Okay, so I just tried out the new version today.
...and now I'm sad. I had an idea that things had moved in a direction I personally disagreed with, but I had no idea it was this bad. It really seems like several aspects have gotten worse since the early versions. The UI has actually become even less navigable than it was before, which is really saying something. Now when visiting islands I need to click repeatedly to get my captain to do anything because he keeps getting stuck inside the pub automatically where he instantly spends about 20% of our hard-earned food money on topping off his morale from 99% to 100%, which he shouldn't even have because I find it incredibly unlikely for a pirate captain to attempt mutiny against HIMSELF.
The world map has had every drop of life it once had squeezed out of it, and stunningly is now more difficult to figure out, despite the over-simplifaction since earlier times.
Now the game plays more like a community-made JRPG rather than the pirate ship simulator it was before. Way too much micromanagement and dicking around has been placed in the hands of the player, and now pirates apparently can't so much as kick seagull droppings off the deck without having first leveled up and then read a book on "Poop Cleaning 101".
Falcon blade, combat abilities, obscenely deadly spiked bush enemies, superduper mystery items in random shops that sell for the maximum money integer of 999, the pet leveling system... Yeah, it's just some JRPG with bad controls and too much pop culture now.
Makes me really sad. Also makes me even less enthused about their new project. This thing could've been so much, but now... Now it's just shot itself in the foot. And I have no idea why.