"One of the most underratted games ever!!"

One flawed, yet highly enjoyable game, Pirates! is a blast and is only let down but the old (but great!) NES hardware. When you start the game you are given a chance to name yourself then if you wish choose a certain period in history, and finally whether to be French, English, Dutch, or Spanish. Once you do this the game sets you threw a horribly bland yet satisfying one on one battle. After that you are made captain of a ship and its off ya go!

Graphics-5
IMHO I believe this graphics are decent. They are bland but for some reason they never really bothered me. They got the job done.

Music and sound-5
Well the victory music when you take over a ship and city is ok. It's an NES game and I didn't expect much.

Gameplay 8
This one is tough for me to explain. In the bizarre alternate reality that is my imagination, Pirates! is a realistic looking, highly playable sim type pirate game. In reality though Pirates! (love that title!) is a great game that is let down by the old NES. Unless you have a good imagination (like me!) then chances are you won't appreciate this game's story and gameplay. This game lacks direction. Basically you start as an ensign, captain, or no rank at all and perform acts of piracy for country a to destroy country b's cities and ships and if you do it enough times you get promoted...and that basically is what you do for the entire game. Sure you can find buried treasure and can find your lost family but most of the time it doesn't get you too excited. When you find a family member they only appear once on a cut scene and then disappear until the game over screen where they tell you about your personal accomplishments.

Also when you start an expedition you have to get crewmembers, the more the merrier right? Wrong. Usually when I walked in a bar "some 76 rowdy men wanted to join" 76? Bring 'em aboard! Big mistake, most of the time the crew gets mad for having so many people and when you leave the town they desert AND take some of my gold! I can understand leaving but dammit don't sign up, do no work, and leave with my money that just isn't right.

*Sigh* I have only touched upon some of the problems with Pirates! and I could list them all day so instead I'll list the positives. Pirates! is unique because there hasn't been a pirate game done like this before (on the consoles that is I'm sure the PC has dozens of these types) and that is why I have enjoyed it for years. Plus this game has this feeling of being the bad guy that is only starting to be recognized in many of today's games like Deception and Legacy of Kain. I mean it in what other game can you ally yourself with a country and fight for their cause for years (game years) and then turn your backs on them in a minute for the promise of money and power. Or how about fighting other pirates and ships? This game has a serious problem with navigation in battle (thanks to the wind) but its cool when a small 30-man boat sinks a 125-man merchantman ship that intended on capturing you for a bounty. You can also capture the ships captain (the ones that have names) and hold them for ransom. These cool things were just so new to me that I couldn't help but love it.

Overall fun 9 out of ten
You'd be forgiven for being confused as to whether or not I'm saying this game is game or not. It all depends on how you approach the game. I'd recommend this to those who like an adventure, you know finding treasure, looting cities, taking secret missions, etc. However I encourage everyone to at least spend a few hours with this game, it has this charm that makes you want to keep playing and even though the game would fare much better on the Playstation (psst hear that Sony!) it is a highly addictive game that will suck away many, many hours of your life. Please Sony, Sega, Nintendo, Square, Rare, Namco, Capcom, ANYBODY please make a sequel to this game!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 04/26/01