ArcadeOverview
Pirate Ship Higemaru is a fairly basic maze-like game popular in the Arcades at that time due to the success of Pac-Man. The goal is to use the barrels littered around the stage (which resembles the deck of a galleon) to knock out the pirates swarming around. The pirates don't have any attacks of their own, but coming into contact with one will cost the player a life.
Capcom would not port this game to home consoles unlike many of their earlier Arcade games, though they would eventually develop a 1987 sequel - Higemaru Makaijima - for the Famicom and MSX systems.
The game would only become available outside of the Arcades in 1998 as part of the Capcom Generations 3 classic arcade compilation. An additional compilation released in 2005 - Capcom Classics Collection - would also mark the first time that the game was available to players in the West, some 21 years after it was first released.
