The loops gets a bit repetitive and playing it without the wiki could involve creating spreadsheets and doing "work". Nonetheless, a pretty unique game that will keep you glued to the computer if you're interested in books, occult or both!
This is a great game, but stay clear of the Gold edition being sold here. Full of bugs and controlling the ship in the open sea battles is next to impossible (unless you want to do it with a mouse, which is not very comfortable nonetheless). The DOS version is acceptable, but the very best among the classic versions are the Amiga and Sega Genesis ones. I bought the pack being sold here for a clean conscience (and the great manuals), but ended up playing the terrific Sega Genesis edition through an emulator.
I grew up in the 80s and played on all the system from back then - Atari 2600, NES, TRS-80, ZX Spectrum, CoCo, MSX. So I really have no prejudice against old games or games with primitive graphics. 7 Cities of Gold is one of those games I always wanted to play back in the day but, for many reasons, ended up not being able to play. So when I saw it here, it was an easy decision to buy it and give it a try. What a disappointment! I can see why this game could have been considered special back in the day given the big world size (for 80s standards, that is), but this is NOT a fun game. I love exploration games like Starflight and Pirates!, but Seven Cities has very poor mechanics. For instance, the manual doesn't tell you how many priests/soldiers you need for each type of settlement so you need to guess. You can find this out by taking very tedious steps (and then write it down), but this guesswork is an unfun part of the game mechanics. A similar aspect that takes the same unfun guesswork is figuring out how much your new world goods are worth. Combat is also poorly introduced in the game. I actually beat the main goals without killing a single indian because it's just easier to do it this way. Bottom line, this game is a train wreck, even for back in the day, and it was a huge disappointment. If you like the sailing theme, skip this one and go straight to Pirates! (the Sega Genesis and Amiga versions, not the broken Pirates Gold one).
