Dead Men Tell No Tales feels most like a pirate-themed version of Pandemic or Operation: Flashpoint. And while it certainly feels like it borrows/steals allot of the mechanics of these games, it definitely puts it's own unique spin on the formula that makes it an engrossing experience.
Telling the story of a band of pirates who have defeated a cursed ship in combat, the story starts as you are trying to loot treasures off the ship. With a very real ticking clocks of both a sinking ship, burning rooms and swarming deckhands, there is real feeling of pressure mounting as you are trying to co-operatively get the required number of treasures.
The components in this game feel a bit subpar. While the artwork is beautiful, some of the tokens could have been better. For example, the cardboard tokens for the cursed crew could have been tokens, and their could have been exploded rooms for the starting areas. Even the artwork sometimes gets in the way of seeing the doors clearly. However, all the components are serviceable.
The actual gameplay involves exploring the ship to find guards and kill them to get a certain amount of treasure. This is new compared to Pandemic and Flashpoint which don't have combat to them. The rest of the mechanics feel similar, with deckhands replacing virus' and the fire building up then exploding to nearby tiles similar to flashpoint. The other new mechanic is how damage works, with fatigue being used for combat damage and to move into burning rooms, as opposed to straight-out dying. These couple of extra elements makes the game feel allot less alpha-player than Pandemic and Flashpoint can feel, with your actions not always feeling dictated by others.
Overall, Dead Men Tell No Tales is an engaging experience. The only real downside is that some of the components could have been a bit better for this game. Apart from that, I heartily enjoy raiding a burning ship to try and get my loot out in time.
4 out of 5 Sunken Waffles
