Sirocco
Last updated: 2025-05-04
- Fun, engaging gameplay with strategic elements.
- Accessible MOBA, inspired by Warcraft 3.
- Great art, sound, and music design.
- Multiple control scheme options available.
- Poor onboarding and unclear game systems.
- Missing social and competitive features.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 84% · Negative 16%. Score: 16 / 100
Positives:
- Many reviewers highlight the game's core gameplay as fun, engaging, and addictive. They appreciate its fast-paced action, satisfying combat, and the enjoyment derived from playing with friends and destroying enemy ships. The game is described as a 'blast' to play, even when losing.
- Reviewers find the game easy to pick up and learn, making it accessible to new players. The mechanics are solid and the game feels polished, fresh, and fluid. This accessibility doesn't sacrifice depth, as the game still offers strategic complexity.
- Many reviewers express nostalgia and fondness for the game, drawing comparisons to the classic Warcraft 3 battleships mod. The game successfully captures the essence of the original while adding modern twists. This evokes positive memories and associations for players familiar with the mod.
- The game's art style, sound, and music design receive high praise. Reviewers describe the art as gorgeous and full of personality, with a polished feel. The sound and music are considered top-tier, enhancing the overall immersive experience.
- The game offers multiple control options, including WASD movement, mouse click movement, and full controller support. The inclusion of WASD controls is a positive feature, potentially lowering the barrier to entry for players who dislike click-to-move controls.
Negatives:
- The game suffers from poor onboarding. Tutorials are insufficient, the UI is unintuitive, and progression systems are unclear. This makes it difficult for new players to understand core mechanics and strategic options.
- The game lacks essential social and competitive features. The absence of surrender, reporting, and communication options detracts from the overall experience.
- The cosmetic crafting system is overly complicated and difficult to navigate. This makes it hard for players to customize their ships effectively.
- Players feel that there is too much crowd control in the game. Displacement chain crowd control (CC) is excessively strong.
- Matches are described as infuriatingly long and uneventful. Half of the match feels uneventful with nothing happening.
Gameplay:
- The game blends MOBA elements with auto-shooting naval battles, offering accessible yet complex gameplay. Matches are designed to be shorter and more casual, around 20 minutes, while still providing strategic depth.
- The game features diverse ships with unique abilities and roles, similar to heroes in other MOBAs. Players can customize ships with stat allocations and utilize hooks and displacement tools, and swap between them mid-match, adding a tactical layer to combat.
Performance:
- One player reported a crash occurring when clicking on the Shipyard. While this was not identified as the most significant issue with the game, it still represents a technical problem that impacts the user experience.
- The game features audio clips. This point lacks specific details about the quality or implementation of the audio, so it's difficult to assess its importance.
Recommendations:
- Many reviewers highlight the game's potential and fun factor, especially for an early access title. They recommend trying it out, while acknowledging that it's not yet fully polished. The game is considered fairly polished for an early release.
- Reviewers suggest dedicating a few games to understand the systems before judging. They recommend trying at least one match to form an opinion.
- Reviewers recommend the game to MOBA and battleship fans. Some find it easier to learn than other MOBAs. Some reviewers are giving the game a chance due to its connection to the original Battleships game.
- The game needs faster-paced modes and shorter match times to appeal to modern players. Reviewers suggest specific adjustments to cooldowns, damage, revive timers, and speed to achieve this.
- Addressing cheating is seen as crucial for the game's success. This issue needs to be resolved for the game to reach its full potential.
Miscellaneous:
- The developers are actively seeking and responding to player feedback, suggesting a commitment to ongoing improvement and community engagement. The reviewer expresses optimism about the game's future development and its potential to maintain a strong player base through continuous updates and meta adjustments.
- The game's sound and art design evoke a sense of nostalgia, drawing comparisons to the classic strategy game Age of Empires. This may appeal to fans of the older game, but without further details, it's difficult to assess the significance of this similarity.
- The game includes boats as a feature. Without additional context, it is difficult to assess the significance of this feature.
- The reviewer admits to being new to the game and not fully understanding its mechanics. This limits the reliability and usefulness of their feedback, as their perspective may be based on incomplete knowledge.
