One fine morning, our two intrepid heroes wake up to discover the whole of Ooo has been flooded! Is this judgment from a vengeful Glob? Is it revenge from BMO for the heroes missing breakfast? Is it just Ice King being an idiot? Turns out, it's that last one, spoilers except not really.
Adventure Time returns to the world of video games once again, this time as a turn-based Role-Playing Game. Finn and Jake travel the world of Ooo on their trusty boat, Jeff, searching for the Ice King's lost crown so they can make everything right!
Gameplay: 0/5
I like RPGs. I mean, I really like RPGs. The first website I ever made was a no-longer-existent AOL site dedicated entirely to RPGs. My favorite games of all time list includes a lot of RPGs like Tactics Ogre and SaGa Frontier. So know that there isn't any bias against RPGs when I say this: Pirates of the Enchiridion's gameplay is TERRIBLE.
Pirates is very basic. Game progression is a succession of very basic fetch quests. Combat is very basic attack, defend, use special attack (and before you get excited, know that "special attack" here just means "basic attack plus elemental damage"). I get that it's aimed at kids and not seasoned gaming veterans, but you know what? Pokémon is also aimed at kids and it's way deeper than this. Kids aren't that stupid... especially not if they're watching Adventure Time which actually gets pretty deep in the later seasons, to an extent that I'm forced to wonder if it's truly meant to be for kids at all.
But just being a crappy, generic RPG is not enough to earn a 0. The game is also extremely unoptimized and unstable. First, load times are insane. There are minute or more long load times whenever you change area, and pretty long load times before each battle too. Seriously, you made it ridiculously easy because you were scared you'd drive kids away, but you expect your average ten-year-old to keep their interest up through a three minute loading screen? What is wrong with you?
Get used to this screen, you'll be seeing it a lot.
The game also froze up on me once, and I encountered a glitch where, if you finish a battle with a party member in the "sleepy" status then the battle won't end and you'll have to reset. So yeah, that was fun.
Presentation: 3/5
It's Adventure Time. What do I need to say?
Okay, but seriously, the show isn't the worst. Animation is good, the colorers managed to stay in the lines... noodle arms and ball heads are silly but that's what Adventure Time is.
The game... it looks like someone tried to redraw the show with half the budget and one third the talent. It's not horrible but it has issues.
Story: 4/5
The story is the one saving grace of this game. They brought in actual writers and voice actors from the show, and the result is that it feels just like you're playing through an episode of the show.
That said, it's still not perfect. The biggest issue is that it feels a lot more mundane compared to the show. To be fair, this is not entirely the fault of the writers, but an inherent limitation of the medium. A video game has to follow hard set rules, so it isn't entirely fair to compare it to a cartoon that can just do whatever wacky thing it wants and is well known for doing so.
Of course, if you're not totally caught up on the show then none of this story will mean anything to you anyway... but then, why are you even playing the game and why should the writers pander to you?
KR Rating: [2] BAD
In summary, there really is something to like here. The story is great and legitimately fun, but that's assuming you can stand the boring gameplay, tedious loading screens, and bugs long enough to see it. AT fans definitely deserve a better game than this.
| PROS: | CONS: |
| + Uses writers and VAs from the show, captures the feel of the show perfectly. | - Generic fetch quests and boring, zero-strategy combat. |
| + Legitimately hilarious. I especially love the terrible-on-purpose sea shanties. | - Load times so long even Ice King would die of old age before they finish. |
| + Still a better pirate game than Sea of Thieves. | - Freezes so much I think Ice King wrote the code too. |
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