RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Remember back in the day? It was either Theme Park World or RollerCoaster Tycoon that you had a choice between when it came to building your own Theme Park. Possibly, a lot of you now reading this review are too young to remember, but for me it was always Theme Park when it came to the battle of the funfair simulators as it was always more fun.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Open the Gates
This release is the deluxe edition of the Nintendo Switch version released a few years ago. Deluxe obviously means that it is the latest iteration of the game with loads of new rides and attractions added.
Anyone new to this type of game, it’s quite simple really. RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures gives you the freedom to build the Theme Park of your dreams with some stomach-churning coasters. Not only do the Coasters play a big part of the game, but you will have to build stalls selling food and drinks as well as merchandise to keep the money rolling in.
On top of that you will have to keep the customers happy through management of everything to meet a series of metrics and ensure success.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Which ride first?
Some of that may sound a little daunting but the edit tool is user friendly. Coasters are separated into different types and to build you need to lay the tracks in a very easy manner. You can unlock more rides and attractions through research and if you keep levelling up and gaining better ‘permits’ you will be able to expand the size of your park.
Watching the ‘peeps’ walking around your park will reveal their thoughts on what you are doing right, what needs improving etc above their heads in the form of thought bubbles.
The graphics to the game are very basic and does remind me of a slightly polished PS1 release. I guess that when you port from the Nintendo Switch, that’s what happens rather than the other way round. Speaking of which, I had some terrible issues with the performance as well. The bigger my park got, the more it started to freeze up and glitch. I would be trying to place decorations and have to wait in freeze for 30 seconds until the game caught up making it almost unplayable.
With every other Theme Park Sim I have ever played there has been a queuing system to rides, this is not the case here. You simply place a ride and peeps will walk up to it and disappear. The queues used to play quite a large part to the game.
Weirdly for a sim game, you won’t be managing staff either. Instead you’ll build a janitor’s building, for example, and then one will automatically spawn and get to work. You can’t manage them, but instead just build more structures as your park expands to meet demand. There is also no option to inspect each individual visitor either.
Terrain options are limited as well with lights automatically added to the side of any path you lay as well as benches for your peeps.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – It’s all about the money.
Well, saying that, it normally is about money and revenue but here in this game all there is is revenue. Usually, you have to make sure that your incomings more than cover you to make a profit over costs, However in RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe I couldn’t find any evidence of me having to pay costs anywhere. None deducted, no financial history, it was just all about the money I had generated and the value of my park. This almost strips out any risk or challenge in the game.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Childs ride pace
Annoyingly, the pace of the game is too slow. You can speed things up a little and if you want to take some time out, pause the game. Unfortunately, when paused, you can’t actually do anything to edit the park like you would be able to in any other game, so not entirely sure why this feature has been added.
The layout of the game does work pretty well. Menus are simple to navigate and clear. There are still things missing that really are needed here. It would be nice to be able to keep a check on how many rides you have in the park at any one time as there are quite a few to choose from when researching.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Game Modes
There are 3 main game modes here. Firstly, we start with Adventure mode where you will be challenged to several missions all loosely tied together with a paper-thin story. There is no real difference here between the missions except for the environment and soundtrack, they all play in exactly the same way.
Something else to mention here is that strangely you don’t unlock the next part of the adventure after completing, they are all available right from the start which seems a little pointless. There are no actual goals to achieve its just all about hitting certain criteria.
Sandbox mode is here with no constraints, you can just go mad with not having to worry about money. The thing is, it feels exactly the same as Adventure mode, so again, why was it needed?
Finally, the scenarios are missions set against more specific conditions that have the usual three-tiered goal system to hit (you know, bronze, silver and gold). Most of the time there are two objectives to hit, but they are very simple and repetitive. For example, you’ll need to build a certain number of rides in your park or keep visitor numbers above a certain level for a specific amount of time. However, to reach the higher accolades you simply need to push the original objectives a little further. These are all things you need to do anyway in order to run a successful operation.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe PS5 Review – Closing Time.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe is a fun little game for younger users, but there just isn’t enough here to keep me happy and I had got the Platinum trophy in about 9 hours. It’s a good introduction to the genre for some, but for those who have been used to Park Sims for a long time, this just doesn’t hit any of the right boxes.
Unfortunately, this game is a shadow of its former self. I think Atari need to go back to basics and build a new game from the ground up rather than port to consoles from the Switch.
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