The world renowned Adventure Time brings us their newest addition to the series, namely an adventure video game called Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion. The game was released on the 17th July 2018 and is available to play on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. It is developed by Climax Studios and published by both Outright Games and Bandai Namco. Climax Studios are a British video game developer based in Portsmouth, and they have famously worked on game franchises such as World of Warcraft, Silent Hill and Sudeki. Outright Games are a family-focused company that pride themselves on bringing families together through video game entertainment. Bandai Namco are a large video game developer and publisher. It goes without saying that they have brought us some of the biggest video game titles out there over the years.
Oh My Glob…Pirates!
Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion is an open world quest-driven adventure game featuring turn-based combat. At the beginning of the game, Finn and Jake are just enjoying a night sleeping on the little boat attached to their tree house. When they awake in the morning, all hell has broken loose. They are floating atop a flooded Land of Ooo with just tree tops and mountain tops rising above the water’s surface. You quickly upgrade your little boat to a ship and sail the seas around the map. It is your mission to work with the Adventure Time team to save the Land of Ooo and to find out what happened. You also have the opportunity throughout the game to complete side missions and gather gold to spend on shop items and upgrades for your characters.
During the game you can alternate between controlling the different characters in your team, and all the characters have different abilities. You may have certain missions that only BMO or Jake can complete. As I have mentioned, the combat is turn-based, and the enemies you battle against are mainly made up of side characters found throughout the Land of Ooo. Yes, there are banana guards that have turned pirate. You will plunder and discover the wonderful scenery that Adventure Time fans know so well. You become the heroes that Finn and Jake have always been. Fight pirates, gather gold, save people and find out what new disaster has befallen this adventurous and mysterious world.
Straight-Up Dong-Bongles!
Some of the crazy slang used in the Adventure Time episodes returns in this game as well. There are many quotes taken from the tv series that fans will use in everyday situations; “straight-up dong-bongles” is one of those quotes. It is used regularly throughout the game, which I think is hilarious. The dialogue throughout the game makes it feel like you are actually playing through an episode of Adventure Time, though luckily, the game is much longer than an average episode. As you can probably tell, I am quite a fan of Adventure Time myself, though even I can admit that previous games based on the series just felt like arcade games and mini-games.
Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion is the first big open world game to come from the franchise, and it has not disappointed. I had a lot of fun driving the boat on the open sea, going from place to place and listening to Finn and Jake singing pirate-themed songs. The game has extremely bright and colourful landscapes and surroundings. It is also a very family-friendly game. I think that the adult age group will find the jokes, comments and puzzles fun, whereas kids will enjoy the fact that they can play as their favourite hero and explore the land of their favourite television programme.
What the Stuff!?
Even though the game is everything I was hoping it would be, there is one major flaw: It has so many bugs and glitches that cannot be ignored. The loading screens take an extremely long time when entering a fight or loading a different area. The game also crashes a lot, and there is always a fear that it has not saved your most recent progress when crashes occur. There are parts of the game I have had to complete more than once due to these issues.
Another issue I have noticed is that the graphics aren’t perfect. The characters are a little bit off in comparison to how they appear in the television programme. This is expected when comparing a video game to a television programme, but there are points when it becomes quite worrying. There are moments during the game where Jake’s eyes will bulge up out of his head, and it just looks a bit creepy.
Adventure Time, Come On, Grab Your Friends
Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion is definitely a game I would love to play with my friends. It would be a dream to have an online or split screen co-operative option so that I could go searching for gold and saving people with my best buddy. The game is still a lot of fun solo. I really enjoyed how witty, kooky, bright and beautiful the world of Adventure Time is in game form.
I think there are some obvious problems that could have been easily fixed before the game was released, but overall it is finally an Adventure Time game we can all be proud of. The games we have been offered to play in the past haven’t felt like full games and have been quite disappointing, so it is great to have a full open world game from this massive franchise. Turn-based combat also happens to be favourite style of combat, so that is a bit of a bonus.
Developer: Climax Studios
Publisher: Outright Games, Bandai Namco
Platform: Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: 17th July 2018 (US), 20th July 2018 (other regions)
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