Raven’s Cry Reviews, Quick Look

Given the game currently sits at an abysmal 34 metascore it’s safe to say that I have rarely rounded up reviews that were as unanimously negative as they are for Raven’s Cry, TopWare Entertainment and Reality Pump’s recently released pirate-themed action-RPG.

IGN argues that the game had potential, but it’s apparently not enough to save it from a merciless 3.0/10 score.

I genuinely do think the potential for a good pirate game is in here, somewhere, but Raven’s Cry is a mess of bugs, hazards, hiccups, oversights, and progression-halting crashes. If you never set foot on land, its ship-to-ship combat might be respectable, but this adventure insists on taking you places no self-respecting pirate captain should go. Sail clear of these trouble waters here be dragons.

Attack of the Fanboy, 2/5.

Raven’s Cry features the type of bugs, oddities, and imperfections that you would encounter from a game that was in Early Access. However, it’s not in Early Access Raven’s Cry is a complete and finished game according to its developers. It might have had a chance to be the consummate pirate adventure had Reality Pump executed on their vision, but the game’s decent naval combat systems and ship progression can’t make up for the mediocrity found in the areas that surround them.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun only played 5 hours, but it doesn’t sound like they’ll go back to it any time soon:

One scripted fight autosaved as the chap chopped me with his sword, and it only took one more blow from him to kill me. So eventually, after multiple tries, I just ran off. Came back a minute later and he’d forgotten he was meant to be fighting me, and stood patiently still while I hacked him to death. Oh, and the exposition! It’s a joy. Conversations in which characters introduce major plot points by saying things like, (But you know that my father was killed when I was a boy and had that same shape carved into him!)

Icons on the minimap don’t match those on the main map. Characters piss mid-conversation. The jump barely functions. There’s just nothing redeemable here. Frankly, it’s damned rude to release a game in this state.

Finally, if you want to see in what state the game has been released, I recommend watching Giant Bomb’s Quick Look. It’s very long (more than 1 hour and a half) but worth it if you’re in a bad mood and need something zany to cheer you up:

I’m usually very understanding of budget problems for small developers and publishers, but this is downright inexcusable. I’d be really surprised if any amount of patches could fix the game’s reputation at this point.