There is a legend of the daughter of the Indian chief, who was in love with a European who came to the North America. I believe you’ll all recognize this legend as the story of Pocahontas. If nothing else, it was made famous by Disney’s animated movie (and its sequel), although it is only loosely based on the true historical facts.
The game before you is not based on Disney’s film even though it came out in the same year as it (I bet that didn’t exactly hurt the sale), but it is still not historical. As the name suggests you control the Native American girl by the name of Pocahontas and need to guide her through her adventure. But in addition to that, you will also get to control John Smith (and play his side of the story as well).
The game features a very good soundtrack and great graphics. You can control the character either with the keys or with a mouse (which is not the best possible method if you ask me, but it also gets the job done). During animation scenes you can always press space to skip them (the videos get boring after watching it a few time). More details about the game itself are included in the POCA.TXT file (it’s in the archive along with the rest of it). To run the game start he POCA.BAT file (not the pocahont.exe), otherwise you will not get any sound or animations.
Apart from just jumping and climbing Pocahontas can also use some magic in the game (that’s the puzzle part of it). There are some obstacles you just can’t overcome yourself and you’ll need the help of the world around you to overcome them. John Smith as an adventurer naturally caries a firearm with him (and you can shoot it).
The game has a practice mode (you can choose practice at the opening screen) so you can get comfortable with the controls. In the options you can also select the different levels of difficulty, but even the toughest level is still not all that challenging). Loading up a game means you can restart a game you’ve played before and saved. Pressing space during the game rings up the load/save menu (that’s a very useful feature).
It definitely is a very pleasant game, but it seems a bit too easy. Personally I don’t mind if a game isn’t frustratingly difficult (it’s easier to get into it and enjoy the gameplay), but if you want a real action challenge then I guess this game isn’t for you.
To be completely honest, I guess the game was made with a slightly younger audience in mind (not hard core hack’n’slash gamers), for there is some cuteness in it as well (just take a look at the opening animation).
Well, if you really want to enjoy fun, somewhat simple and yet appealing nice looking and sounding moderately paced action game Pocahontas is the thing for you!
Technical notes:
If you experience any problems with the sound or animated sequences you should probably change the pats. Be careful, I had many problems before getting it all to work, so if you’re not comfortable with editing DOS files you can just leave it as it is and have it all in the default folder POCA (so DOSBox reads a folder C:POCA). The game was originally released on a CD (which also included speech (which could make this archive too big).
Also you might want to speed up DOSBox to 6000 cycles. I’m not sure about the default speed, but 3000 cycles seem to run the game to slowly and anything above 6000 seems somewhat fast (the sound will always play at the same speed, so you can’t judge by that).