I can remember when I first played Rollercoaster Tycoon. I’d played Theme Park before on Mega Drive, and went round my Aunt and Uncle’s house. They had a PC upstairs, and rather than play with my boring family, my brother and I were allowed to play on the PC. They had Duke Nukem, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. This game blew my mind.
It still does really, of course things have moved on. And yet, when I’ve played those newer games in full 3D and aside from being able to ‘ride’ the rides, it’s missing something. Can’t beat the classics I guess.
Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic combines both the first Rollercoaster Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 together. By and large, they are as per the original, adjusted slightly to be able to fill your TV screen.
The core loop – build a theme park on a big plot of land, tweak it, put too much salt on the chips so people get thirsty and buy overpriced drinks – is still here, and is brilliant. It’s kind of amazing how well it all still holds up. Guests have individual thoughts and needs, layout matters as to where things go. Pricing is key – the depth of management is astounding.
The depth in terms of things to do is also huge. With two games, and all of the scenarios, things keep changing and require new thoughts of approach and ways to play. And when you’ve done it all, you can still build your own coaster. It’s so detailed, and fantastic to concoct a machine of such visceral pleasure (or destruction of your guests lunches) that you can easily spend hours whiling away just simple designs. Well simple in your mind, anyway…
There are two main obstructions to this. First; the graphics. Ok, well this can be forgiven really. You can’t be too mad about an old game being re-released and the graphics not being ‘good’. It’s ’as was’ despite some HD upscaling, and honestly whilst looking dated, I feel like this is all part of the charm.
The other is the control scheme. For a game that was designed for a mouse and keyboard, moving to a controller was always going to be a slight challenge. It’s not terrible of course, but it’s not as good as it could be. Once you get used to it, you’re fine, but it’s a bit jarring initially although I think it’s probably par for the course for any of these types of games on a console. To be fair, the classic isometric style means you’re a bit more limited than some of the fully 3D games, and therefore the controls aren’t as needlessly complex as some modern interpretations.
Whilst I wish for some slightly larger text, there’s no denying that Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic is the ultimate edition of the franchise for modern systems. It takes me back to that first time I played it, and surely that’s what it’s all about?
Reviewed on PS5
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