Curse of Pirates Review: High-Seas Bullet Heaven Hits and Misses

Curse of Pirates blends the frantic horde-clearing combat of Vampire Survivors with nautical maneuvering, elemental draft synergies, and Eldritch ocean horrors. Developed by Funky Parrot and published by HeroCraft PC, this $9.99 indie action roguelike leaves behind traditional dry-land arenas to put players at the helm of a rickety vessel sailing across cursed waters.

While the concept of turning a modest ship into a screen-clearing armada delivers genuine fun, rough collision mechanics, unforgiving crowd-control hazards, and pacing bottlenecks keep the voyage from reaching smooth waters. Here is our complete review of how Curse of Pirates performs across its campaign, builds, controls, and progression.

Overview and Core Specifications

Curse of Pirates graduated from Early Access into its 1.0 release on September 7, bringing a full five-stage voyage into the abyssal depths along with the return of permanent meta-progression.

High-Seas Combat and Fleet Mechanics

Curse of Pirates trades traditional foot-based mobility for the inertia of naval navigation. Instead of instantly snapping around on a 2D axis, you guide your ship through water currents, dynamic storms, and narrow archipelagos while facing swarms of enemy corsairs, flying crabs, aggressive dive-bombing parrots, and abyssal monstrosities.

Combat relies heavily on automatic weapon firing and projectile-multiplying builds, though specific vessels modify how you pilot:

• Standard Vessels and Junks: Focus on projectile volume and broadside bombardments, allowing players to concentrate on maneuvering while weapons fire on cooldowns.
• Summoner Ship: Buffs summoned marine allies, letting schools of fish, phantom rays, and Eldritch tentacles handle front-line skirmishing.
• The Submarine (Nautilus): Replaces automated weapon discharge with manual targeting, dramatically raising the mechanical skill floor for players seeking tighter aiming control.

The tactical map goes beyond open water. As you sail through each chapter, you harvest resources such as wood and stone, open sunken chests, visit altars, and locate ancient treasure maps. Certain abilities even alter terrain directly, placing or removing physical landmasses to manipulate enemy movement corridors.

Synergies, Crew Recruitment, and Build Variety

The strongest aspect of Curse of Pirates is its build diversity. As you advance, you recruit distinct crew members who act as skill drafts, introducing specialized elemental tags and active abilities:

• Fire: Covers wide water surfaces with burning oil and damage-over-time zones.
• Poison and Toxin: Applies stacking debuffs that melt through high-health enemy fleets.
• Lightning: Specializes in chain reactions, critical strikes, and tethered lightning pylons.
• Void and Ghost: Summons undead spirits and spectral captains to tear through ranks.
• Wind: Grants dashes and movement speed while summoning screen-filling tornadoes.
• Abyssal Powers: Channels entities like Zar'Kul to spawn tentacles and chaotic marine fauna.

Upgrades expand further through "Marks"—socketable items merged up to higher tiers that inject elemental procs directly into base attacks. A basic cannon volley can thus be mutated to spit poison puddles, detonate on impact, and summon grasping appendages simultaneously.

Campaign Progression and Boss Encounters

A full run spans five interconnected maps, transitioning from pirate-infested coastal shallows to abyssal zones corrupted by giant disembodied eyes, suicide bombers, and tentacle-wrapped battleships.

Boss encounters punctuate key checkpoints rather than merely letting a timer expire:

• Naval Admirals: Armed with heavy galleons, long-range broadsides, and escort escorts.
• The Kraken: A multi-stage sea monster testing positional agility against flailing tentacles.
• Citryx and the Eye of the Abyss: Late-stage horrors that saturate the screen with projectile patterns and environmental corruption.
• Azrael, The Pirate King: The culminating duel at the end of the abyssal campaign.

The 1.0 update re-implemented permanent meta-progression, allowing gold gathered during voyages to be invested back at port into foundational survivability, damage, and stat upgrades. This resolved one of the major complaints from early playtests, ensuring that a sunken ship still contributes toward long-term fleet advancement.

The Rough Waters: Pacing, Collisions, and Balance

Despite its charming pixel art and spirited sea-shanty soundtrack, Curse of Pirates runs into several design frustrations that detract from the core loop:

• Harsh Collision and Grappling Hazards: Unlike open-field survivor games, tight landmasses can trap ships with sluggish turn radii. Certain enemy vessels fire grappling hooks that completely immobilize your ship; getting chained by multiple grappling enemies frequently leads to instant, unavoidable sinkings.
• Unskippable Animations: Chests and reward sequences force players to sit through repetitive presentation sequences, breaking the brisk restart rhythm expected in action roguelites.
• Unforgiving Early Balance: The initial difficulty ramp in Chapter 1 is steep. Players without banked meta-upgrades can find themselves swarmed within the first three minutes before obtaining basic survival cards.
• UI and Controller Quirks: Early release builds suffered from non-responsive button rebinds, small text scaling on handhelds, and shop interfaces that accidentally purchased upgrades when clicked. While a September 10 hotfix resolved primary controller mapping issues, menus still require polish.

Curse of Pirates Review: The Final Verdict

Curse of Pirates offers a distinctive maritime twist on the crowded bullet heaven genre. The combination of naval steering, eccentric crew synergy, and wild elemental abilities makes crafting an overpowered fleet deeply satisfying when the pieces fall into place.

However, pacing stumbles, cluttered collision boxes, and punishing immobilization mechanics mean you will need patience for the early grind. If you enjoy the progression loop of Vampire Survivors but crave a colorful pirate setting with authentic naval chaos, Curse of Pirates is an engaging indie voyage well worth its $9.99 entry fee.

Final Score: 7 / 10

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Curse of Pirates run well on Steam Deck?

Curse of Pirates holds a Steam Deck compatibility rating of Playable. While performance is stable due to the lightweight 2D pixel engine, some in-game text can appear small on smaller screens, and certain menu interactions may occasionally require trackpad or touchscreen inputs.

How many ships and maps are in the full release?

Curse of Pirates 1.0 features five playable ships with distinct mechanics (including the auto-firing standard vessels, minion-focused ships, and the manual-aim Submarine) and five consecutive maps leading all the way to the abyssal showdown with Azrael.

Can you heal during naval battles?

Direct healing pickups are scarce on open water. Survivability relies primarily on selecting defensive relics, movement abilities like dashes to break grappling lines, and investing in permanent health and repair upgrades at the harbor between runs.