Tropico 7 Review
Octaviano Collars
Tropico 6 is a great game for people watching. It's a satirical city builder in which every one of the citizens of your banana republic is simulated. You place a mine. You watch as a construction crew makes its way over to the building site. You watch as the newly constructed mine's employees start digging for gold or coal or uranium or whatever. And you watch as teamsters come to take the raw materials to a factory for processing.
When it's all going well, there's a calming rhythm to the bustle of your island. When it's not, you find yourself scouring around the map, trying to diagnose problems. Why hasn't the mine been built? Why are the workers off-site? Why haven't the goods been transported? Why is the processing plant out of raw materials? Why isn't the shipment at the docks? The next cargo ship won't arrive for six months, and if I don't complete this trading order soon the Axis forces are going to declare war on me because of the time I used them as a scapegoat to win an election.
Each focuses on a different aspect of the game, be it the spread of propaganda, the challenges of mass tourism, the balancing act of international relations, or the benefits of light piracy. The latter is one of the most entertaining. Starting on an island with virtually no natural resources, you're required to pillage raw materials to then manufacture into more profitable goods. The raid system is a powerful new tool, essentially gifting a regular trickle of goods, immigrants and, in later eras, beneficial propaganda and even falsified tourist reviews. Having to create supply chains that aren't supported by local crops is a meaningful twist on a standard campaign.
If there's a downside to raids, it's that there's no major downside. Foreign powers have traditionally taken a dim view to piracy, but in this, a game that specifically pokes fun at international relations, it just doesn't come up. You do at least get a negative reputation modifier for stealing famed national monuments like Saint Basil's Cathedral or The /actual White House/, but it's easy to mitigate and goes entirely unremarked upon when said nation next gets in touch to demand you complete some petty task.
Where the missions excel, however, it's in forcing you to take actions that can upset the delicate balance of economic growth. If political strife always feels manageable, financial ruin is a more immediate danger, especially when progressing through to a new era. A few times I've gone from comfortable profit to uncontrollable decline, as upkeep and wages outgrew my production thanks to some ridiculous request from a faction leader.
Tonally, Tropico is almost too broad and bawdy to be considered satire, but the over-the-top absurdity does lead to some fun mission requests that feed comedy into mechanics. In one, for instance, the communists instruct me to dismantle religion, banks and mansions. This leads to outrage from the Capitalists. The only thing that can placate them? Building a golf course.
Ultimately, this is still a series about people watching. The builder. The miner. The teamster. The factory worker. I've been watching these people perform the same tasks since I first encountered the series with Tropico 3. I'll probably watch them for many, many hours to come.
Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Phil SavageSocial Links NavigationEditor-in-ChiefPhil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.
Where Haemimont's previous two Tropico games took place around the Cold War, this time the action spans across multiple eras. It changes the pace and shape of a sandbox campaign, offering a longer period of island management that encourages a broader range of industry and development. More importantly, it restricts your early-game options, making for a harder fought battle to stay in power.
After declaring independence from the crown in the Colonial Era, my people asked for elections. Foolishly, I agreed, having been conditioned by previous games to expect an easy win. Only, without access to the advanced industry that would normally bulk up my war chest, I wasn't able to effectively address the needs of the populace. Instead of securing power through the creation of a paradise, I did it via the more realistic tools of intimidation and election fraud.
Throughout your rule, optional objectives appear over your palace, offering bonuses for filling desired criteria. Usually it's in the form of constructing specific buildings to appease one of the political factions, but occasionally something more interesting and wide-ranging appears. My brief bootlegging period was a direct result of one of these missions, and its promised reward of more favourable trade prices. The downside was twofold: my island became a haven for crime lords, and America became very angry. Luckily, when a country invades you, they never pose a serious threat; instead choosing to stomp around like angry toddlers, destroying bits of the city.
The missions help to add a dynamic element to the sandbox mode, but their limitations are clear. Instead of reacting to the specific choices you've made, they're pulled seemingly at random from a pool of possibilities. Throughout I was offered objectives that I'd already fulfilled, and instantly credited with success upon accepting them. Better implemented are the requests that come from agreeing to negotiate with protesters, which are, at least, offered in direct response to your island's failings.
The problem is that, with every successive release, Haemimont are essentially making a more refined version of Tropico 3. Even when spread across a longer timeline, Tropico 5 fails to meaningfully move the series forward. It still has the same cheerful vibrance, the same salsa-infused soundtrack, and the same selection of infrastructure, industry and tourism.
I have to say, I have always had a soft spot for the Tropico franchise. The young, optimistic side of me had a long history with city builders like SimCity while the edgy teenage loved the idea of running a corrupt regime. Even as a boring adult I enjoy managing an economy and trade routes and being a somewhat more magnanimous ruler to the fine Tropican people. Tropico 6, the most recent iteration of this steamy simulation, affords me a wonderful opportunity to do just that.
Now, Tropico 6 is hardly a perfect game. The series has always been a bit janky in spots. I ran into one particular bug where I needed a certain number of citizens in prison to meet an objective, but the game refused to notice my already depressingly high incarceration rate. Luckily, bugs like this can be patched and a lengthy beta promises to have addressed glitches like this as soon as possible.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, CGMagazine may earn a commission. However, please know this does not impact our reviews or opinions in any way. See our ethics statement.
CGMagazine may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our affiliate partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of CGMagazine. By using this website, you signify your acceptance of these Terms of Use.
As to be expected, Tropico 6 had to suffer some setbacks in order to properly run on the Switch. But seriously, did it really need to look like the sub-minimal setting of the PC version running at a pitiful resolution?
c80f0f1006