Pirate's Treasure II

''"Pirate's Treasure II is just fun. Simple as that." - Nintendo Power''

Pirate's Treasure II (海賊の宝2) was released on October 21st, 1988 in Japan and November 18th, 1988 in North America. The game was developed by Ocean Games (海ゲーム), much like the original Pirate's Treasure (海賊の宝). Pirate's Treasure II was published and distributed by the popular Japanese video-game company, Namco (ナムコ). The game released on the NES (鼻), Famicom (ファミコン), and the Sega Master System (マスタシステム). Pirate's Treasure II launched to good reviews and sold around 500k copies within one year of its initial launch, with most of the sales being from North America.

Development
Pirate's Treasure II's development began on December 18th, 1987, only a day after the release of the previous Pirate's Treasure game in North America. Much like the first game, Pirate's Treasure II was spear-headed by the video-game designer legend, Yoshioka Koizumi (吉岡小泉).

The game began development because of the fairly large success of the first Pirate's Treasure game in Japan. The game's development only lasted for a short 10 months, being officially released in Japan on the 21st of October, 1988. The translation to English took only a month to finish, with the English release being released on November 18th, 1988.

The game never had many big issues during development, with the only issue being the immense amount of bugs and glitches at release because of the very short development time that the creator's had to deal with.

Launch
Pirate's Treasure II released to fairly good success, with it selling around 25k units in its first week on the market, 50k units below the 75k units that the first game sold on its first week on the market. The game overall sold around 285k units overall, around half of what the original Pirate's Treasure sold. Unlike many other Ocean Games productions, this game didn't spawn any kind of manga series or merchandise, besides a continuation to the original Pirate's Treasure anime, loosely based on Pirate's Treasure II.

One reason the game may not have sold as well as the first Pirate's Treasure was the overabundance of piracy. Pirate's Treasure II now warrants the title of the most pirated Japanese game of all time.

Gameplay
The gameplay would be exactly the same as the original game, because of how Pirate's Treasure II released on exactly the same consoles as the first Pirate's Treasure.

Controls
The game's controls would mimic those of other top-down action-adventure games released at the time, with the player being able to walk up, down, left, right, and would also include the rare ability to walk diagonally. One new feature that wasn't from the original game was a new pause menu, where players would be able to save their progress through a password feature built into the game. Another new feature would be the ability to move diagonally, a rarity in this gaming era.

Move Upward - You'd be able to move upward by holding down the up button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Upward Diagonally Leftward - You'd be able to move upward diagonally leftward by holding down the top button and left button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Upward Diagonally Rightward - You'd be able to move upward diagonally rightward by holding down the top button and right button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Downard - You'd be able to move downward by holding down the down button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Downard Diagonally Leftward - You'd be able to move downward diagonally leftward by holding down the bottom button and left button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Downard Diagonally Rightward - You'd be able to move downward diagonally rightward by holding down the bottom button and right button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Left - You'd be able to move left by holding down the left button on the controller's d-pad.

Move Right - You'd be able to move right by holding down the right button on the controller's d-pad.

Swing Sword - You'd be able to swing your sword by pressing the A button on the controller.

Use Gun - You'd be able to use your gun by pressing down the B button on the controller.

Open Inventory - You'd be able to open your inventory by pressing down the start button on the controller.

Pause - You'd be able to access the pause menu from a selector in the inventory panel.

Pick Up Object - You'd be able to pick up objects on the ground by pressing down the Select button on the controller.