The sloppiness seen in the instructions and interface carries over into the two campaigns, both of which feature the same paper-thin premise about getting rich in order to win the heart of a young lady who apparently won't give anyone the time of day unless they make millions and/or save her from pirates. Just keep in mind that if an informant says a base is "west of New Orleans," they might actually mean Honduras. Tracking down pirates (more on that disappointment later) requires paying geographically challenged informants for the location of their hideouts. The lack of consistency - and accuracy - would be possible to overlook if it limited itself to the tutorials, but it can be seen throughout Port Royale 3.
A simple concept, but the stiff narrations will also call the escorts "combat vessels" or "warships," and the fact that all three terms refer to the same mechanic isn't always obvious. A popup would state that each convoy a player controls must designate three ships to serve as "escort vessels," which do the actual fighting should battle occur. When they play properly, they confuse matters by using different vocabulary to refer to core gameplay concepts covered under other names in the text. Occasionally, I missed critical information when the narrations cut to silence mid-sentence and resumed at the beginning of the next as if nothing happened.
These interface difficulties are compounded by poor in-game instruction via text pop-ups and voice overs. Interface difficulties are compounded by poor in-game instruction via text pop-ups and voice overs. Instead you have to enter the town, select the vessel, exit the town with your ship still selected and then finally order it to its destination.or you can drill down through two or three menus to select the proper vessel from a remarkably well-hidden list that is only marginally more convenient than hunting down your fleet manually. For example, there's no way to select a docked convoy or ship from the overworld map - the screen that you'll spend 90% of the time staring at. Harkening back to horrendous mouse-driven interfaces of the DOS era, the clunky menus make even the simplest actions take three more clicks than they should. From this exciting premise, developer Gaming Minds delivers something with little more depth or variety than 2004's Sid Meier's Pirates - and a user interface that would feel at home in 1987's Sid Meier's Pirates. You settle down and manage a town, raid pirate dens, or even unite the entire Caribbean under your own flag.
PORT ROYALE 3 TRAILER FREE
Port Royale 3's premise seems like a recipe for an amazing game: as a castaway starting out in a Spanish colony, you're free to choose your destiny and become an adventurer, trader, pirate, privateer, and/or governor. Port Royale 3 at least manages to capture the boring nature of life at sea - but other than that I have little good to say about it other than that I don't think it'll give anyone scurvy. Despite a reputation for high adventure, a day in the life of the average Caribbean pirate must have been dreadfully dull, with long stretches at sea and nothing but scurvy to occupy them.