There are a number of City Builders, one of the most well-known being EA’s Sim City. In 1999, Impressions Games and Sierra tried to break away by moving the building process to Ancient Egypt with Pharaoh. With success. Dotemu and developer Triskell Interactive now want to build on this by pretending the aging original and making it fit for modern systems. Sounds like an easy task. The reality is a little different.
At its core, Pharaoh: A New Era is what you’ll know if you’ve already played the original. The same basics are there and of course it’s about building cities. The campaign introduces you step by step to the individual mechanics required for this. With each mission something new is added, which expands your possibilities.
Too close to the original?
One could accuse Pharaoh: A New Era of being a bit too close to the original. More quality-of-life adjustments would not have harmed the new edition. For example, the user interface does not seem entirely intuitive and could sometimes express what I can do on the respective screen even more clearly. Sometimes, for my taste, connections are not immediately apparent at first glance and the game doesn’t necessarily offer helpful solutions.
Some things are missing, such as a mini-map, and the user interface, while different from the original, is, as mentioned, sub-optimal. Messages and windows take up more space than they should, and the escape key doesn’t close open windows or menus, it brings up the pause menu. That’s not exactly a clever solution.
The camera perspective cannot be rotated either. This leads to problems especially when you build huge structures like the Sphinx or a pyramid. What is behind? Well, we’ll just cover that up. That doesn’t seem well thought out. An encyclopedia will help you when looking for information, although nothing is sorted alphabetically and there is no search function. Which in turn makes it too complicated. The fights have even been completely switched to an automatic system in which you can only watch.
Annoying little things
Ultimately there isn’t the one big deal, which stands out disturbingly in Pharaoh: A New Era. Rather, it’s a series of little things that add up. Ideas that have not been thought through to the end and a number of bugs spoil the fun. But: If you have internalized the connections, processes and so on, Pharaoh can cast a spell over you. But until then, the road is sometimes rocky and sometimes frustrating. Especially if you ignore the campaign with its tutorials and jump straight into the deep end.
As in any city builder, it’s fun to watch your city grow and prosper. When you realize that your own plans and ideas are bearing fruit and are working. It’s no different in Pharaoh: A New Era. The game also gives you a number of options. In addition to the campaign, you have individual missions, maps and an endless sandbox mode. Here you can, for example, fulfill certain tasks or just start building, including adjustments to the rules and level of difficulty. Flexibility is definitely there.
Technically, once we hide the UI, the game presents itself in nice shape. The graphics are nice to look at, and every aspect – buildings, environment, residents and so on – has been revised accordingly. It’s not that everything is completely different, it’s simply been adapted to modern systems and resolutions without losing any of its charm. As mentioned, it’s a joy to see your cities grow. This also applies visually when, for example, residential buildings reach the next stage of development. Add the relaxed soundtrack and you can experience a few nice hours.
Pharaoh: A New Era – Conclusion
The impression I have so far is that Pharaoh: A New Era isn’t the perfect remake that it would like to be. There are a few annoying little things that could have been addressed – or rather should have been. Things that give the game a sense of its ancient roots. But once you’ve internalized everything and the shop is running, even a Pharaoh: A New Era manages to unfold this typical city builder pull that ties you to the screen. I would definitely advise beginners to start with the campaign and learn all aspects. You can definitely have fun with this pretty new edition. However, I would recommend that the developers lend a hand in some areas and continue to optimize and improve the game and listen to the feedback. Pharaoh definitely deserved it.
Pharaoh: A New Era Rating: 7/10
Pharaoh: A New Era – Pros and Cons
Per:
- Technically nice new edition
- Lots of content and lots of gameplay options
- When everything is up and running, city building will keep you glued to the screen for hours
Cons:
- No minimap available
- Battles only run automatically
- User interface not intuitive and sometimes too big
- No rotating camera
- Isolated annoying bugs
Developer: Triskell Interactive – Publishers: dotemu – Platforms: PC – release: 02/15/2023 – Genre: city building simulation – Price (RRP): €22.99
