Hello, Gamers! Today I thought I’d take the time to review a couple of games I got back in February, played a whole bunch, and then dropped until I recently got the urge to play them again. Does anyone else do that, or is that just me? Regardless, I’m reviewing them now so I can have some content out for you that ISN’T Pokémon-related.
So, what am I reviewing today? Well, I decided to write a review of both Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo. Have you heard of them? They’re the spiritual successors to Roller Coaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon, made by the same developers that worked on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and the 2013 Zoo Tycoon, Frontier Developments.
Reviewing Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo
Why review them together? Well, to be honest, there isn’t much to them. They’re sandbox simulation games. There’s a little bit of story/lore tossed into the career modes on both games but other than that, that’s it. Plus, often you can’t mention one without the other, so I’m going to review them both and be done with it.
By now, you should know my review formula; what I like, what I don’t like, and my final rating. I’ll be doing this for both games, starting with Planet Coaster first. Let’s jump into the review!
What I Liked About Planet Coaster
- Functions similarly to Roller Coaster Tycoon, but with modernized graphics
- A large variety of content
- Stories behind the scenario parks are interesting
- The way the scenarios scale in difficulty seems fair
- The soundtrack
What I Didn’t Like About Planet Coaster
- No grid, so it is hard to build straight paths
- Extremely Hard to build coasters
- I never liked building custom coasters even back in Roller Coaster Tycoon, but I just really can’t seem to grasp how to build custom coasters here.
- Extremely difficult to keep staff happy, even on easier modes
- No interactive tutorial to explain game mechanics
- Having a lot of guests in your park will make the game’s FPS drop
- Seems to be no longer supported
- The last update was on Nov 28, 2019
- The last DLC was released on Jun 4, 2019
My Final Rating Of Planet Coaster
For Planet Coaster, I give it 3.5/5 stars. I’d love to rate it higher, but I think the fact that I find it personally so hard to build coasters, along with the big learning curve, the difficulty of keeping staff happy, and the FPS drops, I can’t rate it any higher. It’s incredibly fun and quite enjoyable, however. If it did come with an interactive tutorial, especially one for building coasters, and had a way to hide park guests so that your PC doesn’t struggle with the number of people crawling through your parks, I’d give it another full star.
Now, let’s go ahead and talk about Planet Zoo.
What I Liked About Planet Zoo
- Lot’s of content with more planned
- We just had a pack release on 10/18
- Interactive tutorial during the first scenario
- Scenario difficulty scales
- Relatively easy to keep guests and staff happy
- I play on easier difficulties, I may change my perspective once I try the scenarios in hard mode
- The soundtrack
- Seriously, the soundtrack for both games is incredible
What I Didn’t Like About Planet Zoo
- There is no grid, so it is insanely difficult to build even paths and straight habitat enclosures
- Also very hard to build nice-looking patios or resting areas
- Hard to see to build underground
- Unable to buy animals freely in the scenario, challenge, and franchise modes
- Makes sense in franchise mode, since it is based on what other players are offering up at the time.
- In other modes, the selection seems to be more random
- While this helps make things more challenging, it’s difficult if you need to adopt a specific animal to complete a scenario objective.
- Or to replace an animal who has died.
- Makes sense in franchise mode, since it is based on what other players are offering up at the time.
- Major FPS drops when there are a lot of people in your Zoo.
- Planet Coaster has this same problem.
My Final Rating Of Planet Zoo
Despite the grievances, I had with the lack of a grid of any kind and how difficult it was sometimes to find specific animals I wanted or needed, I had a lot of fun with Planet Zoo. I can confidently say I rate Planet Zoo 4/5 stars. I have over a hundred hours in on this game and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every second of it that I’ve played. I didn’t feel like there was a huge learning curve either, like in Planet Coaster.
I am excited for whatever new content will be added to Planet Zoo in the future, and whatever improvements they may make to the game in the meantime.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed my new article which was a little different than what I’ve been talking about recently. Tomorrow, I’ll be back with another Pokémon update and then I’ll be releasing an article recommending games to play over the holiday weekend, so don’t miss it! That’s all I have for now. Later, Gamers!