I couldn’t decide if I should post this to the gaming community or movies community so I decided to split the difference and just post it here since I’m open to games, movies, or book suggestions.
I have an itch I seem to have trouble scratching. I want more pirate stories that involve dark fantasy elements (skeletons, krakens, ghosts, voodoo, etc.) yet there seem to be very few of these. The best example of what I’m looking for is of course the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but those have diminishing returns. Even though it’s exactly what I want, each movie is worse than the last.
I just finished playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew and that was also exactly what I wanted. And I’m unreasonably excited for DAVY x JONES to come out. And yet… that’s all I can find. Those are the only properties I know of that actually scratch my itch. And I’m shocked at how few entries there are in this genre.
I don’t want a straight-forward pirate adventure like Cutthroat Island or Black Sails, or… I don’t know, Muppet Treasure Island; I want something with dark fantasy elements in it. I recently watched a Korean movie on Netflix called The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure and while it had the adventure/comedy feel of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, there were no fantasy elements in it at all.
Is there a name for this sub-genre that I just haven’t stumbled across? Are there really so few entries in this sub-genre? I created a [email protected] community awhile back, and I guess I’m really just looking for the pirate equivalent of the Weird West genre. I guess the Vampirates book series meets my criteria, but it’s at a middle school reading level and that just isn’t for me. Maybe I should just re-watch Pirates of Dark Water…
So can anyone here help me out? Is there a better term to search for than just ‘pirate fantasy’? Are there any other movies, books, or games you know of that might scratch my itch?
I guess I really missed out on the Monkey Island games, they seem to be getting mentioned here a lot.
Is it OK to start with Return or do I need to play the older games first?
I’d recommend the older ones first. Personally I found them better - and more in line with what you’re looking for than the later ones.
The first two parts work pretty well on mobile when you use SCUMM VM
Well now that’s interesting… I never really considered how well point & click adventure games would work on mobile devices. That’s a good idea.
1 and 2 both have remasters! Really one of my favorite franchises. You can have the rubber chicken with the pulley in the middle, the pulley squeaks.
You’d get more out of Return if you start with 1 and 2.
My kids didn’t play the first two, and they loved Return. On the other hand, I introduced a friend to 1 and she’d never played a P&C adventure before but she adored it.