Game: High Sea Saga DX
Genre: Adventure, Simulation, Strategy, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows), iOS and Android)
Developer | Publisher: Kairosoft
Age Rating: US 10+ | EU 7+
Price: US $12.00 | UK £10.79 | EU € 12,00
Release Date: August 30th, 2023
Review code used, with many thanks to Kairosoft.
Ahoy there, shipmates! Get ready for a swashbuckling adventure in Kairosoft’s latest Nintendo Switch release, High Sea Saga DX.
Will I be captain of the high seas, or will I be a sunken wreck?
High Sea Adventure
I look forward to finding out my assistant’s name in a Kairosoft game, and in High Sea Saga DX, Fluff E. Sheep is at the helm. Not quite the name I expected for a swashbuckling adventure, but there are plenty of other pirate-based puns and wholesome humour in this Kairosoft offering.
You can rename the starting kingdom and your character, but Sunny Kingdom and Jane Seagull were fine by me. As well as the gender option, you also select your character’s job. This might be ‘nomad’, which reduces quest stamina, or ‘sniper’ to use cannons in ship battles. I selected ‘cadet’, which would give me a double quest experience. With hindsight, I should have gone with ‘pilot’ to reduce the stamina needed for sailing.
Your first task is to see the King, who explains that pirates are hiding locally and causing trouble. He requests that you take care of the matter and gives you a few medals so you can recruit some crew at the local tavern. And so your High Sea Saga DX adventure begins.
Many Hands Make Light Work
On entering the tavern, you select the rank of crew you want to recruit. Initially, there is only rank F available, at the cost of one medal. You then get a choice of 3 candidates (with the option of changing the selection). Not fully understanding all the details, I went with the one who had the most stars and highest health. Once you’ve got some crew, you create a combat team. The number of stars of the team leader determines how many members will form the team. The other crewmates will stay aboard the ship, collecting treasure or using facilities to help level themselves up.
You can also recruit crew members from quests and battles, as well as winning them in the Dice Shop. These methods cost more medals and coin but often give higher and more unusually skilled recruits.
There are various weapons, helmets, armour and accessories available within the game. These can be found as treasure or brought at the various shops on the islands. Initially, you won’t have much to work with, but there is an auto-suggest option which equips your crew with the best available! Once you can access the Blacksmith, you can upgrade any of your equipment by combining it with other items. So don’t sell all your spares!
Battling on the High Seas
Once you’ve given your combat team the best equipment you can, you head off to battle at Pirate Den. Every quest, battle or voyage uses stamina. As you level up, your maximum stamina level increases. You can use medals to replenish your stamina, although one point is recovered every two minutes. The quest takes part in a small inset window until you meet an enemy. At this point, a lower window opens so you can watch the fight. You can’t control the action, but you can use items like speed tonics or health boosts.
As you complete quests and level up, more quests and exploration areas unlock.
To discover new islands, you first have to survey an unexplored area. Whilst Fluff E. Sheep is carrying out the survey, enemies will attack the ship. Your combat crews will battle them, and once the survey is complete, there will be a mini-boss battle. If successful, you can land on the new island and attempt the quests there.
Occasionally, there will be enemy ships to fight. In these battles, the two ships pull alongside each other, and your vessel is overrun with enemies. Once those have been defeated, your surviving combat teams will battle the enemy boss.
After gaining rank 20, more ship-to-ship battles are available. These are called ‘free battles’, although they cost around 15 stamina points to start. However, the rewards are good, either coins or special items and completing 20 of them gives a medal boost.
It’s Not All Plain Sailing!
There is more to High Sea Saga DX than questing and battling.
As soon as you recruit a crew member, you will want to build a cabin for them. The cabin has a theme associated with the job type and will also have compatible facilities to enhance recovery and skill points. So, there is a challenge in working out the best layout to maximise boosts. You will need brigs to house prisoners. As well as holds and labs to store and process treasure. The build menu is similar to other Kairosoft games, but you are limited to the number of some facilities you can build. All buildings cost money to place, destroy or move.
On most islands, there will be some sort of shop or building, and in some cases, a vacant lot for you to build on. As you level up, you will have access to different types of buildings, e.g. equipment shops, huts (to increase population), or monster farms. It takes real time for the buildings to be completed, anything from 15 minutes to a couple of hours, although having a joiner on board will speed things up. When your crew visit these facilities, they gain resource points, which are spent using on-ship facilities or for levelling up relics.
Each time you return to your base island, you will visit the King to claim any mission rewards. There are many missions, and quite often, I completed ones that weren’t even on the current list! The reward might be a ship or island expansion, some medals, special items or a relic. The relics will give new buildings, an increase in crew or ship stats and can be levelled up using items.
Friend or Foe!
As well as battling monsters, it’s possible to raise your own monster crew. On various islands, there are monster farms which will store and incubate eggs. Using items, you will be able to hatch your egg into one of over 100+ monsters. It’s the colour combination of the items which dictate the type of monster. These monsters can then fight in your combat team under the guidance of a wizard.
As well as trying to complete the monster guidebook, there are targets for defeating enemy monsters. But with some of the targets as 7,500 of a single type, it’s definitely a long-term objective.
The Crests and Troughs of the High Sea
There are lots of positives in playing High Sea Saga DX. Personally, I like the auto-battle style, although it might not suit all gamers. I enjoy the challenge of making the best combinations of ship facilities, but when a crew member changes jobs, so do their preferred locations. I like the challenge of levelling up the crew and relics, but completing the monster guidebook or reaching the targets of defeating enemies might be too much of a stretch for me!
Having to wait to replenish my stamina could be seen as a negative, but it meant I could do other things in between times. It’s a game I can play whilst watching TV or taking a coffee break. So far, I’ve spent over 35 hours sailing the High Sea Saga DX, and I still have many islands to conquer and treasure to find.
One of the negatives is the map menu doesn’t show the quest information. So I did find myself travelling back to islands (using up stamina) to check what level the quests were.
Gameplay
The game works really well in either docked or handheld mode. There is excellent use of the touchscreen functionality, and the font is large enough to read easily on the small screen.
The menus work well, and the ‘back’ returns to the previous screen in many cases. The music is typical for Kairosoft games and changes tempo and tunes when you’re battling.
The game autosaves at key points, but you are encouraged to use the manual save available. There are two instances of game per user.
Unlike the other Kairosoft games I’ve reviewed, this one is based on real-time. As mentioned, one stamina point is replenished every two minutes. There are stamina or time savings events based on the day of the week or date. It’s a game which encourages daily play but hopes you’ll invest lots of time as ‘nightmare’ mode won’t unlock until 200 hours of gameplay!
Conclusion
Although it shares a similar style to the other Kairosoft games I’ve played, the gameplay is vastly different. It’s a coffee break game rather than a long gaming session. However, I found it just as addictive and enjoyable as the others.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot 