Yep, it's another Tropico game...

There really isn't much more to say other than that. It just feels lazy. All your old favourite buildings return, very few new ones. DLC is silly expensive, customization is meh. Save your money and go play one of the other tropicos. Either 1, or if you like roads, 3.

To elaborate.

Building Variety - Tropico has never been big on this, but it's 2014. Would it kill to have 2 models for a Bunhouse/house/etc?

Eras - These are esentially mini-goals. If you fail to achieve them within the time limit, you lose. That's about it. All they do is lock buildings from you, making it harder to layout a good city -from the start-

Ships - You get to own ships, that sounds cool, and I really thought it was going to be like Tropico 2 managing pirate fleets. But it's not. You couldn't have any less interaction with them, No naming, no colouring, and with each era, the ship just poofs into the next eras ship and keeps doing what it does. Huge let down.

Mines - Ugly eyesores that just look silly when you upgrade them. A mini Bagger 288 just sits there, and it's grosly undersized.

Tanks - Yep, I'm gonna say this too. The introduction of Tropico tanks. They are T-34. That's it. Every nation be it america, soviets, modern armour,, oh and of course Tropico, all use the same model T-34.

Bring Back TNT radio - I mean the Tropico 3 one, (but 4 is even better than this schlock).

Some of these sound nitpicky, but this is why the game just feels lazy. Would it of killed them to make a few differnt tank models? Woud it of been that much of an effort to make another bunk house?

Sure, these are just visuals, but this game is very difficult to mod. And there are virtually no new gameplay from say Tropico 3, or 4. So if the game play is the same, then the visuals better be amazing......but they aren't. Hence a lazy, forgetable, "next tropico game".

Unfortunately I just can't recommend this game as much as I would have loved to.

When I first played it, it was a nice refresh and continuation of Tropico 4. As I played it more, I found more and more problems with the game. The fighting, the buildings, the overlays (pre building placement and post placement), rebels, population cap, to name a few. I'll summarise these quickly:

The fighting: Essentially, its build a huge military or be wiped out. Once rebels appear, if they break through your military (which they will as they are OP most of the time), they head straight to the palace and game over. Your military doesn't respawn, you cannot rebuild military buildings either. Even if your barracks refill with 8 troopers, they won't go and fight the rebels attacking the palace. Totally ridiculous and to me, its a game breaker.

The buildings: Only apartments have 'variations' and even then they look pretty much the same. Throughout the eras, the building all look the same, modern housing in colonial periods. Really? There needs to be much more variation in models. As it stands now, its bland. There are buildings missing too that should really be in there. Since when did a police station act as a fire station? Seems lazy. Modern tanks appearing in the cold war era too.

Overlays: When you place buildings that say 'Affects nearby plantations' or 'Generates funds off nearby housing', there is nothing to say how far this radius is. You have no idea what it will affect until its placed and built. These buildings often cost alot to make and many times where you place can be a total waste of resources. For a modern 2014 game, this is not acceptable to me. Kalypso merely say its meant to be this way and is fine, and then point about overlays in the Almanac which are irrelivent to the point raised to them. There is nothing to say what the radius is of any building. This is a poor effort.

Rebels - too common, too OP. Doesn't give the feeling of a dictatorship game at all. Even on high happiness (some people have rebel attacks at 100 happiness). There are no real reasons for rebels alot of the time, and to many, its unknown why they are attacking since everyone is happy. The only real way to counter rebels is to have a huge military, which generates more rebels in itself. Lose lose situation ultimately.

2000 people population cap. You have often use 1/4 of the island and reach this pop cap. Very poor. Dev excuses for this are poor and obsurd.

Last point i'll make is the DLC for this. £3 for most DLC, gives 1 building, an outfit you never see, 1 short mission and a music track. Most of the DLC was already included in the base game and can be unlocked via mods and working correctly. Your paying to play with what should have been there in the first place really. Considering the base price of the game is £29.99, its really not worth it.

Could only recommend the game if game price drops below £15 and all DLC included.

It's alright. Compared to Tropico 4 it's mediocre. You're better off getting Tropico 4 and all the DLC's at a fraction of the price (because the DLCs are still coming out for this one, and they're all full-price). If you'd like Tropico 5 you're better off waiting for Tropico 6 to come out, that way you can get this game with all the DLC at a fraction of the price of the current game.

I do like the Swiss Bank account mechanics of Tropico 5 more than the mechanics of Tropico 4, but that's about it. The additional complexity added to the trading system of Tropico 5 did not add more fun to the game, just more complexity.

I loved Tropico 4 to an unhealthy degree of obsession. It was the first Tropico game I had played and I couldn't wait for Tropico 5. Like most I've been disappointed with the changes made. They aren't bad, they just don't work too well. Tropico 4 was a waiting game, you had to wait for buildings to be finished. Tropico 5 is a waiting game, you have to advance in era to get to the interesting sections of the game.

Tropcio 5 feels like the developers tried to make it more tightly focused while cutting corners from everything to budget manangement to simple buildings. This takes away a large amount of options that you had in Tropico 4 and it makes it feel like an unfinished game. Everything interesting and fun has been removed and we've left with a lifeless and soulless sim city.

Coop is pretty pointless because it's just the base game with someone else on the idea taking up space and resources. It's still just as boring and waiting around for your citizens to be happy enough to advance to the next era.

I played through the campaign once and was left wanting more. I even tried to replay it but it's just so tidious I can't bring myself to dredge through to chapter 2.

My final thought is that this game should be good, possibily even really good. But cutting out content for future DLCs and expansions makes me not want to invest any more time with Tropico 5 when the base contains so little.

El Presidenté deserves more.

The ethos of sequels back in the day used to be that they were bigger, better, and with more content. Unfortunatley the modern mindset seems to be that you can push out a minimal product at full price, and charge for "DLC" that should have been in the main game.
Every step taken by kalypso seems to be a step backwards. There are less buildings, less avenues for economy, less player agency. In tropico 4 you could entirely eschew certain areas of economy and still make it work. Want a industrial complex that sucks the minerals from the land for massive profit? No problem. Want to protect mother earth, build your economy by becoming a tourist trap, or an island vegas? Go for it! Do you want to create an atheist state, a complete theocracy, a communist regime, or a capitalist paradise? All do-able!
Not so with tropico 5. Make a single move that the people dont like, and you're done. in some cases there is no way to correct this (sign the wrong thing into your constitution, watch your approval tank. just watch, you can do nothing about it now.) its game over. You -must- build a church if you want to have any hope of making out of colonial era. You -must- build a mine if you want to have any economy at all. While in tropico 4 you had to keep citizen happiness in mind, now it is the single driving factor of the entire game, and you will have to play it their way, not yours. Now that buildings are tied to eras, the game is completely homogonized. Every game is "A" leads to "B" leads to "C". you -must- start with farming, which -must- lead to industrialization, with no options for tourism or even entertainment until the right era.
And the DLC that is planned for this game is beyond insulting. there are so many features from tropico 4 that were taken out so that they could be resold in bits and pieces. Remove jails and make the game activley punish you for trying to deal with criminals. Oh but dont worry, there is a prison DLC coming out that you can buy. It reminds me of a mobile free to play game, only i unfortunatley payed money for it.
Tropico 4 was one of my favotire city building games, with many interesting mechanics and conecpts that couldn't be found elsewhere. Tropico 5 is an incredible disappointment, i cant recomend anyone buy this game. To echo many other sentiments, buy tropico 4 if you are interested in it.

We pre-ordered our copies. I didn't review this game until now, hoping that after the inital "shock" I would change my mind. I haven't.

I've been a huge fan of the Tropico series since 2001, but I'm afraid I've lost that lovin' feelin' with Tropico 5. We loved the Tropico games so much that we upgraded ALL our computers so we could run T5 (DX11) to the tune of about $400 (just for new hardware). We had no other reason/need to upgrade (nothing else, to this day, has required us to upgrade). IMHO, that is some pretty serious game love. :)

One complaint I have is muti-player: we purchased multiple copies to play TOGETHER, but it doesn't really work that way (read the forums to see why, they explain it better than I can).

The reason why I don't play anymore (single player) is because of how they make the scenaries work. It goes back and forth between TWO islands, each time continuing where you left off. That might sound good, but for me it's a total pain. I have a VERY hard time remembering which buildings were upgraded before, how upgraded were they, which ones need managers, etc. etc. etc. For me it was SOOOOO much better starting a new island each time. That way I could build not only for the general needs of my people, but for the needs of the scenario.

T5 was the only game I had looked forward to in years. My family and I are very disppointed.

I see that Tropico 5 share the curse of all the good series, the curse of predecessor. If you already have a very succesful game in your hands, developers are facing somehow a dilemma: if they try to keep the old mechanics and game design, fans will accuse them of copying the old game. And if they try to implement new mechanics, then fans will complain about how the new game spoiled what it was good. The curse of homm3 over its succesors is the best example of that.

In case you had great fun playing tropico 3 or 4, this game probably won't give more to you only because it's developed few years later. In this perspective, i find most of fan's critics are right. Yet, for those who didn't play a tropico game before and for those who seek an enjoyable simulation, i strongly recommend Tropico 5. Particularly the campaign is well designed, and most of all game is fun.

I'm a big fan of the series and tycoon games in general. Unfortunately, a low population cap makes Tropico 5 unplayable by its second half.

The player will find his citizens emigrating en masse starting around the beginning of the Cold War, which will cause his economy to collapse. Factories go unmanned, exports are never transported to the docks, expensive buildings are rendered useless by rolling blackouts as power plants run short on staff and fuel. Pulling people from entertainment and welfare buildings causes Happiness to plummet. Hiring even illiterate foreign workers quickly becomes prohibitively expensive, and pointless, as they're likely to leave on the next transport.

As the population cap is invisible to the player, he may spend many frustrating hours trying to placate his citizens before he realizes it's nothing he's doing wrong.

In order to play successfully, one has to very consciously limit expansion from the start of the campaign onwards. (Unlike in previous installments, scenarios don't start with a blank slate; everything you've built in earlier eras is still there, although the money in your treasury, mysteriously, is not.)

In short, this game is essentially broken without mods. I appreciate the detail, beauty and realism that Haemimont have added, but they are in no way worth the losses in gameplay.

Tropico 4 was better. Tropico 5 felt more like a slight improvement or DLC over 4, but that's it. Not worth buying on hindsight.

Tropico 5
~~~~~~~

This series is getting better with each sequel.

Of course you have to build and reach your objectives as usual but in Tropico 5 you have more options than before. From customizing your El Presidente, hiring manager to your building, finding technology and much more. Using the tutorial is actually a good idea to be honest.

But do not worry; you can actually set the level of difficulty easily.

Visually, this game is beautiful and run smoothly. The soundtrack is a pleasure to your ears as we would expect from this franchise.

My only criticism is with the control, I am wondering why the gamepad is the primary control. To me this type of game is so much better with your keyboard and mouse. Saying this, you can play with the keyboard and mouse but it is not smooth in my opinion.

Positives:
~~~~~~~
- Visually splendid
- Fantastic soundtracks
- Plenty things to do
- Setup your levels of difficulties (political, economic, etc) before you start each mission
- Challenging
- Achievements
- Trading cards

Negatives:
~~~~~~~~

- Gamepad as primary control

Overall this game is a solid 8 out of 10 (just because of the gamepad), Otherwise I would give it a 10 out of 10.

Well done El Presidente!

MORE THE_CPT_FROGGY REVIEWS HERE

I cannot stress enough how disappointing this game is. Tropico 4 was fresh, a worthy update, humourous. Tropico 5 descends into racialized caricatures of Latin Americans worthy of Family Guy. The gameplay itself is lacklustre at best, with a nonsensical tech system, overly difficult and repetitive mission objectives, this game is just crap. Also, they packed the DLC into the download, which is probably the most underhanded thing publishers do these days. This won't get much more play from me and I definitely won't be buying any DLC. Pirate this trash.

The main storyline mission is short. There's the signature silly Tropico feel – but it falls flat before anything really happens with it. There's still the typos and bugs from 4 that should've been taken care of. The DLC is insulting – overpriced installments for a stupid hat, an uninteresting map with buggy mission and a new building.

The game is... prettier than previous installments? It has that going for it. The Swiss bank account is an interesting mechanic now. The Manager system is a nice touch.

Go with Tropico 4.

First of all, Tropico 5 is way longer than I expected, which is great, as I do enjoy long games that frustrate you. I played on hard and was forced multiple times to restart missions or redo the entire playthrough due to mistakes I've made. Which is just great!

Now lets get down to it, is Tropico 5 just like Tropico 1-2-3-4? A short answer would be no. A long answer will be hell no.

Tropico 5 is built on what made the tropico series great. City building and controlling your island as El President is addictive. All that you loved from the older games you will find here as well. However Tropico 5 is bringing a lot of new things to the series.

In the older games, you could find a balance and then you would NEVER have any kind of problems again with money, well Tropico 5 skull ♥♥♥♥s that and makes you work for it. Just as you think, “Ah ! I finally figured out how to keep my money in plus”, you will go in huge minus due to one of the many random events.

The interface and gameplay in many ways will make you feel like home. But all the new things will toss you a curve ball all the time and keep you on your toes, I had to play the last mission 6 times in a row (Yea ! I'm not kidding, 6 freaking times) to even understand what I did wrong and to finally beat it. In the other Tropicos this would never have happened.

The graphics are brilliant as well as the humor. Lets not forget that there is MULTIPLAYER. That's right, 2 Presidents trying to either kill each other or work together for a greater goal.

Tropico 5 is everything I personally wanted from a new Tropico game and I can only strongly recommend it. There are tons of DLC's but be careful what you buy as not all of them are worth the money.

So to sum up, grab the game for sure and grab the DLC's when they are on sale!

The game is... solid, but ut quickly loses replay value and challenge. The jokes get tiring as there is almost no variability in the oneliners. I pretty much played through the campaign tried a random map and frankly got bored of the little ants. Hey I even got more playtime out of simple little Banished just because it offered more of a realistic challenge. Food is your issue not some military or diplomatic mess.

I was frankly disappointed that a one man studio made a better, more engaging game.

Citizens in rage because of lack of food

Riot starts

They burn down all farms because of it

11/10

I loved Tropico 4, rule your own country, make your economy rise, satisfy your people, execute those in your way, piss off foreign countries and wave your nuke around to prevent them from invading. These are just some of the things you can do in the previous game and are still present in 5.

But Tropico 5 changed in different ways, military became much more critical, forces are stronger thus stronger defense is required. Trade routes can be chosen and relations with foreign countries' relations affect these. You progress through time and things change even more than Modern Times DLC in 4. Housing is more interconnected with job salary and sometimes you experience problems but don't know the details until you see a detail that changes your prespective. The game provides a bigger mirror to the perspective of a dictator, things need to be watched more often and closely, you must be prepared and at the same time be able to adapt to the situations you must be watchful of such as civil unrest and the end of WWII.

Everything got more difficult, more complex, in some cases worse than 4, I miss the old Penultimo, I missing allowing no rent to all residentials, I miss the diverse set of characters and more. But 5 had some things I really liked, the campaign was something I didn't expect and loved, the fact that you make your island grow and don't abandon it at the end of the episode makes you see how difficult it gets to run a country the longer it stays alive. You have multiplayer (which sucked earlier on until some updates) where you cooperate or kill each other with armies and resources. Military played a bigger role, both a good thing and a bad thing because I didn't give a damn about it til 5.

Bottomline, Tropico 5 is like a more difficult version of 4, things need to be watched more often as the threat level of everything got more critical such as rebels, civil unrest and pirates and the campaign requires you to realize that you are NOT going to abandon your country and ALL problems you experience now WILL happen into the future unless YOU fix it while you can. Tropico 5 is a great game and I value it as I value 4 but in different ways.

If you've played Tropico 4 and loved it as it is and don't want things to change, then stick with it. If you value a bigger challenge, a more complex way of playing it, a chance to compete with other dictators (heads up, few people go online anymore so find a friend) and to realize how difficult it is to manage your own lil island then go buy this, hell it's Steam anyway. Price too high? Steam Sale!

Has some improvements over Tropico 4, welcomed improvements. Unfortunately, this game lacks some things that made Tropico 4 great. Tropico 4 had generally more character throughout, as well as the polish. Tropico 4 is very iterative of Tropico 3, meaning Tropico 4 is basically a good game improved and polished to be a really great game. Tropico 5 feels like it tried to re-imagine the series, but got rushed out the door. It lacks character, I encountered a fair few bugs and annoyances and generally the entire game has a lot of cool ideas that aren't implemented well.

I don't hate the game, its not a bad game. Overall its pretty good, and I hope Tropico 6 really fleshes out the new ideas and expands upon whats seen here, because the ideas are all great. The game in general is still pretty dang good. The only issue is that when you compare it to Tropico 4, a game thats better in most every way, including price, its not worth it.

Tropico 4 is a better thought out, more polished game that has more content in the base game, all for a cheaper price.

Oh, and the Almanac that basically lets you figure out what the hell is causing everyone to think you're a mongoloid scumbucket is crap in Tropico 5.

Tropico 4 > Tropico 5 ..... After several hours of gameplay, I can conclude that the newer version of this game lacks the depth that the previous version had. Just my opinion though, I have more fun playing the previous version. I sure hope there are updates or add-ons other than the relatively lame cheese tycoon. I, however, recommend it.

The game is good its not great its a new tropico which means there should be lots of new features that actullay make the game better and if they don't add lots of new features they can add in expansions but no they have to make these stupid add on's with a new mission and building and clothing instead give us better expansions with new features or make the features that the game already has better with more options and just make this game better because i have found myself playing tropico 4 more than tropico 5 because there is more options in tropio 4 like more buildings,edicts and clothing

Tropico 5 Builds on the foundation that it has laid with tropico 4 and its earlier titles. This one really shines and it shows.

Graphics

Tropico 5 ha a beautifully rendered world. The people, Buildings, trees, and everything else come to life in brilliant colours. This is where Tropico 5 really comes out. Graphics are top notch. 8/10

Sound

The effects and ambience are rather well done. But its the Music that really shines. Carribean rhythm throughout sets the tone and mood perfectly for your island. The voice acting is superb each portrait seems to match the voice perfectly. Penultimo is back as well with same voice. 8/10

Gameplay

The Gameplay and controls all are very similiar if you have played any Tropico title. In fact most of the features and all will seem very familiar as you progress through your island city building adventures. The addition of militiary micromanagement is very fun but frustrating at the same time. There is alot to do in Tropico 5 besides building your city. You have to manage diplomatic relations, keep your citizens happy, keep your economy strong, and manage different factions. Like i said though gameplay is very similiar to Tropico 4 so nothing Real new. 7/10

Overall Opinion

I found Tropico 5 to be one of the better city builders on the market today. The developers have put alot of atttention to detail into this title and it shows. The addition of Dlc available is great and I cant wait to buy them when they come out. Overall If you are looking for a great economic city building strategy title this ones for you! Overall 8/10