Tropico 6 was provided by Kalypso Media for review.
EL PRESIDENTE IS BACK!
Apparently he’s coming out of retirement (or he and Penultimo are reminiscing about ‘past’ glories) and once again ‘dictating’ his way around the islands of Tropico.
While you’d think this would be an extremely detailed review, I can safely say that this game, gameplay-wise, is no different than its predecessors. The main difference being, it has a lot of upgrades from the past series. First being the obvious, the engine.
The Unreal 4 Engine really shines to me in this game. Not only are the islands beautiful and being able to pan the camera down to see the whole map from down on the ground really shows how beautiful Tropico is. The main thing I had with Tropico 5 was that it seemed to chug a lot no matter how low my settings were set. I’m guessing it just couldn’t handle everything at once so whenever I went to admire my island, the frame rate would grind to a halt. Which wasn’t awful, just disappointing. Now Unreal shows that it can run at, not only Ultra settings and max frames but able to do that easily while running the camera around your islands and zooming in on the people of your island, and of course you: El Presidente.
The one thing I’ve loved about the Tropico series is there use of music and once again this game has the same. Great music spanning from easy listening ‘siesta’ music to fast ‘salsa’ music, all feeling right at home in your island. (Not to streamers: There is apparently some licensed music in the game so make sure you check the “Streamer” mode in the options so you don’t get in trouble.)
The voice acting/humor is still in the game, enjoyable so far.
The classic game play of the past is back, along with Presidente speeches to rally, bluff, and lie your way into staying in power. Or of course just buying, bribing, arresting, and killing your rivals so that you win. You only did that because you know the people love you of course. Having to deal with the politics of your island is still there. You can do plenty of missions at once, gaining pluses and minuses throughout your game. The one thing I’ve noticed (but this might be mission specific, don’t quote me) is that I like evoking an edict that doesn’t immediately cause problems. I declared my Tropic an Atheistic state meaning all religious building couldn’t be built anymore and any current religious building were closed down. It of course made the religious people of my island mad but they didn’t immediately take to the streets and start blowing things up which is what it felt like in the previous games. Because you know…love thy neighbor and thy self unless you’re told not to, in which case CAUSE A RIOT! BE NICE WITH FIRE!
Side tracked.
Great scenery that doesn’t drag down your game when you look at it. Yes that’s my palace of which you can customize.
Luckily if you do cause some faction or person to be pissed at you (I very easily pissed off the Capitalists when I gave everyone more food, free cars, better health care and better education) they, of course, give you an ultimatum. Depending on the faction that could be good or bad. The Capitalists at the time demanded that I build a church (which I could not because of the above) so I declined him. This caused all export prices to crash so I was barely making money for a year or so which wasn’t so bad. I’m betting you if I pissed off another group, it wouldn’t be a simple payback like that. (I’m looking at you Militarists, I don’t make your barracks and you decide to BLOW UP MY ARMY BASE maybe?)
Things to research don’t seem as numerous per era but they change a lot of things by themselves. One thing I do like that’s been added to the game is raids. I’ve yet to take the Eiffel Tower but being able to take famous landmarks and make them your own is quite fun. But if you’re more along the lines of “live and let live” you don’t have to steal any landmarks. Send your raids to ‘find’ food, money, blueprints, and people or make one super power happy as your raid the others. All the raid buildings are…well obvious. You start out with an abandoned lighthouse (Pirate Cove) then move up to Commando building, Spy headquarters, and of course, drone headquarters. All the building are unique so each one gets there own raids to go with a select few being shared between them all. Obviously you can’t have pirates hacking into the US mainframe and you can’t have drones digging for a chest of gold on a beach. Regardless, you can be the ultimate collector of famous landmarks and/or just give yourself a steady secondary income.
Overall this game has a lot of features we wished the past games had. Lots of options to make money, lots of ways to get research so you don’t have to spend money on it and many, many, MANY more businesses to build. Want to build boats? Gotcha covered. Want to make a crocodile ranch for there hides? Bingo. A lot of options on how to run buildings instead of just “Normal” and “Work harder.” I’ve also noticed, instead of the past games where you ALWAYS HAD PEOPLE IN SHACKS…if you build enough housing they actually stop living in them which I was never able to do in past games.
While this new installment doesn’t completely redefine the game from the ground up which isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes you need to change things in baby steps, not COMPLETELY CHANGE IT: I’m looking at you Command and Conquer 4. Quality of life changes, more features, but don’t change the formula and we have a great game. There is no official word as of yet but more DLC is likely down there road.
Presidente can be customized again, along with traits you can use to ‘help the people love you more.’
I’ve loved the Tropico series (not that I’ve played all of them) and this is a great installment. Great music, great visual, fun and funny game play. El Presidente is back once more.
