I have to admit that Bow To Blood: Last Captain Standing is not going to get a good review from me. This is because in the time that I played it for review, I just couldn’t get into it.
I also have to admit that some of the choices of this game feel strange to me. I will have to say that the title of the game, Bow To Blood: Last Captain Standing seems to invoke a pirate game. It feels like one where you become a captain of a pirate ship, and, I don’t know, hunt down other pirate ships. Maybe you could customize your ship and crew, or something.
Instead, Bow to Blood is this game where you take control of an airship. Now I like the idea of a game with airships, because there is something kind of romantic about them. I think there is a book known as Airborn that really creates this world full of blimps, dirigibles, and all kinds of cool stuff. Just doing a search for “Books about Airships” has revealed all kinds of books that I would love to read.
Bow To Blood could have benefited from developing a world of its own. Instead, it brings us a world “in the future” where airships battle in some arena, “to the death”. I have no idea if the game develops this world, but I lacked the patience to go deeper than an initial playing for this review.
So what is the gameplay like? Imagine fighting in a blimp. Yeah, it’s pretty obvious why there are not more games with blimps. Airships are by their very nature slow, and I found that moving this airship around was slow and confusing. Not only that, I spent a few minutes just doing nothing because nothing was happening. This is a game that could have benefited with a lame tutorial, as I was just moving my ship slowly to the barriers of the area.
I did like the idea of shooting things, and there is combat to spare that requires the player to strategize given their limited airship maneuverability. Still, it would have been awesome to design my own airship, so customization would have been a saving grace to this game.
The title of Bow To Blood comes from this idea that your airship is powered by your individual lifeforce, or something. I have to give it two out of five stars, but if you want to try it out for yourself, it’s on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC for about $19.99 here.