Avast, me hearties! It's time to set sail into the world of Gortyn Code as I dive headfirst into my review of Chantey, the newest release from ModRetro for the Game Boy Color and ModRetro Chromatic! It was a fan favourite with our readers back in August 2024 when I announced its impending arrival, and it's certainly lived up to the hype.
You know, I never would have thought that a GBC game that combined the gameplay and narrative style of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons with the rhythm-based antics of Guitar Hero could be successfully fused together, but it works. This rhythm game seriously rocks, with so many different Pirate Metal versions of sea chanteys for you to discover and play as you pick up the best rockin' crew scatters throughout the West Indies.
I've been playing a lot of Chantey for the past couple of weeks to get to grips with the game and jotted down all of my thoughts for you below. So, grab a cup of coffee, kick your feet up, and take a look at a game with pirate puzzles, daring deliveries, and tense beat-matching action that will keep you sitting on the edge of your crow's nest.
Chantey is an incredibly catchy game with gameplay that feels like Zelda meets Guitar Hero. The graphics are well designed and nostalgic, with a brilliant soundtrack and selection of tunes to play, with the button-matching gameplay providing a high level of difficulty. With 10 hours of gameplay, it's not the longest game, but it's a fun idea that has definitely got me hooked (excuse the pirate pun!).
- Price: $39.99, £32.00
- Compatible With: ModRetro Chromatic, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Analogue Pocket.
- Playtime: 15-20 Hours
- Available From: ModRetro
Show Davy Jones The Meaning Of Rock
I never thought that I would live to see the day that Pirate Metal arrived in a Game Boy game, but here we are! Chantey fuses all of the folklore of Pirate life with exciting buccaneer beat-matching battles in an alternative historical timeline to the real events surrounding Tortuga and the Spanish-occupied islands in the West Indies. It's a world where pirates settle their differences by thrashing guitars and drums and headbanging instead of walking the plank. It's the kind of environment where people like Kerry King and Corey Taylor would thrive, though the added quest of filling a mystical tome of magical sea chanteys to defeat a hidden terror might even be too much for them!
From the off, it's clear that the game's makers Gortyn Code haven't taken the narrative in this game lightly. In a very similar way to Dragonyhm, one of my favourite new GBC games to have released in recent years, you end up finding yourself in the midst of a world that's already in full swing, a world where you, a young pirate, have to learn on the go and defy odds to survive. There's hardship, excitement, debauchery, trading, and lots of spoils. Though to be fair, it wouldn't be a pirate game without any of them, would it?
What's In The Box?
If you've bought a game from ModRetro before, then you'll already know what to expect when you open up the packaging and pull out your box. Despite that, I never get bored of that 'new game feeling' even though I know what's inside. For a long time now, I've not had that surprise feeling of wondering what colour the game cart might be, the smell of a new manual as I flick through it, or an actual cardboard box that I can put on display in my games room.
ModRetro are doing something great for all the nostalgic gamers out there by providing a full-colour box and manual like this, and the addition of a little charm for your Chromatic is the icing on the cake. In this case, it's the little skull 'C' from the Chantey logo. And if you don't want to hang it from your handheld, you can always stick them on your keys or even a bracelet for those swashbuckling vibes no matter where you are.
The Manual
Chantey isn't a game that gives you lots to work on in terms of instructions, leaving you to explore in order to understand the world and happen upon your objective. Having a manual to hand to give you the basics of what to do and how things such as your the layout of your ship work is a great help, as is having a brief piece about each town on the map and an overall view of the map itself to save you from pulling it up in game all the time.
Having a manual might be an extra cost for developers to consider, but it means you can do away with 'the training zone' in a game and just get straight into the action, as well as giving you a chance to refer back to the plot arc that kicks the narrative off. The notes section is always helpful too for jotting down where your next trade is or what cities you've found certain characters in, as well as any gossip you pick up on the way. It saves you having loads of notes in your phone that you won't understand at a later date too!
Gameplay That Shivers Your Timbers
Chantey is this weird amalgamation of an innocent explorative game twinned with a debaucherous narrative, but it doesn't feel crude at any point. Mentions of wenches, rum, hideouts behind whorehouses, the insinuation of services provided to passing pirates - it's all very true to form and the kind of thing that one might have found on the Isle of Tortuga back in the day, but it's done in a tasteful way as seen through the eyes of a young lad rather than a bona fide bucaneer with a pocket full of gold that could get them into trouble.
You're tasked with filling up a mysterious book of sea chanteys, searching for its pages and the best pirate musicians across the ocean along the way in order to pick up a long-lost treasure. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think Gortyn Code may love old-school Zelda as much as me. It's something I pick up from the NPC interaction, sprite style, and some of the challenges and quests in the game. In a mission to pick up the first member of your motley crew, there's a 'following challenge' that reminds me of chasing after the two Subrosians in Oracle of Seasons, as well as travelling between islands giving me a Wind Waker vibe. From a lifelong Zelda fan, that's high praise.
Gortyn Code have done a great job with the language in the game too. From the angry retorts of innkeepers and shopkeepers to the slurred words of drunken pirates, you're taken out of the 21st century and right back to the Golden Age of Piracy in the 1650s. And although 'Oh nae, ye didnae' is probably pretty common to any Scottish gamers out there, I like the fact that the storyline and characters are immersive enough to make you want to talk like this in real life once you put the game down. Just don't call anyone a wench or you might find yourself tied to four palm trees on the nearest desert island as punishment...
I've touched on it earlier, but the game has a pretty high level of difficulty when it comes to figuring out what to do next. It took me ages to discover the right area to find the first member of my crew, with the only instruction to 'search the major ports'. You can only progress in certain areas when the game allows you to, so if you've spent half an hour looking around an island and don't seem to be able to find anyone to talk to or can't work out how to get past a soldier, then the chances are you're in the wrong place.
Money comes from delivering goods and can be spent to stay in hotels or to buy other pirates drinks. I'd hold off doing both of those things though as you can save your game for free on your boat, and you'll need to save your money to do a bit of Animal Crossing-style antics on an island in the middle of the map.
Graphics Ahoy
One thing I will say before I move on is that Gortyn Code have managed to create some stunning visuals with a limited colour palette. To mirror the life of a pirate navigating the perilous ocean, the game uses browns, blues, and greens along with black and white, giving you that feeling of seaweed and treacherous storms, and the constant reminder that a trip to Davy Jones' locker could be just around the corner. The visuals are all very impressive and cleverly designed too, especially when navigating all the intricate parts of your ship with areas disappearing and reappearing to accommodate the camera angle.
Battle To The Beat
Here's where things really start to get unique. Instead of swashbuckling swords or firing pistols and cannons at one another, differences are settled in musical performances. Using the Left and Right commands on the D-pad and your A & B buttons, you have to match the markers coming down your screen to hit each button in time with the music. These sections aren't a couple of seconds long either; Chantey keeps you concentrating for the length of the song, meaning you'll be there for a good couple of minutes trying to keep your Hype score above the designated marker.
The better you do, the more Hype you get. The worse you are, the more Hype you'll lose, so it's not a case of getting to a specific point and kicking back to relax. If you don't get over the allotted Hype requirement, then you won't win the battle.
These sections seriously mess with my head; they provide a nice level of difficulty and make you think, and it's such a juxtaposition to the normal gameplay that it almost feels like another game entirely. You end up looking forward to getting into the battles, a little reward for all your hard work exploring. I was pretty good at Guitar Hero back in the day, but Chantey really takes concentration and hand-eye coordination to the next level!
Game Length
Gortyn Code claims that the game lasts around 10 hours, though I think this is a little on the short side. With all of the deliveries, searching around for secrets, and island renovation, I think you're looking closer to 15-20 hours of gameplay, especially with the difficulty of some of the battles you'll come across.
Final Thoughts
- Fantastic narrative with lots of explorative elements
- Beat-matching battles are incredibly fun
- Lots of quests to complete
- Brilliant soundtrack
- The game isn't very fortuitous when it comes to finding out where to go and what to do next - it could have a few more clues.
Chantey takes two incredible genres and fuses them together with a mysterious narrative that we've all shown interest in at some point in our lives, whether that be through watching Pirates of the Caribbean at the cinema seven times like I did as a teenager, or playing Sid Meier's Pirates or the Monkey Island game series. Pirates have always been fascinating, and having the chance to visit key areas in the West Indies and to experience what it's like to be a tobacco-smuggling buccaneer with a love of Pirate Metal is something I never thought I'd get from a Game Boy Game.
ModRetro have packaged Gortyn Code's title perfectly and brought a stunning game to us in physical form. It's well worth spending £32 on and has definite replayability value to it too, even if I can't get 'What shall we do with a Drunken Sailor' out of my head!
