Written by Rastafoo69, edited by Otaku Apologist
Gachinko Pirates, a hentai game developed by Pon de Ushi. Released December 27, 2019. Download on DLSite for $16.00. For PC Windows. No voice acting. Censored genitals. Free demo available. Download the English fan translation patch.
After your merchant ship was captured by pirates, you decide to become a pirate yourself! Travel the world, meet sexy women, and become king of the pirates while pounding mountains of pussy!
New to Japanese eroge? Read our guide how to download DLSite games. Also read how to apply translation patches.
STORY
Your father was a great pirate before he was executed by the navy. Thankfully, his star crewmate has survived, and found you! As the son of a great pirate, you are destined for greatness!
As an open-world exploration game, the player is not tied to any main questline. Once you defeat all the pirates in the world, the game is over. All plot points are tied to various pirates you’ll face on the open seas.
The episodic story content is nice, but poorly implemented. The moment you enter a new port, you’re required to meet all the important people and watch ten minutes of dialogue. Often times you’ll leave the port and forget the info-dump, giving the stories a lot less meaning and impact.
Random events like new crewmates are completely unpredictable. Sometimes you’ll have a bunch of random events back to back, other times you’ll go an hour with nothing to show for it.
A pirate threatens to force himself on your friend Becki, but you shrug it off. Councilor Fabius cheats the merchant named Maria Mesto, you leave the port. This episodic style kills any sense of buildup. And since there’s only one ending with an infinite amount of time to reach it, the story is too laid back.
On the bright side, the game has tons of chicks. Each girl is likable and unique without falling into stereotypes. The caveat is, most girls have two scenes at most. You might find your favorite waifu, only for her to be a background character for the rest of the game.
GAMEPLAY
The game was created with RPG Maker MV. This modern engine allowed for the complex piracy mechanics to be easily implemented. Move with the arrow keys. Press W to skip text. Right click to hide text boxes. There is no text log.
I highly recommend you play on easy mode. This game has no level-ups and very few progression mechanics. It comes with a walkthrough, as though the developer acknowledges how unapproachable his game can be. Play on easy mode, or you’ll be too weak to enjoy the game.
The game comes with a large amount of underdeveloped piracy mechanics. You can upgrade your ship, but only once. You can trade between ports, but everything is at fixed prices. You can build up a bounty, but it happens via story progress rather than player choices. Each character has unique stats, but it’s rare or impossible to raise or lower them.
There are already countless high quality games about piracy on the market today. Uncharted Waters New Horizons is a good example. Rather than poorly imitating other games, the developer should have emphasized the hentai aspects to create “piracy with sex”. Instead, this is basically a low budget Uncharted Waters.
The A.I. in this game is just plain stupid. If you target a human character but they die before your turn, your character attacks a boat across the screen instead. Just attack the human right next to them!
Another example of stupid A.I. is how enemy pirates will target and chase you even when the navy is nearby. Even at the start of the game when you have no bounty, the navy and other pirates cooperate to chase you down and kill you. Why the hell does the navy ignore the other pirates?
Both the walkthrough and the game explicitly state you should not give away items. Some items are necessary to recruit new crewmates so if you give them away, you’re screwed. This makes items pointless. I was told not to use them, so they just sat in my inventory forever.
I could write another ten pages on the problems with this game, but you get my point. You need a walkthrough to progress, you cannot level up, you can barely customize your ship, there’s nothing to do with the money you gather, the A.I. is stupid.
The pirate imagery is nice, but the actual gameplay is seriously flawed.
GRAPHICS
The artwork is drawn in the Japanese anime style. With so many girls to choose from, the visuals vary widely from scene to scene.
The most glaring flaw in the art is the lack of consistent body proportions. Maria is the perfect example. In one scene her tits are small, maybe even an A-cup. In another scene, her tits are bigger than her head, and easily a D-cup. The same applies to asses and the hip to waist ratio across many characters. The body types change in the most hilarious ways.
On the bright side, key aspects to outfits and character appearances are always consistent. Eye color, moles, accessories and more! The artist was clearly well versed on character design, just not body types.
While you never walk around on foot, you travel by boat. The appearance of boats changes depending on their quality, so starting the game with a tiny sloop is only your first step on the journey.
A world map is displayed in the top left corner of the screen. A regional map is displayed on the bottom left. These update dynamically as you move across the globe and into new regions. It really feels like you’re traversing the seas.
The downside is that other ships do not have dynamic schedules. You can enter and leave a port at any time to reset the ships at sea to their spawn point. While other pirate games have the A.I. going about their business, in this game, all ships follow a predetermined patrol route. This leads to the feeling like you are the only human ship in the whole world.
VOICE ACTING AND SOUND EFFECTS (SFX)
Gachinko Pirates has no voice acting.
Sound effects are well placed throughout the game to create impact behind player action. Whether it’s cannon fire or chairs being knocked over, all scenes have fitting sound design to create a great atmosphere. A good improvement would be upgraded cannons sounding louder or more menacing, but the game is still enjoyable as is. There are no sex sound effects, not even for ejaculation.
MUSIC
From the moment you start the game, you’re greeted with a classic pirate shanty emblematic of Europe in the late 1500s. However, the developer is unafraid of using stock tracks. There are 60 songs in total and the vast majority are stock assets. At least they’re used in creative and unique ways.
A melody used during sex in Imouto Misaki is used for the ship customization screen in this game. The maracas and guitar make for a flexible track that generally express busy happenings. I enjoyed this unorthodox use of stock tracks, and if not for my time as a reviewer, I likely would not have recognized these as stock assets.
And the rock music for pirate raids was awesome! Electric guitar and heavy drums signal it’s time for wenches to get deflowered!
HENTAI
There are 37 scenes in total, with a handful of CGs repeating. In spite of the bouncy art style, this game contains multiple hardcore scenes of unwanted creampies and other sketchy content.
The lack of sex sound effects is a huge negative in my book. From thrusting to creampies, the game is completely silent. Sure there’s some background music, but it doesn’t make things hot. Without sound effects, animations, or a great setup, these scenes felt more like a PowerPoint presentation than an erotic experience.
Some sex scenes offer dialogue choices that don’t affect much at all. Whether you warn her or not, your character still cums inside. None of your choices influence the visuals, which makes them less satisfying.
Most girls have three scenes at the most. You cannot view all scenes in a single playthrough, because some of them require attacking towns and making those girls your enemies. Thankfully, completing the game unlocks the full scene gallery.
These artworks are hot but there’s not enough variation images. Usually a scene has only one or two variations. The cock is out, the cock is in, then a creampie. I wish there were more changes in facial expressions to really convey the pleasure they felt.
None of the scenes have good writing. The girl is either forced into sex, or the girl is trying to please her pirate captain. There’s no love, jealousy, or emotion of any kind. CGs without proper setup? I may as well watch hentai image sets!
CONCLUDING WORDS
Gachinko Pirates is a game with a unique premise that never goes anywhere. The gameplay is so obtuse it comes with a walkthrough. The story is so episodic and meaningless, most girls become background characters after two scenes. But, the originality of the character designs and dialogue give this game a unique feeling. A flawed experience, but awesome where it counts.
Download Gachinko Pirates. If you’d rather be a ninja girl, check out our review of Ninja Girl Ayame!
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