Mar 29, 2019  Tropico 6 review: a fun but forgettable portion of realpolitik World news splutters from the radio. Plans for a wall have been approved. A Cuban commandant has died.

Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a dictator, ruling over a populace with an iron fist as you sit at the head of a banana republic? If so, Tropico 6, a brand new city-building simulator, will be right up your alley. Set in a fictional, miniature island nation known as Tropico, the game puts you in the shoes of 'El Presidente,' and your goal is to turn the tropical rainforests and sandy beaches into a thriving empire.

With its surprising amount of depth, excellent polish, great presentation, and smooth performance, Tropico 6 has ultimately become my new favorite title to go to whenever I want to play a city builder.

Dictator simulator

Tropico 6

Rule with an iron fist

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Tropico 6 is a perfect blend of engaging strategy and satirical comedy, resulting in an experience that any city building fan will love.

In Tropico 6, there are two main ways that you can rule over your populace. You can either remain an honest, good-natured Presidente that listens to what his people want, or you can be a corrupt authoritarian overlord that subjugates the population by force. The choice is ultimately up to you, and both styles of play are vastly different from one another. The 'kind' route requires extensive infrastructure development, listening to the demands of the people, and making sure the economy is booming, while the 'cruel' style tasks you with maintaining a strong military and snuffing out organized rebellions. You can also ride the gray area between the two, bribing an official or rigging an election only once in awhile. Ultimately, the choice is up to you, and experimenting with all the different systems in the game is a blast.

Truly one of the best city-building games of all time.

When it comes to the city-building aspect of the game, Tropico doesn't bring much new to the table. You have your standard residential, commercial, and industrial balance to maintain, and investing in education, transportation, and exports are all important aspects of keeping your nation happy and healthy. These mechanics are well-designed and engaging.

Where Tropico 6 starts to feel truly special is with what I'll call its 'executive mechanics,' or the systems that your role as El Presidente allows you to manipulate. Is there a known rebel sympathizer hiding out in an apartment complex? You can have him assassinated. Rival candidate starting to look like he'll beat you in the upcoming election? Bribe him to step down from the race, or declare that there won't be elections in Tropico. Of course, the people will react dynamically to these 'executive orders,' so you'll need to be prepared to handle the fallout.

On-screen paradise that's smooth as butter

Visually, Tropico 6 is stunning. For a city builder, the texture quality is excellent, and the lighting is gorgeous. The tropical islands of your nation are filled with vibrantly-colored locations, and the urban areas are a melting pot of different sights and sounds. The musical score is great, as well, offering a variety of salsa and reggae tracks that suit the tropical-island-dictatorship theme perfectly.

Tropico 6 is visually stunning.

My favorite thing, though, is the writing. The quips of both average citizens and named characters in your nation poke fun at dictatorship stereotypes, and they're written and voice-acted well enough that they always got a laugh out of me. My personal favorite was when my own El Presidente character lamented on his desire to arrest someone, 'just to see the look on their face.'

One criticism I do have is that the user interface can become a little cluttered, since there are what feels like a million different menus that you can access at any given time. It's not terrible, but I do think some smaller menus would go a long way to make the process of managing your nation feel more streamlined.

Performance wise, Tropico 6 runs excellently, and I didn't encounter a single bug, freeze, or drop in framerate during my review period. That isn't something I can say for many games.

Should you buy Tropico 6?

I wasn't sure what to expect when I went into Tropico 6, but I came out in love. It's truly one of the best city building games of all time, and it has an excellent amount of polish, depth, and satire that all help it feel like a unique experience. The cluttered interface is a downside, but it's hardly one that impacts the overall gameplay much.

Ultimately, Tropico 6 is a game that any fan of city builders will enjoy, and I highly recommend checking it out if you're one of those people.

Pros:

• Excellent gameplay experience.
• Awesome presentation.
• Buttery-smooth performance.

Tropico 6 is out now on PC for $50.

Dictator simulator

Tropico 6

Rule with an iron fist

Tropico 6 is a perfect blend of engaging strategy and satirical comedy, resulting in an experience that any city building fan will love.

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While city building and management games might be a popular genre on PC it's less often that you see them ported over to consoles. Tropico 6 has long been an exception to this rule, delivering a fun take on building up an island empire. You play as El Presidente, the leader of a small caribbean nation as you move from colonial eras to the modern day.

Tropico 6 delivers the newest installment in the franchise with great updates that deliver a stellar game to your console.

At a glance

Tropico 6

Bottom line: Tropico 6 delivers an excellent city building and management game that works as beautifully on console as it does on PC.

The Good

• Gorgeous graphics
• Tons of options
• Easy to pick up gameplay

What you'll like about Tropico 6

Tropico 6 delivers you to a beautiful island just waiting for you to develop it as you move from the early days of El Presidente up and to the modern-day. The gameplay has gotten some meaningful updates since Tropico 5 arrived on consoles back in 2017 and it makes for more fluid city building antics than ever before.

Even if you've never played a Tropico game before, this installment makes it easy to jump into the fray.

The first thing that you'll notice is that the game is gorgeous. Whether you're scrolled out to view multiple islands or you're zoomed all the way in and watching citizens as they go about their lives, the graphics are stunning. You get bright island colors, easy to see overlays for various minerals or crops, and unique architectural styles for different buildings. Things don't stay static through the game either. As you move through different eras, you'll unlock new structures, and new existing buildings take on a different look. It brings the style of Tropico 6 to life with each frame, and the look of the game is amplified by an excellent music score.

Even if you've never played a Tropico game before, this installment makes it easy to jump into the fray. There are a series of short but informative tutorials. They cover all the different aspects of gameplay from building specific types of buildings to adjusting staff or budget. The tutorials aren't long either. Each one takes between five and fifteen minutes to finish and gives you the information you need to be successful as you play.

Building off of earlier games in the franchise, Tropico 6 gives you tons of options for how you play. You can choose what research fits your play style best, and there are a variety of overlays that give you all the information you could possibly need. This means if you want to go through every aspect of gameplay with a fine-tooth comb, you're able to do it. Overlays cover everything from mineral deposits to which crops will do best. You can also see how your citizens feel about their island home with happiness on several different levels. This means its always easy to tell where you can improve things on your island and deal with problems before they become significant issues.

What you'll dislike about Tropico 6

Tropico 6 is an excellent city management game for consoles, especially when you consider it's a genre that primarily lives on PC. However, Tropico 6 does have its flaws, and they become problematic the longer you end up playing the game.

The biggest issue in Tropico 6 for PlayStation 4 is the controls. Placing buildings isn't particularly problematic, but the camera tends to zoom all the way out at a moment's notice. It isn't something that deteriorates play since you can easily zoom back in and tilt the camera to get back to where you were. However, it is a significantly irritating issue that continues to build up. This is especially true when it happens as you're trying to place multiple buildings and have to drop out of the construction menu to zoom back into the particular location you need.

The other issue is one that is indicative of every game in the city-builder genre, and that's repetitive gameplay. Each level of Tropico 6 delivers different goals and aspects of gameplay, but on a fundamental level, things are more or less the same. While you have access to over a dozen different levels, the gameplay itself becomes pretty repetitive after the fourth or fifth level. It means that while Tropico 6 is a game that's easy to come back to and pick up, it isn't one that stays fun hour after hour after hour.

Compounded with this is the fact that gameplay often requires you to sit around and wait for things to happen on screen. It means you can leave the game running while you get dinner started but does make aspects of gameplay extremely passive which isn't ideal.

Should you buy Tropico 6? Yes

Tropico 6 shows off exactly what a city builder should be and it does it all on console. It's the whole package with fun gameplay, excellent visuals, and feels unique compared to other games in the genre.

Tropico 6 is an excellent console city builder that still feels fresh and fun to play. With tons of replayability it's a game that will keep giving, even after you finish the initial levels.

Become El Presidente

Tropico 6

Rule as you see fit

Tropico 6 delivers an excellent city building and management game that works as beautifully on console as it does on PC.

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