Pirates! is an already good game for the PC, and the game was ported to
the NES where in my opinion was very mediocre, but it took advantage of
the NES very well. Seeing as it got ported the NES, I'd think that it
could've been ported to the SMS or the Genesis seeing as it isn't owned
by Nintendo. And it did get ported into one of the best ports that I've
played in ages. Pirates! Gold is a brilliant improvement of Pirates!
for the computer.
The game's plot basically is for you to become a successful pirate,
find valuable treasure, hunt down notorious pirates, or find your
missing sister. In the beginning of the game you have choices of
choosing the country where you belong, you can make alliances with
either The French, The Dutch, The English, or the Spanish. These
alliances are important so you can enter villages and countries without
being attacked by them. The game also has different plots for the
different time periods you choose. For instance, one time period the
Spanish might be in war with the English, another time period could
have the French in war with the Dutch.
A thing I like about this game is the multiple options you can do,
you don't have to pillage ships, you can ask the ships for news in
different countries you don't also have to pillage the town but you can
make freindships with the governor in a certain village and learn
secrets about where things are. Also an important thing in the game is
the skills, you can have one skill that you're really good at
something. For example, if you pick swordfighting as your skill you can
be really good at swordfighting, if you pick charm & medicine you
can cure yourself from sickness and flirt with woman who might marry
you and let you take a share of gold from the governor, another skill
is sailing which helps you out at ship battling.
The game's graphics are really colorful and are superb for the
Genesis era, the music does some really good pirate tunes, they aren't
the best but they do their job well.
In total, Pirates! Gold is an excellent port which can make you
play for weeks and months to see the different combination's you do as
you pirate. It could be considered to be one of the best and one of the
most underrated games for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive for you
foreigners
)