I’ve already mentioned it in the article about “Lego Star Wars“, but I can only repeat it: I just like the older Lego action-adventure games from Traveller’s Tales. Actually, I had already said everything in that article, but when we recently played “Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game”, I noticed a few differences to Star Wars – here you can read what they are and how I liked them.

First of all I want to say one thing: I love this game too. It’s so much fun to recreate the stories of films as Lego figures, especially when they’re peppered with the unique humor of Traveller’s Tales. In this case it was the first four films of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, which were told true to the original, but with the artistic freedom typical to Lego. This doesn’t change the essential points, but sometimes you have to adjust small details so that they become Lego-compatible – it should look as if you could experience it exactly the same way with the toy figures.

Technically, the game ran flawlessly – we had a bug at one point where we had to reload a level, but this was the only one in our entire 100% run. The graphics were a bit blurry in some places, but this may have been because we played it via PS Plus game streaming – your mileage can vary depending on the platform.

But if I wanted to tell you that, I could just point you to the Star Wars articles, so let’s get to the differences. The first one wasn’t that important to me, but I generally think it’s good: there is a split-screen mode. While in the old parts you were pulled along mercilessly if a player ran against the edge for long enough, the screen now automatically splits when you move far enough away from each other – if you get closer again, it merges into one again. As I said, not relevant to me, but a nice idea!

The second change concerns collectibles. In the Star Wars games you only had to find minikits, here you have them (in the form of ships in a bottle), but on the other hand you also have to use Jack’s compass to look for other items that match the level. Some of these are necessary in order to progress further in the level, but some are also hidden where you aren’t with Jack in story mode. I found it an interesting mechanic and it definitely enhanced the “Free Play” mode for me, especially since there was usually an Easter egg or a mini-game hidden behind it.

Another point that I liked was the increased use of puzzles. Also due to the compass, there were many more situations in which you had to solve smaller or larger puzzles in order to progress – Star Wars relied more on epic battles and then placing all characters in a level on buttons. I particularly liked the variety and the ideas behind them.

There was one change that I’m not sure how I like: the distribution of studs (the currency) in the game that could be used to purchase new characters and extras. While in Star Wars you had to grind a lot towards the end to buy the last extras, here you were literally showered with riches – even more when you aquired the first multiplier. We arrived at 100% with tens of trillions of studs – nice that we didn’t have to search endlessly, but somehow not that satisfying either. If we could make a middle ground out of this and the older parts, it would be better.

Of course, no negative point can be missing in a Nino blog post, and for me that was definitely the shop system. While in “Lego Star Wars” you had a fixed point of contact, here you had to run through the world and search before you could buy something. This wasn’t so easy, especially with the game characters, as they were wildly mixed up and sometimes only appeared in certain places at certain times – without any indication of this. That’s why I spent ages running back and forth to find and purchase every last pirate. I wasn’t a fan of that at all and I hope it’s changed again in other games.

I would actually come to the conclusion at this point, but I’ve already said that: I love the game. Star Wars will forever be my favorite, but “Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game” comes right after it. It takes the strengths of its predecessors and expands on them. Although one or two weaknesses are realized in the experimentation madness, but that can’t cloud my impression – a definite recommendation!

What do you think of the game? Was it exciting to watch, do you still want to play it yourself or do you already know it? Which Lego game should we tackle next? Join the discussion on Discord!