There aren't many 4X games out there which actually have a single-player campaign, which makes this game fairly unique. The art style is good, which means even with dated graphics it doesn't look bad at all. The way you build your colonies is closer to a city builder game. The way research and production is handled is quite different from most other games too, instead of each colony having to produce its own thing they all contribute resources into a production pool which you control from one centralized screen. To be 100% fair though, it is quite old, which means it has a little jank to it. The pathfinding for units during space and ground battles is a little horrendous, be prepared to spend a little time deliberately lining up your ships before sending them in for your final assault on a large starbase. It does show you the path they plan to take, which makes it easy to learn why they are acting a certain way so you can easily deal with it. There are some quirks of design (such as how taxes and population growth work) which you'll want to Google a quick guide for. The computer voice which speaks every time you navigate to a different screen can be turned off in the options. I have had a couple of crashes, each time due to a transition video playing while navigating around the ship, and those can also be turned off in the options if you like. The acting feels a little off since it was originally recorded in a language other than English, and the story itself is nothing amazing but serves well as a framework for the campaign. Overall, a very unique 4X, entirely worth playing even if you've never heard of it before.
This is the best adventure game I've played since the original Monkey Island.
It can get repetitive, but it's just so engaging that you probably won't mind. Some people dislike the minigames such as fighting or dancing, I don't mind them. I like having to account for the wind, the tactical battles are fun, the people are fun, and for me the absolute best part is the singing after you capture a ship. It's not the most accurate pirate simulator out there but it's one of the easiest to simply have fun with and it is certainly one of the most highly polished. Similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it is the attention to details and immersive atmosphere that make the game so much fun, if you'll pardon my huge cross-genre leap there. Minor spoilers: The only sad part here is that GOG missed 9/19 for the Talk Like a Pirate Day sale. Make sure to play it on 9/19/17 if you can, there is an Easter egg. I forgot it existed the other day and couldn't figure out why my sweetie sounded like she should be swilling grog. Arrr! To anyone worried about the time limit mentioned by trusteft, this can be completely avoided. Just keep your crew size small so that the coins in your coffers per pirate is high. Stick with a Sloop class, if you upgrade it enough you'll never have to leave it, and its crew requirements are small. As long as you're good at the fighting minigame and use grape shot to whittle down their crew first, you can capture any ship in the game - the sloop is good at avoiding being hit while landing shots of its own, and can quickly run in to start the capture battle. Larger ships are fine too, just make sure you have enough gold on hand to keep the crew happy. Shoot for 3000 gold pieces per pirate in late game, 500-1000 per pirate is definitely enough in early game, and you'll never have to split the loot to keep your crew happy. You can actually extend your game out past today's year if you try, as long as you never split the loot.
If you've never played any of the Tropico series, this is a good place to start. It has all the features of the previous versions plus some. The new additions are welcome, although the multiplayer hasn't been as smooth as I would have liked. You could also start with Tropico 4 which I liked a lot as well and is much cheaper nowadays. If you're considering Tropico 4 read on. If you've played one of the previous Tropicos you'll find much of the same here - which is to say, a lot to love, but maybe not quite enough to open your wallet for if you've played Tropico 4 to death already. I was disappointed that they changed Penultimo's voice as the voice acting in Tropico 4 was superb, and some of the humor in Tropico 5 doesn't quite hit the mark as squarely as it did in Tropico 4. I still like it though, and given the choice between 4 and 5 I would certainly play 5 as it does have the new features of multiplayer and the time progression which I quite like, and Tropico 4 no longer holds more secrets for me. One of the biggest advantages of the Tropico 5 campaign is that your islands (i.e. cities) carry through between missions, bringing a sense of progression that was lacking in Tropico 4 where you had to build each island from scratch. Overall, a worthwhile addition to the franchise. It includes some welcome new features, though again I find the design of the multiplayer games leaves something to be desired, particularly the time limits on interacting with pop-up dialogs. I would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for the multiplayer troubles and the significant recycling of basically everything from Tropico 4.
An amazing game, friends. You owe it to yourself to play it. But be aware, if you want to run this in DosBox (I wanted to use an emulator to play on my Android phone) this version does not seem to include a compatible version. Judging by instructions found out on the internet people were able to get the old GOG release working in DosBox, so it appears to have been removed for this release - a darn shame. Since this is the only reason I bought it (I still have the original CDs) it turned out to be a waste of money. If anyone knows how to get this working please contact me via my Community post on the subject, I would love to update this review to 5 stars. https://www.gog.com/forum/fallout_series/fallout_new_version_does_not_work_with_dosbox_turbo_on_android
