Bilgewater: Burning Tides Act I Review by Me, A Fist of Jew

Spoiler warning, I guess

Summary Bilgewater event has begun with a set of Acts. The first of these Acts show case T.F. attempting to rob an item from Gangplank's private booty closet. Graves appears and starts blowing up everything while Gangplank is interrupted by the news of this invasion of his most intimate collection. ** The Good**

• Stuff happens.

• GP gets a nice characterization moment where he gives the kid a meal for the info - showing he's fair if cruel. Also torturing people so their screams can be heard throughout the whole ship is neat. It's probably a wasted opportunity that Gangplank didn't take an orange and squeeze some orange juice on the guy's open wound. Then it magically heal the wound and stuff. Then Gangplank would start to gently lick it clean off the bone...

• Lore tidbits are thrown around. Stuff like how pirate henchmen are called hooks. Pirates preferred weapons are re-purposed cannons. T.F and Graves' abilities described from their own and each other's perspective, and how they counter each other is cool. Bearded Lady/Mother Serpent is also probably the first deity mentioned in Runeterra that is worshipped without actually being confirmed as being real (like Bard, Kalista, Azir)

The Bad

• It's kind of like gore porn during GP's segment. Also random cussing thrown around like when Graves says 'son of a bitch' - I'm not sure if the lore is Rated T anymore. It's definitely darker, in a more visceral and grisly way, in tone compared to the old lore direction which might put off some nostalgic people.

• The story uses a lot of "I" statements. This is especially true during the action towards the end of Act 3 which leads to the next point...

• First Person Present POV is an interesting choice.

• Multiple First Person POV is even more interesting - the main issue is that they all kind of start sounding like each other. For a person who can't read stuff in T.F.'s or Graves' voice it might make it confusing since they both use a lot of similar sounding phrases. Then it suddenly goes into Third Person limited during GP's segment.

• I personally am not a fan of excessive action. I'd preferred a bit more dialogue and a lot of T.F.'s and Graves' voice to come out. They both kind of sound like each other except Graves is salty and T.F. is cocky.

And the Ridiculous

• FIORA! YOUR CHIN! WHY!

• M.F. booty where?

• The kid with the info was Ajuna all the long

• Cottontail Fizz is not even his final form.

• Mother Serpent ends up being Ao Shin reworked.

Final Thoughts It was kay. I think more scenes like Part 4 with GP is much better than stuff like Part 1-3 which is ultimately a mix of 'stuff we know about these two guys' and 'action for the sake of blowing stuff up'. There's a lot that can be gained from subtlety and for me - more of Part 4 would have be better. I'm just far more interested in GP and how his runs his crew than I am about T.F. and his cocky-ass or Graves and his salty madness at T.F. because I'm not trying to imagine this high-octane action. I'm setting a simple scene and imagining very simple, methodically paced actions going on.

This is a massive improvement from, say, Azir's lore where literally NOTHING happens. Or Kalista... which was more about that swordwife than about Kalista herself.

So that's good.