Only three hours, and multiple restarts, in at the time of writing this review, but so far I am enjoying it.
Pros
1. It works fine on Windows 10. The only issues I've noticed is the music messing up at times, and the game just leaving you in DOS box when you exit, but it's easy enough to close it via Tab or the Windows key.
2. That 90s charm. How can someone not love the cheesy FMV?
3. The history aspect. Marco Polo has a wealth of audio and video clips with a database that includes information on a variety of topics from important people to trade goods to professions. I can't verify how accurate they may be, but any history lover will likely find them interesting.
4. Trading is simple(I'm not sure if supply and demand is even present) with the main difficulty being in learning(you must learn through experience as the game tells you very little) where goods are produced cheap and where they are desired. Let me stress this again, there's no hovering over a town to see what it makes or produces, nor any number in paranthesis next to a good letting you know what the average price is. You must discover and remember these things. There is a trade log that records how much you bought an item for and where, but that's it. On the bright side, there seems to be only minor randomization.
5. Haggling. It's basic, and can take awhile, but it remains enjoyable and some of the voice clips are amusing.
Neutral
1. The goal, far as I can tell, is to get a high score before the time limit(which you set though there is a cap) runs out which seems to based on your wealth and renown. Wealth, obviously, you get from trading and renown I suspect you get from completing the various quests you can receive from the cities and towns.
2. There isn't that much resource management, but it is important and with the clunky menus it can be annoying. Wealth is self-explanatory aside from the fact that trading appears to be the only way of making it. Food is required to move from town to town and if you don't have enough you are officially stuck. Porterage is another name for the animals(or people) that carry your goods. Escorts or guards protect your caravan from Tusken Raiders though you can get around this with enough save scumming as attacks seem to be random. There's also "strategy" which is a board with tiles where you can arrange your escort in a formation around the caravan though I'm not sure what effect this has if any.
Cons
1. All that 90s charm comes with the clunkiness one might expect. Important information(rations, guard strength, etcetera) is buried under different pages, and so getting your bearings can require a modest amount of menu surfing which can be tedious. Just figuring out how to back out of the database took me a minute. However, it's not that bad as I came in blind and figured out where to find most information in 10-15 minutes.
2. Early game is rough. I'm 4-5 restarts in and ending up in a position where you're literally stuck is quite easy. Save often.
3. Only four save slots(you cannot name them though they do mention the week and location) which are shared between all of your playthroughs. By the way, you have to quit to main menu in order to load a save.
4. Luck is very important. To give an example, I was heading to Acre to sell my goods only to discover that the city was experiencing an epidemic(it had never in any of my prior attempts) so prices were rock bottom. Almost all of my funds were invested in those goods! I had enough food to return to the starting town, but they produced my goods so they wouldn't pay much for them either. Thus, I was left in a position where I couldn't do anything. So, I reload and not only is Acre not experiencing a plague this time, but en route I also looted some arms from a battlefield which were valued at 4-5 thousand or about 10 times what my trade goods were worth. One trip might fail miserably, but reload and that same trip might go fantastic.
5. Each time you go to look at or buy an item you must listen to a short voice clip. Only a few seconds long, but this can get irritating.
Summary
There's likely some points I'm forgetting to mention, but I'm confident I covered the major ones. I don't feel $6.99(I bought it on sale) is too much, but with how dated Marco Polo is and the lack of a demo I'd recommend most to look up some gameplay on Youtube or wait for a sale.
