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Curse of the Sea Rats

Offering a fun piratical adventure, excellent animation and a fun, engaging story with full voice acting, Curse of the Sea Rats is a great single or multiplayer romp despite some stumbling blocks.
Curse of the Sea Rats Game Cover
63%Game Brain Score
gameplay, story
grinding, replayability
61% User Score Based on 117 reviews
Critic Score 65%Based on 16 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchXbox Series X|SPCPlaystation 5Playstation 4Xbox OneXboxWindowsPlayStation
Curse of the Sea Rats Game Cover

About

Curse of the Sea Rats is a single player and multiplayer hack and slash game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Petoons Studio and was released on April 6, 2023. It received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.

"Curse of the Sea Rats" is a 2D "ratoidvania" platformer with hand-drawn animations and 3D environments. As prisoners transformed into rats, you must fight dangerous bosses and explore the vast Irish coast to uncover secrets and capture the pirate witch who cursed you. The game offers a non-linear world with multiple areas to discover.

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61%
Audience ScoreBased on 117 reviews
gameplay14 positive mentions
grinding6 negative mentions

  • The hand-drawn art style and animations are stunning, evoking a classic 2D animation feel that enhances the overall experience.
  • The game features a charming story with engaging characters, and the voice acting adds depth to the narrative.
  • Exploration is rewarding, with a large interconnected map filled with secrets, collectibles, and diverse biomes.
  • Combat feels clunky and unresponsive, with issues like animation locks and inconsistent hit detection that detract from the gameplay experience.
  • The game lacks a proper quest tracking system, making it difficult to keep track of objectives and leading to frustrating backtracking.
  • Difficulty spikes and design choices, such as losing fast travel options late in the game, can lead to a tedious experience for players.
  • gameplay
    55 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of "Curse of the Sea Rats" is characterized by a blend of side-scrolling exploration and beat-’em-up combat, featuring four distinct characters. However, many players find the controls clunky and the mechanics unpolished, leading to frustration with uneven difficulty and a lack of responsiveness. While the game's artistic presentation is praised, it often overshadows the gameplay, which is seen as basic and at times tedious, detracting from the overall experience.

    • “Mechanically, the game blends side-scrolling exploration with beat-’em-up combat, offering four playable characters with distinct fighting styles.”
    • “It's a nice metroidvania with tons of humor and easter eggs that adds extra fun to the gameplay.”
    • “Amazing and careful craftsmanship, hand-drawn cute graphics and excellent gameplay supported by an above-average playing time makes this game great and funny.”
    • “However, the game often struggles to match its artistic ambition with equally polished gameplay.”
    • “For a genre that thrives on fluidity and responsive mechanics, these shortcomings make the experience more frustrating than it should be.”
    • “Curse of the Sea Rat's charmingly nostalgic art direction can only partially hide a metroidvania whose mechanical shortcomings are numerous, and whose substandard technical stability is irredeemable in its launch state.”
  • story
    54 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story of "Curse of the Sea Rats" is generally seen as charming yet simplistic, featuring a pirate-witch narrative that adds context to the gameplay. While the art style and character design are praised, many players express frustration over the lack of quest tracking and clarity, which detracts from the overall experience. Despite its shortcomings, the game offers an engaging narrative with humorous side quests and a unique setting, making it enjoyable for those who appreciate a light-hearted adventure.

    • “The pirate-witch storyline, while simple, offers enough charm to give context to your journey, and the supporting cast adds humor and personality.”
    • “A fine story, wrapped into beautiful art style that resembles the nostalgic feeling of classic Disney titles.”
    • “All this being said, I enjoyed the game for what it was, and it oozes charm with a lot of funny references through the story and cast of characters and bosses who are fully voice acted from start to end, even with some nice cut scenes sprinkled in there.”
    • “The story is, quite frankly, bad and uninteresting.”
    • “Sure, there's a lot that feels lacking, particularly with the story, dialogue, and voice acting.”
    • “I appreciate what the devs were going for with this game, but the plot fell flat with nonsense.”
  • graphics
    48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of "Curse of the Sea Rats" are widely praised for their stunning hand-drawn art style, charming animations, and vibrant environments, which evoke a nostalgic feel reminiscent of classic animated films. While the visuals are considered the game's standout feature, some players note that gameplay issues detract from the overall experience. Overall, the game's aesthetics are a major draw, appealing to those who prioritize visual artistry in their gaming experience.

    • “Curse of the Sea Rats is a beautifully animated, pirate-themed metroidvania that immediately stands out thanks to its rich hand-drawn art style and charmingly odd premise.”
    • “The art style of this game is beautiful, and I love the small animated cutscenes where it feels like watching an animated movie.”
    • “I also must add that the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, there's so many beautiful vistas and backdrops with tons of variety.”
    • “The visuals are probably the highlight, but even then they aren't anything groundbreaking.”
    • “Some will love the game for co-op and visuals, but not me, sorry devs.”
    • “I want to replace this review with a positive one, but I haven't seen any major game improvements (besides visuals and sound) since the backer's updates and betas.”
  • music
    33 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game has received high praise for its quality and ability to enhance the overall experience, with many players highlighting the excellent soundtracks that accompany both exploration and boss fights. While some noted that certain tracks may feel repetitive, the majority found the music charming and fitting for the game's aesthetic, contributing significantly to its appeal. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a standout feature, with many players expressing a desire to revisit it even after completing the game.

    • “Best thing about the game is definitely the aesthetics, animations, and music, which is what probably drove most people to buy this.”
    • “The soundtracks during your adventure and the boss fights were top notch, the pirate and sea music we are used to.”
    • “This OST transported me into the world and I'll for sure listen to the amazing OST some more in the coming weeks.”
    • “Music feels like it's the same 2 songs repeating.”
    • “Music feels like it's the same 2 songs repeating.”
    • “Music was alright, combat is responsive enough but feels a little janky when attacking in the air, most boss fights are fairly easy but the very last ones can be a bit challenging.”
  • humor
    13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is highlighted by its charming pirate-witch storyline, witty dialogue, and a quirky supporting cast that adds personality. Players appreciate the clever writing, amusing character interactions, and funny sound effects, which contribute to a lighthearted atmosphere throughout the gameplay. Overall, the game is filled with humorous references and delightful moments that enhance the experience.

    • “The pirate-witch storyline, while simple, offers enough charm to give context to your journey, and the supporting cast adds humor and personality.”
    • “The humor with the writing and dialogue is some of the best I've seen/heard in a video game like this.”
    • “All this being said, I enjoyed the game for what it was, and it oozes charm with a lot of funny references through the story and cast of characters and bosses who are fully voice acted from start to end, even with some nice cut scenes sprinkled in there.”
  • grinding
    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and repetitive, particularly during boss battles that lack variety and challenge. While some appreciate the potential for character development through grinding, many feel that it leads to an unbalanced difficulty curve, making the initial grind feel excessive and the later stages too easy. Overall, the grinding experience is seen as a significant drawback, detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game.

    • “Very pretty, but gameplay is clunky and tedious.”
    • “It makes trying again on a boss tedious.”
    • “Maybe add another couple of bosses to make it less tedious. Speaking of tedious, please change up the mama boss... the entire battle took a long time and nothing changed... just do the same thing over and over again.”
  • character development
    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The character development in the game is highlighted by its vibrant and well-animated designs, which players find captivating and full of personality. While the character aesthetics receive high praise, the combat mechanics are criticized for being repetitive and lacking depth, with most enemies easily defeated due to stunlocking, although bosses offer some variety. Overall, the art style and character design are major strengths that enhance the gaming experience.

    • “Each character design is bursting with personality and animated to perfection.”
    • “And again, the character design is absolutely fantastic; I really loved it.”
    • “I backed this ages ago on Kickstarter, almost entirely because of the strength of the art style and character design.”
  • replayability
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, the game's replayability is considered limited due to the absence of a new game+ option, though some players express a desire to revisit it in the future after forgetting the story. Additionally, improvements in controls and combat mechanics could enhance the incentive to replay. Despite these concerns, players feel they received good value for their investment.

    • “This even further increases replayability, and I'm excited to come back to this in a few years when I've forgotten most of the story.”
    • “I didn't see a New Game+ option when I started a new game, so replayability won't be particularly high, but I kickstarted the game and think I got my money's worth.”
    • “This even further decreases replayability, and I'm excited to come back to this in a few years when I've forgotten most of the story.”
    • “I would love to get back and play more of this game if they were to just make the controls a bit tighter and improve the combat mechanics to be more playable.”
  • atmosphere
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere of "Curse of the Sea Rats" is characterized by its visually delightful world, whimsical pirate-themed charm, and charmingly animated cartoon style. The game effectively combines these elements with a rich map and engaging upgrades, enhancing the overall experience in a true metroid/ratvania fashion.

    • “It offers a world that is delightful to look at, characters that stand out visually, and an atmosphere full of whimsy and pirate-themed charm.”
    • “Curse of the Sea Rats succeeds in creating a big map with all sorts of upgrades and level-ups, everything a true Metroid/Ratvania should have, set in a nicely animated cartoony atmosphere.”
  • stability
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, players report a generally stable experience, with some noting minor glitches but no major issues during extended play sessions. While initial mechanics may be challenging to grasp, stability improves as players become more familiar with the game.

    • “There were some glitches, and it was hard to figure out some of the mechanics at first, but then we played it for weeks.”
  • optimization
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, the game's optimization is commendable, with smooth performance and minimal issues reported; however, one user experienced a bug that required a force quit, resulting in a slight loss of progress.

    • “The performance was excellent, and I didn't experience any crashes. There was only one minor bug where I couldn't input any more controls, which required me to force quit the game, resulting in a small loss of progress.”
  • emotional
    1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players express frustration with the combat mechanics, noting that the difficulty is exacerbated by a lack of evasive options and seemingly unfair damage from enemies, which detracts from the overall emotional experience of the game.

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8h Median play time
8h Average play time
8-8h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 1 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Curse of the Sea Rats is a hack and slash game with fantasy theme.

Curse of the Sea Rats is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5 and others.

On average players spend around 8 hours playing Curse of the Sea Rats.

Curse of the Sea Rats was released on April 6, 2023.

Curse of the Sea Rats was developed by Petoons Studio.

Curse of the Sea Rats has received mostly positive reviews from both players and critics. Most players liked this game for its gameplay but disliked it for its grinding.

Curse of the Sea Rats is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include The Last Faith, Indivisible, Souldiers, Aeterna Noctis, The Last Case of Benedict Fox and others.