What would you do if you had dictatorial power over a strange banana republic caught frequently in the early to latter half of the middle of the 20th century? I’d give everyone basic human rights, but state that everyone must be nude and it is illegal to vote. You can drive, drink alcohol, do all the drugs, and whatever you like; just don’t harm anyone. Now I believe it is time to declare my intentions to become the 2020 democratic president…No? 

Sadly that is one thing Tropico won’t let you do, declaring your island nation to be the free-est nudist colony on the planet. However, all your political rivals will have unfortunate accidents with the pointy end of a bullet if they aren’t careful. It is a satirical take of the Sim City of the late 90s and early 2000s; however, instead of a city, you’re basically in charge of Cuba. A Cuba that’s not caught between JFK and Steve Buscemi playing Nikita Khrushchev. No, it is the EU, someone that works at Facebook, and a Disney caricature of the “filthy peace-loving hippies.”

Of course, there’s the occasional mission wherein you are a skivvy for what is referred to as “the crown;” which might as well be big red letters roaring: “The English!” This is something so immediately apparent, they hired someone to do a Tim Curry impression to sell the idea of an upper-class Englishman giving orders down from high above. This is something the Tropico series is always spot-on with, some humorous dialogue with pitch-perfect voice acting. It gives character to each leader giving commands from their specific lobbying groups. 

However, none of that is the gameplay which is, in French, de rigueur. It is both fashionable, with its menus, and is stiff at the same time (making up for both meanings). This may just be a casualty of being on consoles, though my previous experience of the series and this game, in particular, is similar. There’s not much creativity to pull from it; it is often focused on the business and doing things unwaveringly.

My best way of explaining this would be to compare Tropico and other city-builders. While Sim City is about keeping radioactive dinosaurs or UFO strikes at bay, the worst you could hope to see in Tropico is being assassinated. One of the more popular modern interpretations of the city-builder is Cities Skylines, something that focuses down onto your traffic issues. Tropico 6, to me, is about the problem with trading ships and keeping lobbyists happy. I might as well be riding a boat (towed by a truck) while giving the NRA headquarters the Vicky.

Then there is what I had assumed was the percentage of completion of the levels in the top left. In what I could only explain as a percentage gauge made by Microsoft, it would tick up once completing orders from the lobbyists. Then if I wasn’t completing them quickly enough, it would trickle back down. I know this because I’d hit 100 percent and stood there like Bernard Black looking at tax forms, I was perplexed. Then when my term as the head of state was done that percentage said 93, and I was subsequently ejected into the sun. This wasn’t for my completion, it was who’d elect me again.

All while I’d go into the red about twelve times a minute just to keep both the residents of the island and the lobbyists happy or not homeless. I’d have one command come down from on high, and complete it; then i’d complete maybe three more requests from the same revolutionary. The person that told me to build a tavern would tell me to build yet another. I could get this if I was failing these orders from each group; but no I was spending the money, completing orders on time, and still failing the overall mission. However, not from going into debt; by the time I was in the sun, we still had $50,000 and a 93 percent approval rating.

The thing is, the game isn’t bad. There’s just a lot of faff to get around to play the game. You aren’t submitting to the commands of your people so much, as you are doing so for the special interest groups that want one thing or another. You also don’t do any of this to be the evil dictator ruling over an island of helpless people until your assassination. It is the city-building equivalent of doing fetch quests in an RPG, I could see others loving it; however, I don’t understand why that embodies the whole game.

I think where I find most of my enjoyment, possibly unlike many others, is in the sandbox. In this case, I can set conditions and fumble around ignoring the groups wanting me to build thirty-two taverns and return to ‘conventional’ marriage. Instead, I’ll make an airport: with blackjack and hookers (of all types). For my personal use, city-building and management games are to be a little creative while trying to balance the books. Somehow that’s not the case with Tropico 6.

In conclusion, I do enjoy Tropico 6 and the series overall. However, on consoles (and from my short time in the PC beta last year) the frame-rate, general performance, and loading times bounce like the head of one of my enemies down the stairs. Not to mention controlling something that’s made for a PC with a plastic slab you’re meant to wrap your hands around is like controlling an excitable dog through a field of cow manure. In short, it is a funny, strange, and slightly buggy city-builder with more charm than a well-behaved and smartly dressed child at a wedding.

An Xbox One review copy of Tropico 6 was provided by Kalypso Media Digital for this review.

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Tropico 6

$59.99 USD

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Funny.
• Pitch perfect voice acting
• Colorful and gorgeous.

Cons

• Variable performance.