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Pirates!
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Pirates! (USA)

NES / Famicom
🇬🇧
Reviewed in
1991
66
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✪ Reviewed on July 8, 2025
58

Sid Meier's pirate simulator on NES. Trade, naval combat, duels, seduction. Extraordinarily ambitious for the console. Narrative freedom and open-world gameplay ahead of its time. A classic.

Your verdict
Category
Strategy 1 player 12+
Description
Maritime piracy simulation in which the player becomes a pirate captain fighting and trading on the seas. Published by Konami, released in the USA in 1991. Pirate fleet management, naval battles and trading in Caribbean ports. NES port of Microprose's Pirates! simulation game.

Pirates! review

3/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Polished"
3/5
Music
★★★★★
"Memorable"
3/5
Story
★★★★★
"Solid"
Gameplay
"Solid"
Fun
"Mild"
Addictiveness
"Captivating"
Difficulty
"Balanced"
Lifespan
"Long"
Technical info
💾0,13 MB 📅01/11/1991
Published by Ultra

Pirates! (NES) price, value & rarity

Sought-after
Q1 loose
 $32 Q6 complete
 $95 Q10 new
 $352 !
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Other versions
Pirates!
Europe
01/11/1991
🇬🇧
Pirates!
Germany
01/11/1991
🇩🇪

Collector interest

Ultra's North American NTSC edition of this Pirates! port benefited from a far more mature NES market in 1991, hence a wider run and a box more common today than its PAL cousins. Its appeal rests mainly on the MicroProse pedigree adapted in-house by Konami and the depth of an ambitious simulator on the console. The reference edition for discovering the game, without the geographic scarcity of the European versions.

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