The Pirates of the Caribbean Tall Tales

Sea of Thieves has done two pirate crossovers in its time. The one we most recently saw was Monkey Island, where we got three Tall Tales featuring Guybrush Threepwood and other familiar characters from the series. However, the first crossover was an official, Disney-approved Pirates of the Caribbean series, featuring five Tall Tales where we save the Sea of Thieves, the Sea of the Damned and several other seas from Davy Jones and some stuff like that. While the Monkey Island Tall Tales are much more fitting with the original games, full of interesting puzzles and jokes, the Pirates of the Caribbean Tall Tales are, uh, more straight forward. Mostly.

All of these Tall Tales have to be completed in order, and they can be started by talking to the Castaway, who can be found on every single outpost. It’s CLEARLY Calypso, but you just have to pretend you don’t know it’s her when she reveals herself at the start of the last Tall Tale. Unlike the Monkey Island Tall Tales, only some of these tales are instanced, mainly A Pirate’s Life and Captain of the Damned. The basic story is that Davy Jones is looking for some sort of trinket that will allow him to move between worlds with ease, a trinket that Jack Sparrow has. Jack, being a fucking idiot, manages to lose said trinket moments after we free him from the Ferry of the Damned, and now we have to do a bunch of shit in order to defeat Davy Jones and his new bunch of Sea of Thieves friends, stopping them from taking over the Sea of the Damned and the Sea of Thieves.

There’s not that much Sea of Thieves-ing to do though. The first Tall Tale takes place in the Sea of the Damned, and most of it is either on some islands or on the Ferry of the Damned. The second Tall Tale is almost completely underwater, and best done on Safer Seas because your boat is left on the surface, unattended and in the middle of nowhere, for a very, very long time. The third tale also takes place in the Sea of the Damned, but you kinda just sail from place to place, mostly kinda just watching things happen. Dark Brethren involves the Coral Fortress, which is out in the middle of nowhere, and, finally, the last Tall Tale does actually feature some good old ship sailing and cannon-firing. You finally get to actually use your ship in combat. And it’s mostly just like a ghost fleet, more than anything else.

These tales drag on and on though. Especially the first tall tale. We fucking get it, dead men tell no tales. Yet it’s repeated fucking constantly. And the fucking cursed captain that just won’t shut up. Even STARTING a Tall Tale takes forever. Calyps- uh, the Castaway will talk for ages and ages and ages before you can actually start doing anything. There are a lot of corridors and time-consuming antics as well. The Sunkern Pearl requires swimming to the bottom of the ocean, while Captains of the Damned has a lot of long, boring sailing where little happens, in the dreary, featureless Sea of the Damned.

Half the time, they don’t even completely feature much from the Pirates of the Caribbean series itself. The Sunkern Pearl features a chained up Black Pearl ship, but you only go in there briefly to get Jack’s Compass. Most of the tale is inside the Siren Fortress, where you fight Sirens and Ocean Crawlers, which were made specifically for the Tall Tales so that Disney couldn’t claim copyright on them (even though they did anyway). It’s not until the very end, in a very easily missed side path, that you run into three Mermaid Statues, which you shoot to rescue Gibbs and his crew. Most of the time, it’s a weird mishmash between Sea of Thieves characters and Pirates of the Caribbean characters.

However these aren’t the official voice actors or anything. Some pretty good impressions, some lines reused from the movies, but no original actors. Instead, we have some rather random people. Jack Sparrow is voiced by a guy called Jared Butler, who has also voiced Jack Sparrow in other video games, notably Kingdom Hearts III. Amusingly, our old friend Robin Atkin Downes, the voice actor for the Medic, does the voice for Davy Jones. The voice acting is perfectly serviceable though, I just thought it was worth mentioning.

Are these tales worth replaying? Eh, if you really like Pirates of the Caribbean, then maybe. They do have a good pirate-y feel to them,but the Pirates of the Caribbean stuff, aside from Jack Sparrow, mostly consists of cameos and brief snippets. And damn, these tales drag on a lot.

Annoyingly though, I’m going to HAVE to replay these damned Tall Tales. Because I need all the commendations to unlock the Yo Ho sea shanty. Because, yet again, I’m a fucking idiot and missed a few commendations.

Ugh. Why do shanties have such retarded unlock conditions?