Looking at Pirates Plund-arr from a distance, it appears to be full of good ideas. It's a game made in the style of The Behemoth's Castle Crashers, a title that never made its way to the Wii. This, when mixed with the budget price of $29.99, made it instantly an appealing product. Promises of hectic, four-player battles, a lengthy campaign, and some silly, pirate-y adventures made it appear to be the perfect title for Wii owners itching for some beat-em-up action.

It basically works the same way as The Behemoth's hit, save for a few simplified elements. Players choose between a number of different characters and are thrown into 2D battles, where enemies will constantly spawn and need be slain with simplistic combos. Occasionally, weapons will drop that can be equipped, and defeating foes earns the players experience to level up and customize their characters. Sadly, it takes very little time to realize that the game simply doesn't live up to expectations, and problems begin to pop up almost immediately. There aren't any issues with the game's art style, per say, though, for some reason, it struggles to keep a solid framerate going when there are multiple players in the game. For a title built on promises of cooperative play it's shocking to see the game move to a crawl at the beginning of every level, and at scattered moments throughout the game. It's a nonstop battle, and while it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay, it's certainly a major issue that feels out of place considering the simplistic art style.

When playing with two friends, we found that, despite all starting at the exact same time, we were all leveling at drastically different rates. After an hour of play there was a large level gap between us, which proved detrimental to the gameplay in ways we didn't think possible. It felt as though the enemies were not only catered to fit the size of the group but our level, as well. Strangely, it seemed to be that they were also scaled towards the highest level player, assuming the entire team was at or around  the same level. Because of this, the lower level players couldn't do enough damage to kill most enemies, and the party was overwhelmed during large battles.

The cause of this issue is likely in the leveling system itself, which allows players to customize their characters by putting points into different weapons and abilities. At the start, each of the players chose a different way to handle this; one put all of his points into a weapon he had, one put all of his points into a weapon he hoped to find, and the other tried to keep a balance by spreading her points between a few different skills. This caused the player with points in the weapon he already had to do much more damage and, apparently, level faster, while the other two dropped behind. It's a poor way of handling leveling, and unbalanced the game in a big way after only a small chunk of play. The leveling also runs into problems fairly early on after a few skills are maxed out, and it feels as though players should have been able to put more points into the skills that mattered, instead of being forced to start burning them just to get the screen to go away.

Other issues are even less forgivable, such as weapons not showing their stats until purchased. The issue with balancing the game for multiplayer, while a huge problem, is slightly more understandable, and could be considered a glitch in the grand scheme of things. Items in the store not showing if they're better than the ones the player is already using, however, is an oversight that shouldn't have made it to release. The only option, beyond wasting money, is to go into the options menu and look at all of the weapons, comparing them before a purchase. It's needless, and slows down the game in a big way. There is also the game's soundtrack. If the developer paid for more than two songs they should ask for their money back, since it really sounds as though there's only one tune playing throughout the entire game. And no, it's not a very good one.

In some ways, Pirates Plund-arr is a success. It delivers a lengthy campaign with a good deal of variety, filled with a number of unique locations and enemies. Every level brought something that looked a bit different, even if it played (and sounded) mostly the same. With four-player co-op and an appealing art style, there are definitely the makings for an entertaining adventure on the disk. The final product, sadly, is not as good as the sum of its parts, and everything that might be seen as a success is surrounded by a series of failures, leaving gamers with little reason to invest in a purchase, budget price or not.

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Pirates Plundarrr Wii