Only his trusted First Mate Rocco Alemkel made it back to Portugal with a small boat to tell the tale. Storywise, the first game follows Leon Franco, a young Portuguese sailor whose father invested all his money into a voyage to India, hoping to make a fortune selling spices, but died on the way back.

It's pretty complex but not excessively so. The underlying gameplay mechanic involves ship management (crew, supplies, captains, repairs), character evolution (both the PC and the captains you hire), port development (trade balance, investments), and maneuvering between the major factions (Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and pirates in the first game England, Holland, and Italy join the club in the second). The exploration gameplay was further enhanced in the second game, where you could sell the maps of your voyages, find natural and cultural wonders around the world, and look for even more treasures. What set the first game apart from its Western competitor Sid Meier's Pirates! was the sheer size of the game world: instead of being confined to the Carribbean, you have the entire world to explore. You play as an owner of a small fleet (up to 5 ships in the first game, up to 10 in the second) and are free to engage in any kind of activity on the high seas: trade, gambling, ship pimping, piracy, treasure hunting, exploration, even global politics, once you have the money (and firepower) to. Gameplay-wise, the series is a Wide Open Sandbox with RPG Elements in it. However, as of October of 2010, the MMORPG is in an open beta for the English speaking world. Two more sequels, a Gaiden Game, and a MMORPG based in the setting never made it out of Japan. Unfortunately, the second game was the last to be officially translated into English. The second installment, Uncharted Waters II: New Horizons, followed in 1994 on NEC PC 98, SNES, and Genesis, later ported to PC, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation. The first game was developed by Koei in 1991 (for MSX and NES, and later for Sega Genesis, Super NES, and the PC).

Uncharted Waters ( originally known as Age of the Great Voyages) is a series of Japanese privateer/ trader video games set in The Cavalier Years.

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