So far, this is the most complete and smoothest iteration of the series (disregarding mods). Although this is more or less a graphical overhaul of Sea Dogs: City of Abandoned Ships, it does come with QoL and stability improvements, and all in all seems less clunky. Veterans of the series will have little hassle getting into it, while for a newcomer it might be a little overwhelming at the beginning.

If you start with any other character than Blood, you are thrown into the world without a purpose or a story, meaning it is a sandbox experience without too much help by tutorials. Thus I strongly recommend the Peter Blood starting character for anyone new to this game. It is a rather lengthy (and at some points quite difficult) tutorial, where you will end up with quite some starting capital and a decent roster of officers, whereas in with the sandbox characters, you start with more or less nothing, making the early game pretty hard (you need to start with merchants quests in order to get some money and levels to gain a better ship (with more cargo capacity for more trading profit) and to get officers).

Since I am a veteran to this franchise from the early days of the original Sea Dogs, the controls are quite familiar. But to someone new, they might feel awkward, but it's possible to get used to. If you stick through this little grind, then you will be rewarded with the most complete and free pirate simulator there is on the market, even after 25 years of service.

Is it worth 20€, although the engine is more than 20 years old? If you are looking for shallow eyecandy to casually sink some Frenchies or Spaniards -> look elswhere. But if you want to immerse yourself into the role of a real seawolf, grinding his/her way up from the bottom (slave) to the very top (admiral on a first rate ship-of-the-line) then choose this over the other versions of this game. It is newly released, and hopefully will be supported by the devs.

TL;DR:
The most polished, albeit not perfect experience of sandbox buccaneering. Look past the less than up to date graphics and the occasional awkwardness, and make them walk the plank for hours.

For newbies to Sea Dogs: Choose Peter Blood, use the walkthrough on the fandom Wiki for the tutorial to get started. After getting the hang of it, you can try out a different character in complete sandbox.

And don't get bored by the sluggishnes of the first naval encounter. You captain a ship three times too big for you, landlubber; and you can speed up time significantly. With a ship of your starting abilities, the battles become much faster.

Ah I forgot: Save often, and not in one save only, as there are - if rare compared to other titles of this franchise - occurrences of stability problems.

先说中文翻译：看日志鼠标一点就卡住 原因是QuestBook中翻译文本有些段落遗漏符号导致 不知道官方有没有修复 如果修复请省略
下面说正义岛
玩了几十个小时刚刚结束正义岛剧情 不得不吐槽一下，正义岛的剧情前期没上岛这段做的比原版好（这里不说bug），但是结束这段做的不满意，原版那个在暴风雨中游向你的一线生机、你的希望！战狗号时，这段非常有带入感，即使折磨玩家，但是最后那艘真正的旗舰足以弥补之前的折磨，但是游泳这段居然被删除了 没有重制到精髓

虽画质15年前，但还是老游戏实在