Game of the week: Uncharted Waters: New Horizons for SNES

In 1994, Koei released the game "Uncharted Waters: New Horizons," the second game in the company's Rekoeition. The game was released for the Super Nintendo Home Entertainment Systems as well as for some computer systems. Immediately the game began to grow in popularity, but mostly in Japan; unfortunately, the English version of this game never caught on. Which is a shame. Uncharted Waters: New Horizons deserves to be placed among the top, best SNES games of all time.

The game takes place during the age of piracy, so what can the player do in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons? The player can build up their own pirate fleet, or a fleet that hunts pirates. Or the player can perform more safe tasks such as becoming a merchant and trading goods from one sea port to another, or by sailing around the world to discover secret treasures and ancient artifacts. And when I say "sailing around the world," I really mean it. In this game you can sail to every continent, country, islands, etc., throughout the entire globe. In fact, your character can even get paid for mapping the globe.

Exploration itself can be fun, as can the trading aspects of the game, but its truly in the combat where this game shines. The player character can sail the seas looking for ships to attack, or can take part in individual duels with ship captains. The winner of the sea battles and the duels goes away with tons of treasure. The loser often doesn't go away at all because he or she is dead. And you want to avoid being dead because it will end your game.

Another interesting factor with Uncharted Waters: new Horizons is that the player has six characters to pick from to play. Each character comes with his or her own background and skills, but with some training any character can go on to have a career in any number of venues. Each character does have a plot to follow, but mostly these plots are not restrictive and the player can go on to do whatever it is they want. But still, the plots can be fun to play out.

Despite the fact this game never took off big with the English-speaking gamers, it still has a loyal, niche following. To learn more about the game and its fan base, check out the UWNH fansite.