When you see a game called The Pirate Mermaid, you already know it’s going to be a fun ride. As someone who loves both pirates and mermaids, I had my eye on this game the minute I saw the announcement about it on tumblr a few months back.
The game starts off with a story about the main character’s history. When she was a child, her father, used to tell her stories about a mermaid treasure he had found while he was out fishing. Except it wasn’t just a story, it was true. Driven to obsession by the mermaid treasure, her father eventually passed away at sea. Everyone said he was crazy. His daughter, however, believed him and set off to become a pirate and find the treasure to prove him right.
The story is interesting and engaging. I wanted to know more about all the characters, especially about the main character and both the mermen (Mikali and Malik) that I’ve met so far. I also wanted to see where the story would go. I was disappointed when it ended after day 1! The game was really funny too. I laughed out loud several times while playing. There’s a lot of humorous moments.
The only negative thing I can say about it is that from what I saw, the romance moved a little too quickly for me - but hopefully this will be ironed out in the main version of the game.
There’s a place in the game where the story branches, you can choose the sea side (with the mermen) or the land side (with a sorceror you met earlier). There’s also a sea and land branch, but that one is only available in the full game. I chose the sea side for my first playthrough. I haven’t tried out the land side yet, but I’m looking forward to trying it out.
I combined story and gameplay because the decisions you make influence the story of the game. Fans of other visual novels should be familiar with this mechanic - it’s like a choose your own adventure. There’s a character morality gauge which I thought was unique - the decisions you make influence whether your character is good, neutral or evil. Will you make friends with your new fishy friends, or will you stick to your quest for treasure and choose to stab them in the back?
This game has voice acted clips for each character in both english and japanese. I chose japanese for my first playthrough and everyone I’ve met so far sounded good. One feature in this game that I’ve never seen anywhere else and really liked is the ability to change individual characters to either japanese or english (or mute them.) That was an interesting option and I’m looking forward to playing around with it in the future.
The music was pleasant and suited for a game about pirates. It didn’t stand out too much to me, but it fit the scenes it was in and wasn’t obtrusive.
There’s some nice features about the game that surprised me. Unlike most visual novels, this game is animated. The backgrounds and character sprites move and don’t just stay static (unless you turn off the animation feature.) The game looks good, the backgrounds are well drawn and the characters are expressive.
The game features some customization for the color of your character’s tail and later your dress. I liked that, and hope in the future there will be more customization options.
This was a fun game. The demo was surprisingly long, so I’m sure once the full game is out it will have many hours of gameplay. I definitely think fans of otome games, mermaids, pirates, or any of the above should check it out. You can download the demo for yourself here: https://navigame.itch.io/the-pirate-mermaid
