Pirate Souls Specializations Overview

[Shenmue]

Hello sailors,

We have been working a lot on Pirate Souls lately and, for this development log, rather than talking about maps progression, we will talk about the game fighting system in general and more precisely, specializations.

You start as a villager without any specialization (class) until a certain level so you have the time to try all the different types of playstyle before choosing the one you prefer. Once you reach the required level to specialize yourself, you will be able to choose between 3 different specializations: Fighter, Swordsman and Sniper.

SPECIALIZATIONS

Fighter is the most energetic and fluid specialty of the game. It is filled with small cast time attacks and good combo opportunities. Its range is very small, and its techniques are mainly meant for 1v1 even if most of them can hit multiple enemies at once (AoE).

Swordsmen will likely trend to carry a melee weapon with them. Their abilities are mostly close-range and they have a cast time that will make it rather difficult to hit a moving target. In order to balance that, we made so it has a good combo potential when one of its technique lands.

Just like fighters, swordsmen perform very well in solo fight scenarios, but the difference between the two specialties is that swordsmen are more specialized on hitting one single target.

Snipers master any type of gun. They are professional in long-range fights, but do low damages. Even if they strike fast in a long distance, it will still be hard for them to hit a melee fighter as they move a lot.

 

SOUL FRUITS

To add more depth to the fighting system, there are soul fruits that can give special power. Soul fruits are completely outside of specializations. Each of them has its own skill tree so you will be able to combine your specialization with a soul fruit. However, you can play the game without them if you feel like it. People using it will be vulnerable to sea stone weapons.

Currently, we have Fire, Ice, Leopard, Light, Reindeer and Rubber soul fruit.

We still don’t know yet what will be the best way to handle the soul fruit system. If you have suggestions, please consider joining our discord.
 

Rubberband Soul Fruit

Ice Soul Fruit

Light Soul Fruit

Fire Soul Fruit

Leopard Soul Fruit

 

Thanks for your time,
Shenmue

 

Disclaimer: This is an old topic, the original release date is Apr 20th, 2021 on indieDB