Cursed Skull is an action role-playing game video game developed and published by Aozora for the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.
Plot[]
In the 17th century, a pirate crew known as the Cloud Pirates was cursed to be immortal after obtaining a treasure known as the Bloody Skull, which shattered itself and disappeared to hidden islands across the world after Captain Adrian Cloud had held it. After becoming cursed, they first believed it was a gift but had soon found out the cost of them becoming immortal with immortal youth was to lose their emotions and their souls. The Cloud Pirates now must seach across the seas to find the 13 broken pieces of the Bloody Skull and the Key of Twilight within their 90 days time-limit to break their curse.
Gameplay[]
In the beginning of the game, the player must decide the traits of the player character, Captain Adrian Cloud. Players can decide Adrian's gender, facial features, and primary fighting style before the story begins. Depending on Adrian's gender will give limitations on what he or she can wear and who he or she can have a romantic relationship with. Costumes and weapons for Adrian can be bought in stores on land or as DLC.
There are both interactive and non-interactive cutscenes in the game. When meeting with unique characters, there will always be interactive cutscenes when Adrian speaks to them. During interactive cutscenes, the player must decide what Adrian must do to determine the next events, wether it can lead to a disaster such as someone's death, neutral situations such as nothing happening, or great fortune such as gaining a new member. Speaking with a unique character enough times can develop a relationship status between Adrian and the UNPC in a hate, friendship, or lover relationship; there can be more than one lover but their love will turn into hate if they know of the other relationships, though in some circumstances, some UNPC will develop crushes on Adrian and will not bother with the others even if they know but will be more sensitive towards relationship decisions.
Cursed Skull uses a real-time action-based battle system with hack-and-slash gameplay and some aspects of third-person shooting if the player is using a firearm. Battling with ships changes the gameplay from hack-and-slash to a third-person shooter, making the player use rifles and cannons against enemies until they are defeated or until they land on the ship, switchin the game back into hack-and-slash mode. When riding Adrian's ship, the Smoker, the player takes control of the ship instead of the player until the ship gets attacked or until the ship reaches land. When inside villages, towns, cities, or on the Smoker before it sents to sea, the player is not allowed to take out any weapons or cause damage to anyone unless enemies are in the area.
Save points can be made at anytime in the game just by choosing the save option in the pause menu.