 Several weeks back I made kind of a catch-all video of some games based on semi-obscure cartoons, and by semi-obscure I mean they weren't Warner Brothers, Disney, or Nickelodeon. So there was stuff like Stone Protectors, Swatcats, Biker Mice from Mars, and Pirates of Dark Water, which ran for two seasons and 21 episodes from 1991 to 1993, featuring a motley crew of voice actors from Brock Peters, the voice of Eor, Benjamin Sisko's dad, and Tim Curry. Making this game out in particular for its own video. Well, because one, the show is actually pretty decent, and two, the Super Nintendo game serves as a very nice compliment to the show. It's a standard beat-em-up, at worst you'd call it a Final Fight rip-off, and it does in fact play a lot like Final Fight, right down to the playable characters being a quicker gal, a medium speed and strength guy, and a slower, stronger guy, well, not literally guy, but, you know, well, anyway. The game controls almost how you'd expect, with the difference being the use of the X button for a secondary attack, in addition to the A button for a special attack that drains a little bit of your own life. The hit detection here is fundamentally sound, no problems there, it's easy to grab enemies and send them flying. Level design isn't anything all that interesting, but it's good enough, there's pits that you can fall into that can really screw you over, so you have to be careful for that. Best of all, of course, is that this is two-player co-op, and there's even an option to turn on friendly fire, just like Battletoads, so if you're into that, that's here too. But yeah, like I said, Pirates of Dark Water represents the cartoon series well, the backgrounds, the color palette, and the character sprites are all very faithful to the show. If there's a flaw in Pirates of Dark Water, it's that the cannon fodder enemies here are pretty boring and really get monotonous even by beat-em-up standards. It's not like Captain Commando where the enemies are these ever-changing weirdos, and you want to just keep progressing to see what's next. Pirates of Dark Water does move very quickly for a 16-bit beat-em-up, though, faster than most other games of the genre, but there's eight total levels here, and the game can drag a little bit, so I won't blame you if you get kind of bored. But yeah, Pirates of Dark Water is an interesting case, because it's a fine beat-em-up on its own, but you'll like it that much more if you watch the series. The premise centers around Wren, no, not that Wren, looking for 13 Lost Treasures to prevent this evil, mysterious Dark Water from poisoning the world. There's all sorts of interesting characters and ideas here, and while it comes to an end rather abruptly, it's only 21 episodes so it won't take up too much of your time, and it'll make this game that much more fun for you. Let me put it this way, half the fun of playing Batman and Superman beat-em-ups is that, well, you get to play as Batman or Superman. And the thing is, everybody innately knows not only who those two guys are, but their general story and context beyond their characters. Not saying Wren and Tula are Superman or Batman, I'm just saying it's fun to play as those characters in the same way, once that context is established from watching the show. There's also a Pirates of Dark Water Sega Genesis game, but it's an action platformer where you explore huge levels, and if you've played X-Men, Oristar, or Vectorman, or a lot of Sega Genesis platformers, the design here is similar. Just fight your way around until you find the exit. This game is a little disappointing because it doesn't capture the show nearly as well. They take some liberties with the story and the characters don't really look right. It's still an alright game, though, just not anything worth going out of your way to play. The Super Nintendo beat-em-up, though, that's a pretty good game no matter how you slice it. Of course, it's really expensive nowadays, something like $60 for the cartridge, I wouldn't want to pay that, but Pirates of Dark Water is still good enough to stand alongside other beat-em-ups like Captain Commando, the rushing beat series, Death and Return of Superman, and Batman Returns. It's a solid co-op game that's much more fun if you're familiar with the show.