New Horizons

aka: Daikōkai Jidai II, Uncharted Waters, Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons, Uncharted Waters II
Moby ID: 1904
PC-98 Specs
Buy on Genesis
$154.00 used on eBay
Buy on SNES
$179.99 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$12.99 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

In the first Uncharted Waters game, it was the 15th century and the New World was discovered. Now in New Horizons, it is the early 16th century and the age of exploration and sea trade is underway. Players choose from any one of six adventurers (scenarios), each with their own distinctive but intertwining plot, to embark on a quest of sailing, seamanship and exploration. The six characters are:

  • João Franco is the son of Duke Leon Franco, the hero of the first Uncharted Waters game and an influential man in Portugal. His father wants to make him into a strong man and so decides to send him out to sea. Young Joao is tasked with learning the skills of the sailor (he is the only character who starts at level one) and embarking on a quest of discovery; reaching the far east and eventually looking for the secret of Atlantis.

  • Catalina Erantzo is a Spanish naval officer who believes her beloved and her brother were both murdered by the Portuguese armada. Vowing revenge she turns to a life of piracy and soon becomes a red haired scourge of the seas.

  • Pietro Conti is a indebted man, having inherited the financial woes of the Conti family. When the Duchess Franco hires him to spy on her son, he accepts the job and obtains a ship. Pietro hopes to use these resources to seek out valuable treasure and clear up his family's debt.

  • Ernst Von Bohr is a geographer who is teaching classes in Holland. He yearns to leave the classroom and sail the high seas, living a life of adventure that he has only read about in books. When his friend, Mercator offers to finance his initial voyage in exchange for cartography information about the world, Ernst is given the opportunity to live out his dream.

  • Ali Vezas is a poor orphaned child living in Istanbul and serving others. He dreams of becoming his own master and making his own fortune across foreign lands. A twist of fate aides in providing him with small loans, with which he is able to afford his first ship and sail out with a cargo hold full of goods...

  • Otto Baynes styles himself a Royal Knight of the British Empire, in the service of his majesty the king. Promoted to Admiral of the British fleet, the kingdom is worried about the increased naval power of Spanish fleets. Otto is given a letter of marque by the king and ordered to terrorize the Spanish Fleet. Equipping himself simply at first, Otto strives to become a great privateer in the name of king and country.

Regardless of the character chosen, Uncharted Waters: New Horizons is a top-down sailing simulation. At sea, players control the direction of their ship, where speed is affected by the number/health of the crew, the wind and the currents. Players can navigate anywhere there is water (though some ships are not ocean worthy) and discover interesting landmarks and new ports. Upon landing at a port, the view is also top-down and the player can enter different buildings, each with unique services and goods. These include: the Inn, the Item Shop, the Shipyard, the Tavern, the Castle, the Guild Hall, the Church, the Merchant and the Harbor. It's up to the player to earn enough gold to keep the crew fed and financed and keep the fleet repaired. Primary methods of earning money are through sea trade, accepting jobs from the guild, gambling and battle with other ships.

During naval combat, the game becomes a turn-based top-down strategy game, with the player moving ships in order to obtain trajectories needed to fire cannons at enemy ships, or run alongside enemy vessels in order to board them. If the player's flagship attacks the flagship of the enemy fleet, they can challenge the opponent to a duel. If accepted, the game changes to a side-view of the two captains engaged in a fight. During this sequence, the player can only choose which fighting maneuver (strike, thrust, parry, lash) they wish to engage in.

Spellings

  • 大航海時代Ⅱ - Japanese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (SNES version)

Production
Music Composer (uncredited)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 69% (based on 13 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 36 ratings with 5 reviews)

Experience the world in the age of discovery

The Good
The most catching aspect of this game is the story that unfolds as you play. No matter which charcacter you choose to play from, you will be drawn into a main story and a few side stories. You will meet the other characters during your travels and will probably end up helping them in some way. If you don't want to follow the main storyline, there are countries you can do missions for and gain rank. There is the entire world to explore and make discoveries for. You can even spread your country's empire through trade.

The Bad
The cost of operating a huge armada fleet was just too high to make it fun to conquer the world with. Although it is still possible, it takes a lot of planning and cash for that kind of fun

The Bottom Line
This game is a strategy, role playing, and economic simulator all wrapped over an enticing story. Even years after this game's release I feel it is worth playing. I know I give it a try at least once a year now, always discovering something new. Avid gamers shouldn't miss this title.

DOS · by MaiZure (59) · 2003

Kickass Old Game!

The Good
Everything except the miserable graphics and sound

The Bad
graphics and sound

The Bottom Line
3 words: go download it! 1 optional word: NOW!

DOS · by Jimp Da Wimp (1) · 2000

Maritime Exploration... Superior to it's predesessor in every way...

The Good
For most characters it's the exploration. It's easy to say that of the six characters you can choose in this game, four will have exploration as a main focus to doing well... and I perticularly enjoy traveling around the coastlines in search of new ports and discoveries. The world's coastlines are more or less accurately displayed (in the same way that Seven Cities of Gold is accurate) and the world's political situation is accurately reflected... what with Europe being the central point of civilization and areas such as the New World, Asia, Austrailia and Africa being largely undevelopped.

Having said that, you can also make a pretty good living as a trader. In fact money is very much the key to this game. Aside from using it to buy new ships and improve weaponry... you'll also need all your doubloons to hire crew, pay the wages of navigators you may hire, flirt with ladies, engage in gambling or, perhaps most importantly... investing in and improving a port on behalf of your nationality.

Of course none of that my be required. Individual character's goals and motivations vary and some may need to take control of various ports and others may not.

The graphics (which were 8-bit on a 16-bit SNES), sound, controls, area of exploration and plot have all been improved over the original . If you're a newcomer to the series, there's really no reason at all to play the first game other than simple nostalgia

The Bad
The music. if I had to pick one single thing, it's the music hands down.

Also the combat engines can be rather frustrating until one figures them out. Ship-to-Ship combat is displayed on a grid system. Ship Movement is rather realistic, in that you need to give most vessels a wide bearth to make a turn, however this can frequently lead to simple bad judgement on exactly how much room you need. Luckily, you can just put the battle on AUTO and sit back and watch.

The other battle engine is the duel, which is really just a fancy way of saying Rock, Paper, Sissors. You choose a combat tactic (Attack, Parry, Thrust, Strike) and your opponent chooses a combat tatic and whichever one beats the other one wins! Ironically enough this is similiar to other duels I've seen in games such as Shuikoden

Also I tend to make the mistake of saving at some isolated supply port (north russia's artic ocean for example) and then not being able to make it back to Europe or elsewhere that I can replenish my crew and make repairs to my ship. This is probably more of a bad reflection on my playing style than a negative aspect of the game. In short, one can explore too much and into some very dangerously isolated areas.

It's also not terribly historically accurate. The major nation powers of the game are "rounded off" and include the political influence of their neighbours. Also individual ports sometimes include one or two "historical footnotes" that seem ackwardly plucked out of a grade-school atlas.

The Bottom Line
Maritime travelling, trading and exploration.That's what it is and does a very good job of giving you lots of options and quests to keep things busy along those goals. The individual plots are a nice touch and help seperate the game into specialized chunks.

SNES · by Shoddyan (15001) · 2003

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Anachronism

The game takes place in the 16th century, but the city known as Istanbul in the game doesn't take this name until 1930. It should be called Constantinople.

Bugs

A bug in the game's programming may cause half to 3/4 of your crew to suddenly vanish into thin air while you're sailing.

Version differences

Due to Nintendo of America's policies on religious imagery and usage in games, the US versions of the NES and SNES editions of the game have the "Houses of Worship" area of ports changed to "The Round Earth Society". The option there that lets the player "Pray" has also been changed to "Study", however both versions of the game allow the player to donate money towards the organization.

Information also contributed by Indra is here and WildKard

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  • MobyGames ID: 1904
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Verk.

FM Towns, PC-98 added by Trypticon. SNES, Genesis added by PCGamer77. PlayStation added by JRK. Wii U added by Michael Cassidy. Windows added by firefang9212. SEGA Saturn added by Kohler 86. Sharp X68000 added by Kabushi. Wii added by gamewarrior.

Additional contributors: Shoddyan, chirinea, Exodia85, MaiZure, Sciere, Alaka, yenruoj_tsegnol_eht (!!ihsoy), gbcat.

Game added July 11, 2000. Last modified February 24, 2024.