Sea Legends

The Good
Sea legends, for me, really does live up to its name. It's the legendary naval-battle simulation at its best! The gameplay is exceptionally advanced for its time, and the game runs very smoothly because the graphics are pretty basic. This is a huge advantage over modern games that try to impress gamers by advanced graphics rather than by impressive storylines and sea battles. Managing your fleet is fairly easy once you get the hang of it, and theres so much you can control in this game that the outcome, should you decide to win the game, really depends on the player's effectiveness in commanding his fleet in battle. Should the player decide not to seek the end of the game, it is just as enjoyable to roam around the carribean in search of glory, where the player can set himself a target number of ships to sink or gold to collect...etc.

Another aspect of Sea Legends that I really liked is the way little things change as the story-line moves on. Events happen in Sea Legends where your status among the community will change and people themselves will reveal secrets about themselves...

Finally, the actual battle-control aspect of this game... I think it's the greatest success of Sea Legends because of the large number of commands you can order your other ships and the way maipulating your own ship can be so complex. Not necessarily hard, but complex, meaning that it will take a couple losses to become effective at controlling your ship. However, once you have mastered this skill, you will be fascinated by how you can control cargo, types of cannonballs, where you shoot the other ships (i.e. hull/deck/mast), types of ships you own, trading, capturing hostages, boarding other ships... and the list goes on!

The Bad
Looking at this from a modern perspective, I wish the producers of Sea Legends could have made a modern sequel to this game in which the towns wouldn't be as 'static' as they are here. When entering a town, all you can do is click on say the church or the military shop. Also, there are times in battles where your other ships seem to do their own thing, and not obey your orders. Maybe the designers did this intentionally to simulate a real life situation where your captains may not always agree with your decisions :)

The Bottom Line
Sea Legends is probably the best real-time naval game I've seen. There's nothing I would change in this game if I could, which is why I can't believe it was developed in 1995!