[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Avast Ye[/i]' is a third person hack'n'slash game primarily meant to be played on [i]XBox[/i] consoles as the entire control layout is in this format. Putting controls aside (something I'll get to later), '[i]Avast Ye[/i]' could have been a decent game had there not been so many problems and issues surrounding it making it essentially unplayable. You play as Captain Kate, a pirate ant set off in search of a lost treasure with her crew of 2 other ants, one being a fire ant and the other being an oversized ant of mysterious nature. During her adventure she also runs into a moth by the name of Luna, another companion that accompanies Kate and her buddies in the search of the said treasure.
The premise isn't special in anyway and lacks in story telling and gameplay (or at least whatever you can experience). It reminds me a bit of '[i]A Bug's Life[/i]', an old animated film about ants that [i]also[/i] got it's own game which was way better than this one. The problems I have with this game aren't actually about the gameplay as much because I actually didn't find it to be that boring. It revolved more around the fact that the game is barely playable due to the many underlying issues it has that affect both gameplay and the game altogether. Seriously, there are more programming bugs than actual bugs in the game.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
Now we come to the gameplay which as I said wasn't the worst. It basically plays like your typical hack'n'slash game with an additional combo system that the game urges you time and time again to use. The fighting isn't bad but also nothing you haven't already seen in other games. It isn't very satisfying and the combo varieties are very limited, I even found myself using the same combos because there's only about 4 different combos spread across the 3 characters. There's also a skill tree system where each character has their own set of upgrades that you can use coins found throughout the world to buy but the skill trees themselves are very weak and aren't intuitive at all, most just increase the radius of already existing attacks, improve health or enable automatic attacking.
One of the main issues I found though is the fact that the game isn't optimized for PC play, it's optimized for [i]Xbox[/i] systems. Although there [i]are[/i] control layouts for keyboard and mouse, the game primarily follows [i]Xbox[/i] layouts, showing [i]Xbox[/i] control prompts in-game instead of PC ones if you were to be playing on a computer. It just makes playing the game more confusing because you have to memorize what key corresponds to what [i]Xbox[/i] button or trigger. The unfortunate part too is that the control and gameplay aspects of '[i]Avast Ye[/i]' aren't the only things poorly optimized.
The main problem with the game is it's functionality. It is very unstable and is littered with more bugs than Kate has to fight in the game. I've had countless crashes for seemingly no reason whatsoever and the game as a whole is extremely flawed in many different aspects and I'll break them down. To start off, the game already has quite a few bugs relevant to gameplay to which some features don't even work making the game potentially impossible to beat. Luna as mentioned before joins you at one point in the game but her function as a companion doesn't work. Supposedly she's used to lift acorns and heavy objects that obstructs your path but the key to command her is broken. Even then, there are some acorns blocking treasure chests containing coins in them that Luna is supposed to help you reach but you can just strike the chest from the side and get the coins that way. And one part where a huge acorn was blocking the way, I just walked around it without using Luna at all. So even [i]if[/i] her ability worked, it would be next to useless.
Next up is the save feature. Now although there is one, it's just as useless as Luna. Why you might ask? Well it's due to the fact that you can't load any saved games because there's no option to load saves. There's no option on the main menu and despite the constant crashing I was encountering, I still thought that since I could manually save the game anyways, I could just load up my most recent save after every crash and pick it up from there. But since there [i]isn't[/i] a load option, I can't continue from where I left off, I have to start [b]all the way[/b] back from the beginning every single time. Yeah, no thanks.
I really did want to give this game a chance because I don't think it's as boring as many other people find it but the fact that it's barely functional as a game sets off far too many alarms for one to ignore. I know the game was a student project probably made by people who weren't the best at making games and I really did want to be lenient with this one but the constant crashing, bugs and general optimization issues that reside in the game is just far too strong to give a green light.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
To reiterate my point, having to play a game on PC that teaches you how to play it by using command prompts from a console is not a fun time. This is [i]very[/i] similar to a more popular game by the name of '[i]Assassins's Creed II[/i]', a game that also uses command prompts different from a simple keyboard layout making learning the game a pain in the ass. Even though I was able to memorize the controls for the most part, I still couldn't help but find myself wondering what key to press to perform the action that would be "Right Trigger" on an [i]Xbox[/i] controller. It's just a terrible control scheme and a very poor port over to the PC with little to no optimization improvements.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Honestly not the worst I've seen and it reminds me very much of many cartoons and games of my childhood. It could seriously pass off as a game based on a movie or TV series as it has that artistic style. It's colorful, vibrant and offers that oddly intriguing idea of being a miniature being in a gigantic oversized real world. I don't know, something about seeing a huge cup of soda is interesting to me. Despite all this however, there [i]are[/i] some areas where the graphics happen to glitch out which I suppose for a game like this, shouldn't be a surprise.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
Not too bad either but very awkward. There [i]are[/i] dialogue sections but no voice acting whatsoever. Sound effects are also fine and music isn't terrible but also forgettable. I literally just played this game 5 or so minutes ago and just started writing this review but have already forgotten what the soundtrack sounds like. That's how uninspiring the music is. Also not bad and doesn't glitch out or anything. Sadly the same can't be said for the rest of the game.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Avast Ye[/i]' is a third person hack'n'slash game with too many bugs and flaws that make the game essentially unplayable. Primarily meant to be played on [i]Xbox[/i], the developers behind the game did an extremely poor job at optimizing it for PC play as it's littered with game related bugs and glitches, constant crashes and even a save feature that doesn't work. The last update that tackled any sort of bug was announced in August of 2019. Yeah, those update notes you see in the store description? Those are from almost 3 years ago when the game released so either the developers have completely abandoned the game in this horrendous state or no one has notified them of any new or current bugs. And with that being said, if you were to even attempt playing this game, expect to encounter every problem I addressed if not more.
