Sail Forth Into Unknown Seas With... Ahem, Sail Forth

Sail Forth is exactly the sum of it’s parts. It’s a sailing focused adventure game visually pulling on your Wind Waker open sea nostalgia, building on those basic mechanics to create an experience all its own.

There’s plenty of mechanical layering going on here to flesh it all out - ship upgrades and customization, fleet building, progression systems and discreet activities to take part in - all of which do pretty much exactly what they say on the box.

While there is something of a narrative thread pulling you through various locales across a randomly generated open map, it’s mostly in service of diegetically teaching you the various mechanics and activities you can participate in as your ship bounces over the waves.

Beginning in a banged up dingy, you’ll spend the game building your way up to a full fleet of terrifying galleons and battle ready ships, filled to the brim with cannons galore. While there’s plenty of battles against pirates (in ships and on bases) to be had, that’s not all on show here - you can find new friends on beached shipwrecks, get up to some racing shenanigans and of course go fishing, among other things. 

Making your way across locations will have you needing to pay attention to wind direction, raising and shifting the sails about in order to keep your ship moving apace. This mechanic strikes a good balance between not being ultra complicated with keeping you engaged while moving from point to point. 

The honest to God best part of this game is its absolute dedication to the sea humour bit. There were genuinely multiple times even in the first few hours where I was full belly laughing out loud at the writing on display here.

Sail Forth takes the expected puns of the sea and leans in hard, warping straight passed cringe and into endearingly charming territory. There are some more “serious” sections and encounters, but by and large the ultimate success of this nautical adventure are when a crew member will just randomly spurt the most ridiculous line, or the description of a fish will twist into comedic gold.

I always hate the “if you like X, you’ll like Y” line, but Sail Forth is very much a “if this sounds appealing to you, have at it” game. I have no special connection to sailing the open seas, have not played Wind Waker and in all honesty prefer my feet to stay firmly planted on hard soil.

That said, Sail Forth is a fun game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, one that knows its niche exactly and accomplishes everything you would hope from this style of adventure.

Disclaimer: a key for Sail Forth was provided for review purposes.