Pirates of Dark Water for Genesis
Review #4439
Pirates of Dark Water
Nothing like the SNES version. But good in its own right.
Gameplay
The SNES version was a beat 'em up, but this one is a 2D hack and slash platformer. It reminds me a lot of Aladdin for the Genesis. Your main attack is your sword. And you have a projectile with limited ammo again just like Aladdin.
Three playable characters. They're your standard big guy, fast little girl, and all around main character.
Movement is really nice. It's not Dead Cells or anything, but it's responsive and hit detection is good so everything feels nice.
What sets this apart from similar games is the ability to climb up platforms above you and drop down by holding down and pressing jump. This gives it a more modern feel.
Level Design
There's an overworld that lets you pick the next level you go to. I only played three of them so I'm not sure how they all feel but they appeared to be one really large linear maze with lots of back and forth pathing. They're okay, not my favorite thing but they do the job. I wish there was sub levels or checkpoints or something. After a while I just wondered when the level was going to end.
Enemies respawn infinitely soon after leaving a screen so you kind of have to move forward. Slowly attacking enemies as they appear. The enemies also attempt to block your attacks and they do the Western thing where they walk right into your hitbox and camp out there. So the level design could have been better by not dropping them on you or sending multiple at you at the same time.
It's oftentimes difficult to tell what's a platform.
Theme
Based on a cartoon I guess. Never heard of it. Seems like a generic good vs evil storyline. I wouldn't have given it much notice given the license.
Art Style
Great graphics, for a Genesis game. Big sprites, ok animation, no slowdown.
The backgrounds are pretty good, although they could use some animation or some interesting features. After a short time it all feels very samey.
Audio
The music is actually much better than the SNES version. It's not great but each level has a new song and it's good enough.
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