Tropico 6 [Review]
By: Thunderheavyarm
Welcome back to Tropico friends! The smash hit series developed by Limbic Entertainment and published by Kalypso Media releases their sixth installment into the series. While I’m very late to the series, only having gotten into with their previous installment, I was immediately hooked by the city builder planner as well as the very tongue in cheek dialogue of the various characters. What’s best of all is that you get to be the leader of your very own island nation, full of totally loyal (not true) and trusting (because they don’t have a choice) citizens. So what’s new for longtime fans and the hooks for newcomers alike, much like in Tropico, El Presidente [that’s me in this instance] will give you all the answers you need!
Gameplay
At it’s coreTropico is a city planner and builder, but unlike other city builderswhich generally have all of their resources revealed at the start ofthe game to allow you to plan out your city to utmost efficiency.However, that’s not the case for this game as you must not onlydeal with making certain that everyone is happy, or so oppressed theycan’t tell the difference, so you remain in power. In addition, youalso need to somehow build a functional city on a resource strangledisland or archipelago, with uneven terrain and just enough room toswing a cat...provided you can pay the cat swinging tax.
To add an extralayer of difficulty, there are hidden resources on the island. Unlikesimilar games like City Builder where you can see where the bulk ofresources are to mine for later, in this one resources aren’trevealed until the appropriate age is unlocked. Meaning if you’relooking for a pile of uranium and it’s under an idealic communitythen you have a problem, well your people also have a problem, butthat’s no concern for El Presidente. His concern is the mountain ofradioactive money rocks that his people are blocking with theirannoying houses. Now he must choose between either making his peopleunhappy and homeless or having money. There are similar situationsthat also occur especially as you progress through the different agesand unlock new and more advanced resources. Actually forcing you intoharder choices like making food for your island or resourceproduction.
A final importantaspect of gameplay is dealing with the various factions, both on andoff the island. While the different off island factions are mostlyused to advance from one era to the next, they still offer usefulcash influxes for when you overstretch your construction budget. Theon island factions are key to properly playing the game. In theprevious version, there wasn’t as many options to increase yourstanding with them despite using edicts or building some buildingsthat made one happy while the other would lower their standing. Thereare now a slough of new missions that can increase the standing withcertain factions by building certain buildings. Other times however,you’ll have the option of accepting a quest from two differentgroups and suffer relations by denying one or even both of theirrequests. Planning ahead will secure your election...if you want todo it the hard way that is. You could always arrest them making ithard to run the company from a deep dark cell, nothing is off limitsfor El Presidente!
There are othernuances to the game, but these are the biggest interactions for thegame. Plus I need to leave something for you to discover on your ownas you play.
Graphics and Art
When I first gotinto Tropico I was impressed by the high rendered graphics and theattention to detail in that you could select individual citizens.That trend remains unbroken in the new game as well. Many of theassets from the previous games have been reused and fans are no doubtgoing to recognize the country house and plantations. They havegotten newer progression assets this time around though, with aplayer able to zoom in and see some highly rendered plants as opposedto green blobs representing the plants. The Palace, the center pieceof your island paradise has the most noticeable upgrade with variousfrescoes and attachments rather than just being a large blockbuilding at the center of your starting town.
Even the photos ofthe various advisors and party leaders haven’t seen much of anupgrade, maybe the photos are slightly clearer than they were in thepast, but I can’t see it on my monitor. So it’s not somethingthat I’m able to comment on for the game. But apart from thepalace, there hasn’t been too many changes giving a recognizablefeel to veteran Tropico players letting them slide back into familiarpicturesque scenes.
Replayablity
Something that theprevious game struggled with, in my opinion was a lack ofreplayability. Especially outside of the single player campaign. InTropico 5, the only real difference between the story and thesandbox, was a lack of any real direction to the game. Either couldbe made harder or easier with a few simple clicks either makingeconomics harder or just having more natural disasters hit the islandcausing resources to be funneled into rebuilding infrastructure.
In the new game,there is still the single player campaign where the player gets toadvance through the different eras and build up their island.However, this only applies to the first map available for play. Theother 15 come with different rules and challenges for beating themap. My favorite one to play thus far is the chocolate islandcampaign, if only because it was the first one that I noticed andtried out. With 16 different maps and multiple ways to modifyexisting strategy, the lifespan of the game will last quite a while,even without adding extra DLC or mods from the community.
Review
I actually found itreally hard to have a complaint about this game, that was actuallynot something designed as part of it. The game does have a prettysteep learning curve for first time players with everything that aplayer needs to juggle to keep the game just going. But that’s lessof an issue and something I know several players find appealing tothe game as it separates it from other games in the same genre. Whilethere weren’t as many changes from this game and the previousiteration, I’d argue that the game actually doesn’t need it.After all, what hasn’t burned down from a fire doesn’t need to befixed. A stable game, and a great experience for building managementplayers or just anyone looking for a fun replayable game.
It’s availablethrough brick and mortar vendors, as well as Steam and directly fromthe Kalypso store and will go live on March 29th. But I’vegotta get back to my own game. Giant money swimming pools don’tfill themselves after all, you also need a little bit of human rightsviolations too. Until next time.