Tropico 5 Reviews

Playable and likable but falls short of T4. Still the sequels and DLCs (worthless) keep coming..

7/10; -Greater variety offered with the multitude of DLC's, but not that much of an improvement from the last version. -Some interesting concepts with Co-Op and challenge modes. -Minimal technical issues. -"I will not educate the children" I would recommend this game on sale at 70% or greater.

Its different alright and thats what makes it good. a City builder, with timelines/stakes, and an overhanded but in doing so intentionally funny political dynamic on top

the campaign is only 2 islands, wow the spectacle. each island its a continuation of the previous mission. the idea is okay but should have been an extra "legacy" campaign style or something. the enjoyable part of the challenge to challenge campaign where you get a new scenario, some new or expanded characters, and a new island to figure out how to exploit: is gone in this. Instead you have to continue the previous build without any knowledge of whats next. So when i entered into world war (okay...) i previously thought you wanted houses and business' on your coastline in front of your palace. Naw gotta destroy all this and put in army this, army that, and still rebuild all your homes and business'. I really like the tight budget of these games, i like that there is a need for military. But i didn't need the "challenge" of auto battler command and conquer with all the wasted resources of my last build. Challenge is in quotes bc i could start all over, leave a big blank zone between my palace and the shore, then only fill it in with the new unknown needs i must fulfill so i don't have an excessive amount of rebuilding. the campaign style just lost me on this one. i loved 4 so much, but i'm going to go back to finally finish 3.

This is my second favorite version of Tropico, but perhaps the one I play the most when I get the itch to be a big dictator. The Pros: ======== 1) It has a native Linux client that performs very well. I wish everyone would target Linux. I'm a huge supporter of developers that do. 2) There is an overarching story that drives the campaign. Each mission builds on the previous mission in a great way so it doesn't always feel like you are starting from scratch when beginning a mission. 3) Penultimo...nuff said. Cons: ===== 1) They took out El Presidente giving speeches to the citizens of Tropico. That was one of my favorite features of Tropico 4. I miss giving the speeches. 2) In fact, El Presidente doesn't really do much in this version. You have El Presidente and his family, but they don't really do anything but walk around. El Presidente has had more important roles in previous versions. If your going to role play as a dictator then make that role somehow important to the game. This has relegated Tropico 5 to nothing more than a city builder. Sure, you can assassinate people or have them jailed, but there really isn't a good reason to do that. The inner politics of Tropico have been dumbed down a great deal, in favor for more juggling of support from external powers. As a result, Tropico loses that zany banana republic feel it had in previous versions.