The film itself recounts the story of Pocahontas, albeit quite inaccurately from a factual and historical context. I won't bore you with incessantly superfluous details of the movie's complete storyline, not only because I am lazy but also because much of the plot is not directly presented in the game, so I really have no need to do so. Here, Pocahontas is a young lady whose tribe has recently won a war and whose prime warrior wishes to marry her. Pocahontas isn't too happy about this one; arranged marriages can be quite a chore sometimes. Meanwhile, white settlers have managed to wander nearby. The meeting of settler John Smith and the youngful bronzed Pocahontas is an important one in the film, although it's less dramatic in the game. The two fall in love; nothing really materializes from that, except perhaps some easy lovin' behind a tree, but I think every Disney film has a little bit of that in them. In this game, you will control both Pocahontas and her raccoon buddy, Meeko, as they make their way through several woodsy areas in an effort to pretty much get through the storyline while overcoming unfortunate obstacles that get in their way. They will also receive advice via gesturing from Flit, a bird that flies around you and indicates where to go and what you ought to be doing when you get there. That's useful, I suppose, if you want to trust a bird to save your ass.

The game is a platformer to the max with many jumping puzzles and other physical stunts you'll need to play with. In order to solve these problems, you'll need to be able to deal with switching between the characters quite frequently and using their special abilities (or, in the case of Meeko, the fact that he's not a tall human that couldn't fit in a tight crevice if she tried) to the fullest. And indeed, Pocahontas will gain a total of nine unique abilities, each based on an animal that she helps out on her journey. For example, aiding the struggling deer will give Pocahontas the ability to run, while helping the wolf will let you scuttle and sneak around without being noticed by dullard humans bearing muskets and seeking your corpse. The increase in abilities is gradual; you will never feel overwhelmed, and you will be able to access more areas as your arsenal of moves grows. Meeko, on the other hand, stays the same for the whole trip. Keep in mind especially that he'll always be afraid of even TOUCHING water, for this will definitely hinder your travel plans on at least one or two occasions. You'll also get used to the pissy tittering noise Meeko makes when he touches the water. Stupid raccoon. Just wear water wings. Pocahontas needs more animal friends. Yet aside from the puzzle elements, this game is fairly easy. The fact that there are only four levels should be a testament to that. Deaths are also fairly infrequent, even though you start off with a set number of lives to plow through. Therefore, kids can enjoy this game and its cartoonish qualities without excessive failure, and adults will find amusement in it as well because of its puzzle-solving elements. There's something for everyone here, except maybe the really really elderly folks who shake their veinous fists at anything newer than Chutes & Ladders.

I like the art style of the game. Most of it is taken directly from the animation style of the movie, which is not unexpected. The main characters, backgrounds, and other creatures are all quite detailed, although the environments have their fair share of pixelated portions. That's to be expected when you are importing an art style such as that of a complex animated feature into a video game, but the environments could have been cleaned up. However, this is what I notice with a variety of Sega Genesis games, so perhaps it is a more widespread issue than I understand. Plus the entire game is in a forest, so there isn't too much variation in locale, aside from changes between daytime and nighttime. But where the game shines is with its music, which is faithful to the original film soundtrack. Many songs from the movie, such as "Colors Of The Wind", are very much alive here, though in instrumental form only, and are played repeatedly during the gameplay. It's nice to see that the soundtrack was incorporated here; in fact, I don't think there is any original music here at all, although I suppose I can't really judge that myself, considering that I don't own the soundtrack. Oh well.