Can We Save This Review? A Parkitect: Deluxe Edition Review

By JT

Players: 1
Platforms: XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

Parkitect: Deluxe Edition, the release of the game for consoles, adds in two DLCs to the base game and makes the price comparison to other games in the genre more easily digestible. While I don’t enjoy comparing other games to this one, you can get a good picture of it by thinking of Planet Coaster or Roller Coaster Tycoon. A lot more polish is needed for that comparison though, especially in terms of lost progress. I could not hold onto a save even if my life depended on it. Every time I would save, all progress would revert to day one. There was no saving to be had here, at least from my experience. Is there a good game here otherwise? Yes. Will there be a patch to fix this? There have been a few already to fix some bugs, so one that fixes saves could be rolling out one day. What about the other aspects of the game? Guess we must dive much deeper. Let's see what Parkitect brings to the table!

The narrative of Parkitect is given in the form of a checklist. Sell 800 tickets, get 300 people into your park at once, have happiness reach 70%, etc. All simple and easily passable goals within the campaign mode. Each new park area gives you higher goals to reach, and adds optional goals on top of that. I found myself surpassing goals in a matter of minutes when I figured out what to do and how to maximize profits. It was actually a bit too simple. Add stands, add Thrill Rides, increase prices triple or higher, profit. There are very few in-game economies that I wasn't able to break. Parkitect was one that could be exploited easily to make campaign mode more tolerable. Instead of the campaign we get here, things would have been better if we had one central area with each goal increasing as the park expands. There is a sandbox mode where you can create and expand on your own, but having another mode where you just expand the one park you built with goals would've added more depth to the campaign mode.

The world of Parkitect looks good. It isn't spectacular or exceptionally beautiful, it just looks good. Except at night when you see your rides all light up, then the game looks beautiful. The length of certain rides can be explored using only your imagination and the money made, unless you’re in sandbox mode, then money is no issue. The more I could make my park guests puke, the better I felt in a way. That meant I was doing my job for those types of rides. Coasters and Thrill rides alike were the bread and butter of each park. Every time I built a new ride that had potential to cause stomach trauma, I went all in. From the length of the coasters to how tall drops were becoming, I would always strive to hit all the limits. At times janitors would make up much of the workforce. For every employee, at least five would be a janitor. It was a lot of fun. The lines would be so backed up for those types of rides that I increased the pricing at every chance. This would lead to a surprising increase in park guests. My 200 guests would turn into 300 very easily, and the momentum would only keep going until a rainstorm hit. Yes natural disasters are a thing, but they're very limited.

The rides you can create in Parkitect are very plentiful for a game like this that focuses on an entire park, but I feel as though much more could be added to give the game a bigger identity. The game, as it is stands on its own though, is a good entry into the world of sim games. From what I’ve seen with the PC version though, the console versions are inferior in all aspects. The controls are janky, leading to a lot of workarounds for the category wheel, and even in simply placing things like utilities and rides down. The act of placing roads or a queue takes far more time than it should. Whenever I attempted to use the scroll wheel, it would often just close out, leading to the time-consuming processes of pressing out of everything, pausing to menu, or just holding open the wheel until I scrolled over to the section. Also, as I stated in the beginning, the game would not save! My progress looked to still be there, with the photo of my park build staring right at me. However, whenever I loaded up my save file, the file was always loaded up as if no progress was made. Imagine looking at the thumbnail of your park, a constant reminder of what you had built before, but can no longer access for some unknown reason. This was the dilemma I constantly faced. This meant I could not turn off my Xbox, or I'd risk losing all progress. Also, for some reason the time between months and years would not change over as shown on the screen, so the time you had to complete certain scenarios was more of a guessing game. Even though it wasn’t showing that it was Year 2, September, you knew it passed that point due to the missed scenario after the goal has been met.

The music for Parkitect is decent, but sometimes the game glitched and gave me a constant loop of sound. To get rid of the sound, I would have to reboot the game, which meant even more loss of progress. Every step of the way was a constant battle for my sanity. When the game worked, however, it was fun and addictive. I kept expanding my parks in campaign, and I would only feel the need to move on once I got bored of the space I was given. I would go back to those same parks to expand though, just because I felt like a change in scenery was necessary. There are a lot of good places to build your park on, such as a wasteland or an abandoned airport, each feeling unique enough to keep going back to for extra park expansion. There's also terraforming, which allows a lot of transforming between types of land, including adding water for more water-oriented rides. Terraforming often goes under-utilized, but it's a much-appreciated game mechanic to get the most out of the experience, and to make things fit better. I didn’t think I would need to use it like I did, but there was no escape. Adding hills and removing them were just a part of the experience.

Was there ever a time where I got bored with Parkitect? I don’t believe so. There was a lot to explore with the game, and my love of sim type games helped carry me along. For every fault I found with the game, I found enough that made me continue. There was no shortage of ideas as to how I wanted my park to look, and my eventual goal of achieving that look pulled me along. I would overlap my rides just because it’s something I could do, and I would punish my park guests because it’s something that was there. I would also reward the guests, or squeeze every cent out of them afterwards. The game was a fun ride, though I really hope the console version improves and expands in the coming weeks/months. The game is good for the asking price, but I would hold off until they fix the save issue. There is simply no excuse for an issue that big. The janky controls aren’t a deal breaker, but they need improvement too. For now just stick with the PC version. The controls and saving don’t appear to be an issue there.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Parkitect: Deluxe Edition and I plan to keep the game on my radar in the future, and perhaps return to it once all the bugs are straightened out. I really wanted to enjoy the game more than I did though, but I got most of what I wanted for what it was. If you’re new to the genre, this is probably not going to be the game I recommend starting with. However, if you’re a sim veteran, then it is a good purchase to add to your collection, especially for those on a budget. It’s a game that can keep you playing for hours and hours. I still think it's a solid game, even if it's very rough in certain aspects.

Check Out Parkitect: Deluxe Edition on XBox:
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/parkitect-deluxe-edition/9n52btkt5n3z

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Story: B+
Gameplay: C+
Graphics: C
Music/Sound: C
Value: A-

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ Fun and addictive.
+ A large variety of rides.
+ Micromanagement doesn’t bog down the game, it actually adds to the experience.
+ Good sim game for veterans of the genre.

Cons:
- Couldn’t keep a save file to save my life!
- Janky controls all around, from the category wheel to just placing a simple coaster.
- Some bugs related to sound.
- Campaign needs more substance.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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