Sail Forth is a single player action-adventure with a focus on naval combat and sea exploration. It falters toward the end with its buggy final quest line, but overall, the developers seem to be great at responding to feedback and patching up issues, so I am sure they’ll be fixed soon enough.

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Contacted by a distant “Northern Star,” it asks you to awaken and chase after a fleeting, unknown light. With no other recourse but forward, you gather allies and fight pirates as you traverse the expanse of the open seas. Where might the winds take you, who knows? Just relax, and sail forth.

My thoughts
While the story doesn't have the overarching complexities that I'm used to, it is enjoyable and lighthearted, hosting several eccentric characters you'll meet along the journey. It can be comical, but the meaning of what they're conveying is sometimes lost on me because some individuals have a certain dialect that is gibberish to me. I think it's simply part of the humor, considering they’re portraying caricatures of pirates or seafaring folks. There are also bits and pieces of lore depicting an old world that is reminiscent of our modern times, and I wish they expanded on it some more. You can see old spires of castles that seemed to have submerged underwater, and I thought that was an interesting detail to include in the environment.

Cannons, Ready!
One of the best parts is the fun naval battles, and it never gets old. Straightforward and unassuming, getting accustomed to the combat is fairly painless, even if you have no experience with this kind of gameplay. As you aim with your weaponry, an attack cone will appear toward the direction of your cursor. As soon as your aggressor enters the cone, you can target them or hold off if you think your shot might miss. Each weapon has distinct ranges, and while you don’t have to worry about buying ammo, your artillery has cooldowns that you must be mindful of to be effective. Where you place them on your ships can also factor in how you line up your shots. Long-range weapons, like my precious fire arbalest, can devastate smaller enemy ships without even them noticing, but it suffers from a longer cooldown, so I like to attach weapons with no cooldown on the other side to compensate for it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934492534
A Fleeting Flotilla
In the beginning, you’ll have access to one ship, but later, you can add three more ships to your fleet as you continue acquiring money or power to capture enemy vessels. Taking them by force can depend on the strength of your crew, so depending on the model of the vessel, 7 or 8 members can stay on the deck to fight your battles when you board rival ships. Either way, seizing them is a cost-effective way of increasing your fleet if you would rather save your wood, which is the in-game currency for repairs.

I only ever purchased the Xebex, which I aptly named as “Kindling Maiden,” is a medium-sized craft with more maneuverability but less health. Bulkier ships lose out on maneuverability, so I dump these vessels for the AI to control since they are mostly adept in taking out multiple threats with little assistance. What irks me is besides being able to adjust when they make repairs to their ship, you can’t set a particular behavior for your allied ships. I would like to set up ambushes and command my fleet to stay behind while I lure an opponent in range, but alas, this option isn’t available yet. Thankfully, the developers will include this according to the roadmap they posted recently.

Decked out
When plucking some booty from the wreckage of your adversary isn’t enough, you can add several aesthetic decorations to your vessels, such as decals for your sails, or have it painted red by some old fisherman. The designs aren’t elaborate, and I wish you could customize each vessel rather than all of them sharing the same design. Beneficial mods like giving a boost to your rowing speed or extra health can be unlocked by aiding an NPC early on, but it is a shame you can max the upgrade tree very quickly. I was expecting it to expand as the campaign continued.

You can further add passive boosts to your ship by adding unique crew members that can grant bonuses like “5% damage." I like to slot these uncommon units in the Captain position to keep track of them since below deck, where you store extra crew members, can be a nightmare to organize. 10 people with the same passives can stay indefinitely, and I don’t mean to sound cold, but someone has to walk the plank because it becomes messy down there.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2934496235
Set sail!
As per the title, you must sail forth, and without a ship, you get nowhere. It is your home and how you explore from island to island. The wind can be your friend or your rival, and there are multiple factors, like the model of your ship or mods, that can affect your speed. Trimming or adjusting your sails to match the direction of the wind can increase or decrease your acceleration. I thought the brief tutorial at the beginning was good enough to explain the mechanics, and you will certainly get the hang of it eventually because sailing will be your life and your only beloved. It’s not an open world as I thought it would be, and you find map fragments or sail through the edges of the map to unlock neighboring islands. You can pick up side quests while cruising through the waters to earn wood, although they can be repetitive.

The appealing, colorful art style is a plus for me. It might be too cartoonish for some, but for me, it’s one of the highlights of this great adventure. Navigating through the night and watching an ocean of stars glittering in the distance is just one example of how the graphics come to life.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2918610627
For glitches, the later islands are buggy overall. I’ve seen hostile ships getting stuck in between rocks. I don’t usually mention particular bosses, but the final one was atrocious and tedious. It also glitched out on me, and after 30 minutes of sailing around, I realized something was wrong. I should’ve caught on by the 10-minute mark, but I can be stubborn. A fellow reviewer also had their final quest glitch for them, so I am not sure what’s going on with the last parts. Performance was stable for the majority of the time, and the only time I saw a severe drop in framerate was during the final boss, which added to the frustration of the fight.

After 25 hours of sailing, bombarding pirate ships and taking their loot, I managed to finish the campaign in time for dinner with the local penguins. I get sea sick in real life, and I think this is the only way I can ride a boat without my motion sickness incapacitating me. I had a few gripes, especially with the final boss and a few glitches, but despite that, I will not deny that I had fun roving mindlessly through endless waters, picking off baddies with my fire arrows.