Sailing Era

Making initial sense of the Sailing Era game is like piecing the wrong-shaped puzzle pieces together. You can try, but the result still will look like a colossal mess. However, that's not to say there's a certain sense of intrigue behind this title. It looks colorful and engaging, and who doesn't like a decent fantasy sailing game with cross-genre mechanics?

Sailing Era is surprisingly more about sailing than meets the eye. It's a dialogue-drive game about global exploration and reaping the rewards of plundering trade settlements. Not like pirates, but more like in a British India Company way. Still not understanding what's going on? Neither do we, so we better play Sailing Era in hopes of a solid understanding of gameplay!

Come Sail Away

The fundamental issue of why Sailing Era doesn't immediately make sense is that the dialogue translations are unhinged. It's a game produced by Chinese developers, who are generally synonymous with attempting cross-genre ambitious titles with little instruction on how to play them. But aside from that, the game initially looks impressive.

After spending enough time with the game, you'll realize that it's intuitive enough to understand the core premise of gameplay finally. Players will be at the helm of a ship, attempting to dominate the seven seas through trade during the golden era of sailing. You'll amass a crew picked from visiting settlements to boost success stats of conjuring trade deals, fighting off bandits, and managing ships.

Sailing Era has fine moments where you feel immersed in this treasure-driven world. However, there's a point when you realize it's a mess. The title is a loose RPG combining simplistic simulation and repetitive puzzles mixed in with random instances of naval combat. The main issue is the randomness of obstacles, where you feel ill-equipped or uninformed about solving them.

It's fantastic that there's a large open world to explore, and the prospect of getting rich from the international treasure is appealing. However, the mechanics do little to incentivize players to play when they feel so random and messy. It's too difficult to form a strategic approach to succeed, even if you've managed to gather the best crew to survive.

Nova Era

There's a vibe of Sid Meier's Pirates! going on here, refined to be more attuned to a sailing company rather than stealing and looting. There are points in Sailing Era when you enjoy the challenge of building the best trading institution on the seas. Still, it wanes quickly as you meet some random frustrations. The numerous bugs around gameplay don't help, either.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Immersive, large open, world
• Plenty of characters to enjoy and interact with
• The naval combat is entertaining

Cons:

• Bugs that hinder the trade aspect of the game
• Mechanically a bit messy
• Difficult to form strategies against randomized obstacles