Sadly, I missed out on playing the previous versions of Port Royale. Port Royale 3 is my introduction into the series, and from the start until now, my experience has been rather pleasant, indeed.
To me, PR3 is Railroad Tycoon meets Age of Sail, both of which are legendary and beloved gaming series' to me. There's simply a lot I love about this game. I love the acts of trading goods between ports, stocking up my ships with goods at one port, then selling them all at another, and watching my profits rise higher and higher. I love outfitting ships for war, shanghai-ing sailors into servitude, arming them with swords and muskets, and hoping they don't mutiny. I love the aptly-paced real-time combat, outsmarting the AI with my naval combat maneuvers, and slowly and expertly filling their ships with holes and lead until they sink in the drink. Surprisingly, I also find myself enjoying the main campaign's storyline, with the adventure, love, and political intrigue.
Yes, of course, it's not a perfect game. There are more than a few things I find bothersome with PR3, but thankfully none of them are things that break the game for me, or are causing me to dislike and quit playing. The buy/sell slider is one of my most irksome griefs, as it's a nuisance to use. For what it's designed to do, it does work, but it requires much more effort than is warranted, in my opinion.
Another string of errors I've noticed come in the way of mismatched verbal and written dialogues. For example, the character speaking will say `ship', but the on screen text will have it written as `vessel'; spoken `city' is written as `town'; `commodity' is written as `good'. Again, not something that breaks the game, but still a noticeable error, and something a quality editor should have caught and fixed by now.
Looking at the official blog and forum posts, it's clear that a multitude of fixes have already been instituted, with many more in the works. As long as that continues, it works for me. In it's current form, PR3 is absolutely playable, and worthy of the 4 stars I gave it. Its solid economics engine, engaging combat, clear and colorful graphics, and interesting storyline will keep me coming back to play until the finish.
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If you're looking for something different than the long list of shooters for Xbox 360, give Port Royale 3 a shot. It's a mixture of economic sim and ship combat game set in the days of piracy. The merchant and trading stuff is very deep, coming from the guys who did the original port royale games (and Patrician), so it feels very realistic. The sea battles are a fun diversion, it's always fun chasing down pirates. There's an adventurer campaign, in case you don't just want to become a trading powerhouse. In the adventurer campaign, you still have to buy/sell goods, but you also have a storyline that you lead your character through, and the gameplay feels a bit quicker and better paced than just "sail from here to there, sell things, buy things."Best Deals for Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants - Xbox 360
You start off with a single ship and over the hours and days (real time) you grow more powerful.There is enough complexity to enjoy the game for extended times without getting furious at playing (until the pirates show up and you aren't prepared)
5 stars for fun because its kept me entertained on many boring nights. 4 stars overall simply because its a very small play world and the details vary very litte within each city. I find myself playing it a bit less, or restarting games just to keep it interesting, but still very good overall.
Honest reviews on Port Royale 3: Pirates & Merchants - Xbox 360
I should not have waited this long to get this game, It has been so much addicting fun. Perhaps it is not for everyone, but if you like games about empire building, trading, and tactics in general, this is a solid game.The trading aspect of the game is very customizable, albeit it takes some time and practice to master them. I found myself thinking "Why can't I make a certain setting this way?!?!", only to find out that the option was available, I just had to do a bit of digging around in my warehouse. You can set up trading routes, and if you want to get nitty gritty about it, there is an option to plan out the transactions you want your trading fleet to make along the route.
The sea battles are pretty exciting. I liked this aspect of the game very much, although I didn't dig being thrown into the first battle with no idea about controls, etc. Needless to say, I had my butt handed to me a few times before I started winning. Beyond that, combat when boarding ships and attacking settlements is almost completely a numbers game. To beat a heavily guarded settlement, you have to either patrol the port and sink any ships approaching, or you have to attack with wave after wave of your men, until you bring their numbers down. Another thing that is a numbers game is if you automate the sea battles. It is almost guaranteed that whoever has the highest power rating will win the battle.
I found myself playing this game and thinking that there is much room for improvement, but honestly, I find myself thinking that about every game. The most frustrating parts for me were:
Having to decipher what their little icons mean. They use a lot of icons rather than text, to symbolize things in this game. Holding the left stick down does give a legend, but it is an incomplete one. This is frustrating when dealing with the warehouse, and the side menu of the particular fleet.
Taking over towns economically is very tedious, but the worst part is that you have no idea how far along on the requirements to do so you are. I found that the easiest way is to build a bunch of houses, businesses, kiss up to the particular faction and the town, and some time in the future I get the choice to take over.
This game warns you when one of your towns is lacking raw materials (which believe me, is pretty often), but when an enemy is attacking your settlement, there is not a peep about it until it has been ransacked or taken over. Also, you can not send a fleet to reinforce your defenses or anything. You sort of just have to wait the battle out.
That being said, this game is a gem. I eagerly wait and hope for a sequel. This game is not much about story line, although it is as good as you can expect from pretty much every game out there, this game is a multi-layered tactics game that I could not put down for days. Excellent, especially for that price.
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