter à la Sea of Thieves. It’s a little more gimmicky than that—childish, you could say, yet as equally entertaining nonetheless. It’s a game that centers its premise around the titular captain—a time-hopping swashbuckler who has the ability to maneuver through various time periods and, well, do pirate-y things. Is there a story? Maybe, though I’m still not entirely sure, given that the bulk of the game transpires over an array of cutscenes that offer little to no context or purpose. But like I said — fart jokes power this vessel, so I can’t say that I’m all that surprised about a lack of plot points here.

There is a bit of gameplay to work with here, which is great. However, I’d also be lying if I said that Captain Edward is a game-game, and not an excuse to fill its basket with weird and wonderful cutscenes that the average numskull would no doubt find hilarious after a few pints of grog and a packet of lemons. And don’t get me wrong, it does come clean with its own brand of tongue-in-cheek moments, but it’s also a game that relishes in its own stupidity and lack of seriousness, so it almost comes expected, to be fair. I’m not saying that it’s predictable, but it does feature that one-note track of humor that only a select group of people would enjoy and laugh at. For me, well, I just found myself laughing at just how bad it all was — but I think that was the point.

Skull & Barebones

Going back to the gameplay — eh, it’s passable, though nothing particularly special or exciting, far be it from invigorating. The world that you scoot around in is incredibly barebones—wide open areas with little to no intricate features, sort or barebones—and only a select few things for you to do. There’s a bit of combat (don’t even get me started on that) and a handful of fetch quests that primarily involve a bit of exploration and detective work. For the most part, though, the game itself is pretty linear: speak to one NPC to unlock a cutscene, and then move on to the next for—you guessed it—another “story” beat and a chance to usher the narrative in the right direction.

Captain Edward doesn’t boast the most spectacular graphics in the world, nor does it deliver a clean audio quality that would elevate an otherwise mediocre C-list adventure game, for that matter. It’s a passion project, if anything—a developer’s first attempt at bringing something to the table with the basic bread and butter assets of an entry-level engine. Even still, I can’t help but admire Blue Slayer Gaming for their shot in the dark. There’s a few extra points, right there.

Verdict

Captain Edward takes me back to those early Gary’s Mod days—an era that was fueled by questionable ideas, structureless sandbox designs, and replicated assets and shoddy voiceover work. I suppose, when all’s said and done, it’s a testament to the fact that even the poorest of games can still be a lot of fun to play. Granted, it isn’t the best game in the world, and its humor doesn’t always hit the mark, but that isn’t to say that its pre-pubescent fans aren’t likely to get a kick out of it.

I won’t beat around the bush and pretend that Captain Edward is bursting at the starboard with all of the hallmark treasures of a memorable pirate game, because it certainly lacks a lot of important elements—a captivating storyline, in-depth gunplay, and humor that’s both coherent and palatable, to list just a few of its shortcomings. And yet, for as little as a few bucks, I find myself thinking that maybe, just maybe, it has just enough to whet that mood for a short while.

As I mentioned earlier, Captain Edward isn’t so much a game-game as it is a flip book of comical sketches. It has its gameplay elements, for sure, but I wouldn’t say that it’s any more of a first-person shooter than it is a Souls-like. The point is, there isn’t much to sink your teeth into here, so if you’re hell-bent on taking to the tides of an open-world pirate RPG, then heed my warning before donning the flintlock: this vessel of Blue Slayer Games’ couldn’t be further from the sea. If you can make peace with this, then you might just find yourself enjoying a slice of…whatever this is.