Pirate's Treasure

Summary
Pirate's Treasure (海賊の宝) was a game released on November 17th, 1987 in Japan and December 19th, 1987 in America. The game was developed by the popular Ocean Games (海ゲーム) and was published and distributed by Namco (ナムコ). The game launched on the NES (鼻), Famicom (ファミコン), and the Sega Master System (マスタシステム). The game was a pirate adventure game and cost 30.00 USD in America or 3350 yen in Japan.

Development
Pirate's Treasure was the work of the companies leading designer, Yoshioka Koizumi (小泉義昭). Koizumi imagined a pirate game after seeing a Japanese stage play about the swashbuckling adventures of a pirate in 1985. He imagined a game much like Nintendo's (任天堂) new Legend of Zelda (ゼルダの伝説)game, just with a seafaring theme. He brought the idea up to a higher-up at the company who told Koizumi that the game wasn't what the company wanted at that point in time. However, after the failure of Ocean Games newest game, Neo Racer 2: Revenge of X (ネオレーサー2：Xの復讐), they brought the idea back to Koizumi a year later, asking him to begin development and save the companies dying reputation. Koizumi thankfully said yes.

The game officially began development on January 27th, 1987, only 10 months before the game officially released in Japan. The game was never changed significantly during its small development.

The game never had many problems in development, with the only major problem being the bugs. Of course, the game would have the Ocean Games signature litany of bugs. This would mainly be because of the small development time for the game, restricting developers to fix the problems.

Launch
Pirate's Treasure received great scores and sold around 100 units in its first initial week on the market. Overall those sales numbers grew to be around 745k in total, becoming the bestselling Ocean Games game up to that point. The project did so well, that the Japanese manga magazine Hobby's Jump (趣味のジャンプ) created a limited manga series which lasted for only 1 year. This is because in 1988 the magazine sadly shut down. During the same time that the Pirate's Treasure manga was running there was a Neo Racer (ネオレーサー) manga running on the same magazine.

Gameplay
Pirate's Treasure's gameplay would be much similar to Nintendo's Legend of Zelda, with player's exploring hidden dungeons, fighting away dangerous enemies with your sword, and the top-down perspective. However, the game would not mimic Legend of Zelda in every way.

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.

Move Upward - You'd be able to move upward by holding down the up 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 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 up your inventory by pressing down the start button on the controller.

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

Graphics
The graphics for Pirate's Treasure would be fairly advanced for the system, looking like an advanced version of the game Legend of Zelda.

The game would have a lot of diversity in the graphics, utilizing the entirety of the NES' color palette. For example, the ocean would include all of the NES' blue color shades with the lighter shades being closer to the shore and the darker shades being farther out at sea.

All of the graphics in the game would look very nice and colorful overall, with the game being commended for this fact after the release and even years on, people would still talk about how nice the game would look on the system.

Story
The story for the game would be fairly simple, following a young boy as a pirate, stealing from other ships, exploring islands for treasure, and wearing the outfit a swashbuckler would.

Characters
The game wouldn't have many characters. However, the characters the game would have would be very deep and in-depth.

Milo
The protagonist of the game that the player would control. Milo would be a brash, smart-mouthed teenager who was kidnapped by pirates when he was very young. The pirates took pity on the boy and taught him the ways of being a swashbuckling pirate. Milo is a bookworm, the only one who can actually read on the ship. This would make him the navigator, being able to read maps and explain what those said maps would actually mean, making it easier to find treasure.

Tommy
Tommy would be the captain's first mate and Milo's best friend. He would have a similar backstory to Tommy, with him being kidnapped at a very young age. Tommy would be gentle and have a kind heart. However, he could be very cowardly when going up against his superiors.

Jamie
Jamie would be Milo's main rival on the ship. Jamie would be Walker the Barbarians one and only son and would retain his father's boastful personality. However, Jamie would be very clumsy and lazy. He would act much like Gary from the first couple of seasons of the Pokémon anime.

Walker the Barbarian
Walker the Barbarian is the captain of the ship that Milo and Tommy live on. The captain would have a mysterious backstory dating back to over 40 years before the game would take place. Walker would be a rambunctious pirate, even when that rambunctiousness may not be deserved. He'd have lived on the seven seas all his life and had always wanted to walk on land.

The Intrepid Coombs
The Intrepid Coombs would be the main antagonist of the game. Her real name would be Lollie Coombs, but she was given this nickname by how fearless she was to fight others and raid dangerous tombs. The Intrepid Coombs would be the first and final boss of the game. She'd also have a rivalry between her and Walker the Barbarian for something that had happened many years before the story takes place.

Cronies
Of course, there would be The Intrepid Coombs and Walker the Barbarian's cronies, with most of them either fighting Milo (in the case of The Intrepid Coombs cronies) or giving him gameplay tips (in the case of Walker the Barbarian's cronies). Most of the cronies in the game would not have any specific personalities with small exceptions for humor and jokes.

Storyline
The game's storyline would be very simple, much like other games for the system. The story would be about a rivalry between two pirate captains. Walker the Barbarian and The Intrepid Coombs. The story would begin with the two pirates learning about a secret treasure hidden on an isolated island. Both of them learned that the other knew about the treasure. So, both of them raced to find the riches before the other. Of course, Walker the Barbarian would find the treasure before Coombs, but just before they could reach the ship, Coombs came out of nowhere with a pirate mech, ready to destroy Walker and steal the riches. Walker would win, and escape with the treasure.

Manga
Pirate's Treasure would've spawned a new manga series, starring all the same characters as in the game. The manga would be incredibly popular, inspiring an anime series which was very loosely based on the original game.