Originally meant to be a PS2-era action game that was swept up in development woes and legal issues, Captain Blood finally gets an official release over 20 years since its inception.

Unfortunately, the wait has not been worth it. Not even close.

Especially by today's standards, Captain Blood is a tragically messy hack-and-slasher, hamstrung by a combat system that struggles to offer any kind of satisfying feedback. The good captain's blade may as well be a wet noodle.

With set camera angles and dodge rolls mapped to the right stick, the game's got old God of War vibes, but the action can't ever compare. Your entire arsenal — which consists of basic sword combos, a cooldown-based blunderbuss, and grenades — feels undercooked and unwieldy. Even the dedicated finisher animations are devoid of impact.

Unlocking additional attacks does improve the combat to some small extent, but it's not enough to make it feel good — and with the title's steady introduction of increasingly tedious enemy types, there's simply no reprieve from the slog.

Meanwhile, Captain Blood's story, which threatens to be somewhat entertaining in its cartoonish swashbuckling, collapses under some of the worst audio mixing we've heard in years. All of the voicework is buried beneath wildly fluctuating sound effects and a repetitive soundtrack — and fiddling with the options barely changes a thing.

The worst part of Captain Blood, though? It's that there's something here, a flicker of a project that was once heartfelt and fun. You can see it in the pleasantly chunky character models and well-realised environments — but the game's charming presentation can't outweigh its fundamental gameplay flaws.

If you have a burning nostalgia for early 2000s action titles, you might be able to squeeze some semblance of enjoyment from Captain Blood, but even then, you've got to wade through tedious, weightless combat and bafflingly overlooked audio issues.