On the positive side, the game is stable and mostly bug-free, though I did fall down through the floor when walking through a door a couple of times and had to reload. The game runs on 10 year old hardware, despite the claims of the hardware requirements, as long as you have something in the neighborhood of that, it will run with the occasional slowdown. The gameplay idea isn't bad, it's a lot like the Batman Arkham games and as such it does that fairly competently, it is fun to float between rooftops! But there is no interactivity in the game world, every button or item you require is telegraphed. You can only hold one quest at a time and there is no inventory. The world feels paper thin. And not just when I was falling through it. There's somehow nothing happening, there's one radio show and that has like 4 episodes. No TV and no reward for exploration. No hidden areas, no hidden lore, no hidden sidequests. Ah and the sidequests, they are not good. There are only 6 persons who give you sidequests in the game, one of them want's you to clean 30 graffiti marks, one of them wants you to remove 30 security cameras, one of them wants you to find 9 knives. Then one character always tells you to kill an NPC, one tells you to kill a named enemy NPC, one tells you to deliver or pick up pagackes from containers. That's it, those are all the sidequests in the game. I played through the game and it was definitely outliving its welcome during the latter third of the game, because you were just repeating the same thing again and again. Clearly the devs ran out of steam during the last part, which was rushed and just tacked on there because they had to ship this thing. In conclusion, a paperthin sequel to a very interesting game, not really sure what the developer was thinking by pouring so much effort into making the city, but doing nothing with it.
Tropico - the original game - had soul, charm, and was a caricature of a very specific concept - and was nothing like this corporate product. Even Tropico 3 had some of that original spark. Then they started doing the "lulzy" caricatures of people in Tropico 4 which set the tone for the games which followed. Tropico became a caricature of itself. Tropico 5 and Tropico 6 are more or less the same game. The game is completely sanitized, every operation gamified, and every DLC overpriced and seems to be aimed at the R*ddit crowd. I suspect this will be the end of the series as we know it. Next iteration of Tropico will be some kind of free-to-play always online MMORTS where you can buy packs to open for rare items like a new limited edition pipe for your presidente! Don't waste time on this, the developers have no idea what they are doing. Play Tropico 3 or 4 even, or even the original. This used to be a good series of games and now it is a dumpsterfire.
If you liked Trails in the Sky first and second chapter, this is for you. All the old characters are back and backstories are revealed. The plot is nothing to write about, it's not about the plot, it's about seeing old friends again. Easy to recommend, but if you thought the Second Chapter re-used too many assets, this one goes a step beyond. Falcom really got three games out of the First Chapter. Still for the intended audience, it's great.
But RRT3 is a very old title and this offers more or less that experience, only with nicer graphics. So if this is an itch you're looking to scratch, Railway Empire should do just that. I've played this game on and off for a year or so, and bough all the DLC and quite enjoyed myself. This is a solid 4 out of 5 star game. But it is not a five star game, it's a four star game - which means, while it's mostly excellent and way ahead of the average game of a similar nature, there are a number of rough edges, annoyances and such things which preclude the game from reaching the heights it would otherwise easily reach. Some of these are from comparison with classics such as RRT3 and some spring up simply from the way the Railway Empire presents itself. Good things: - in-game graphics are pretty and inviting - laying tracks is easy and innovative - options and strategies seem well balanced, i.e. one can build an empire on many pillars Bad things: - the game is too easy, because the strategies are too simple, it's very hard to lose - the cartoony style of the AI is annoying and out of place, like an afterthought - the UI is very bad, lacking tooltips and is a chore to muddle through Ugly things: - the day/night cycle is a switch, as in, do you want day or do you want night... I don't even - there is no weather, and the only seasons are winter and summer - the game only goes to 1930 and there's a lot of DLCs
