Many games have taken up the mantle of the Metroidvania genre, offering players non-linear journeys through various areas that require unique items or abilities to complete. Curse of the Sea Rats, from developer Petoons Studio and publisher PQube, takes on the title of a "ratoidvania" instead. The game sets its scenario swiftly, establishing a curse that turns the characters into rats, a historical setting on the Irish coast, and a goal of saving a kidnaped child. Players do so by jumping and slashing their way through a variety of environments inspired by Ireland's geography, brought to life in vivid color and passable detail.

Navigating the world of Curse of the Sea Rats and defeating its enemies feels familiar to games like Hollow Knight, although the inability to move while performing a standard attack makes for stiffer fights. Player characters and enemies alike feature lively animations, but combat often falls back to locking swords in close quarters and relying on attack speed to come out the victor. Upgrade trees for each of the four switchable characters offer more stat boots than transformative gameplay, with interspersed special moves providing infrequent shakeups. A couple of regenerative abilities heavily incentivize the use of the characters that bear them.

These abilities and general leveling can make players who aren't racing through the game outpace its difficulty curve. Bosses can prove more exciting than regular enemies, but players gunning for anything near 100% completion can beat many later bosses without playing particularly well. These lofty goals are both enticing and achievable, with consistently engaging spatial progression and quests and secrets that shy away from being cryptic. Death can be frequent in stretches, but Curse of the Sea Rats lacks the complications in combat or puzzles that the hardest Metroidvanias offer. Fans of multiplayer might enjoy not having to worry about punishing difficulty in the game’s optional co-op experience.

Unfortunately, the game's points of frustration arise elsewhere. A thin story that peddles vaguely dated humor and occasional silly stereotypes could be one for some players, although oddball choices like a character parodying Dan Brown could charm others. One more ironclad annoyance is the mapping of an unlockable character swap button to clicking the left analog stick on a controller, which can lead to mistaken swaps in the heat of boss fights. Various minor bugs had minimal negative impact on the experience, but the final section of Curse of the Sea Rats augments its challenge with confounding sticking points.

The crucially problematic stretch, at least in a completionist playthrough, occurs when a reward for fighting bosses throughout the game triggers a final boss for players to surmount. At this point, players are locked into the fight, without any ability to backtrack to unlock abilities or stock up on more potions (which, when used in battle, are lost even after a death and respawn). This fight proves a greater challenge than most in the game, although learning its patterns should make it doable even for players without supplies. Swapping characters in its final phase, however, can trigger the boss simply leaving the screen, rendering a run useless.

Successfully completing the battle can create greater problems, leading to a broken final cutscene in both tests of the bug. A half-blank screen hangs for a bit before the game simply moves on. The credits roll without issue, but there the story ends. In the first run of the fight, an achievement triggered for 100% map completion on a playthrough that had reached 96%, and the game returned to menu. Reloading the file after both runs put it back before this final boss with the obstacle preventing backtracking in place. In its current state, the game can block players entirely from playing further on an almost-completed file.

The core of Curse of the Sea Rats is a solid if unexceptional Metroidvania, and that core makes the majority of a playthrough enjoyable. At the moment, however, the game needs a little more time in the oven. Some bugs and design choices could use ironing out, and completionists are going to have a bad time until the game’s finale is hopefully shored up. It's easy to accept certain quirks and minor failings while ticking the map close to completion, but it's hard to recommend Curse of the Sea Rats when it has the potential to run completely aground.

Curse of the Sea Rats will release on April 6, 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purpose of this review.