Review Etrail 4/5 · May 16, 2023
Despite some issues, a really addicting journey through Egyptian history
I get the feeling that this is a remake that, unlike most of the recent remakes, was made pretty much only to update the game for fans of the original and less so to introduce new players to an old game. I get this impression primarily from the fact that the gameplay feels very classic, rather than a reimagining of …
I get the feeling that this is a remake that, unlike most of the recent remakes, was made pretty much only to update the game for fans of the original and less so to introduce new players to an old game. I get this impression primarily from the fact that the gameplay feels very classic, rather than a reimagining of how the original could've been if it were made anew today. All that said, I somehow never heard of the original Pharaoh back in the day so I had what I expect is the rarer experience of playing this for the first time in its remake form only.
Overall, I think there's a lot about the game that's great. For one, it's super cool how the game maps real-world Egyptian history. Complete with an accessible in-game encyclopedia on Egypt, all of which is unnecessary for the gameplay, there's a real dedication to capturing actual history and even mapping some of the gameplay to exploiting real trade routes and leveraging the advantages of given settlements in ancient Egypt to trade for resources they were lacking and dealing with the numerous problems that plagued the Nile Kingdom. This was one of my favorite aspects of the game and I think even someone not very interested in city builders could really enjoy this for that if you have much interest in Egyptology (which I do casually).
The gameplay as well I found surprisingly addictive. The early missions of the game could take multiple hours each and yet I had a hard time stopping till I finished a given mission. And I say that as someone who didn't enjoy most city builders that much as a kid in the 90s. I read that this one is considered pretty challenging especially for people unfamiliar with the genre. I definitely found it quite difficult but the game does a good job of gradually introducing you to new resources and rating factors and the like so I was able to complete the campaign, with some caveats below, dealing with a significant, but generally fair challenge. I agree that it's pretty tough for someone like me mostly unfamiliar with the genre, but if you enjoy it as much as I did, you'll push through the difficulty curve.
My favorite aspect of the game was probably building monuments, which is fairly central to many map objectives. You often need to trade for key resources for the building materials or the tributes to be included in the tomb or landmark. This meant a fun puzzle to layer onto trying to run a thriving little society. And while the graphics the for the game, while decent for its style, are not that impressive, I always found it really satisfying to see my pyramids, obelisks, and tombs gradually taking shape as I devoted resources to their construction.
The pacing of the game was a bit odd, I think because it includes an expansion (maybe more than one?) so eventually the missions were the expansion/s and so the end of the initial Pharaoh missions were a lot harder than those following them. Some of this difference was very significant, such as the very last mission which had this intense description and sounded like it was going to be very complex...until I finished in about 3 minutes easily due to extremely low victory requirements. That said, I actually found the later easier missions more fun as those missions in the middle (I believe mainly around the New Kingdom) got to the point they were a little exhausting and the 3-hour missions were really draining me. This game definitely has a ton of content though and if you're the type who hates to buy anything with less than A LOT of hours of playtime, have no fears here. I spent 74 hours playing this and that is a fairly minimal playthrough. The campaign has several branches where you choose one of two missions to play. I never went back and played the alternative missions I skipped and there's a slew of custom maps as well I didn't touch in that tim. And beyond that, there are multiple difficulties (I just played on the standard Normal).
The main thing I didn't like was that some of the ratings just feel too nebulous and difficult to really understand what you need to do, primarily the Culture rating. Kingdom and Monument rating are pretty straightforward and I actually specifically enjoyed chasing those. Prosperity could be a bit swingy at times, but if you check your Prosperity rating, it often would give you a good clue of things to work on to improve and that wasn't too hard if you focused on those factors. Culture is supposed to work similarly, but in my experience, the tips under Culture were totally random and didn't reflect your actual circumstances at all, leading to very misleading guidance. When I got to some of the harder missions around the Middle Kingdom I just couldn't get my head around it: I'd need 55 Culture, I'd be at 40, then spam a ton of cultural structures and it would plummet to 20, then I'd focus on something else unrelated to Culture and it'd go back to 30 or 35 and eventually 40 again but never 55. It just felt very random and required some luck to hope I'd land on the right number while my other ratings were high enough to clear a mission. I started getting to the point I'd achieve everything in a mission but Culture, then I'd try to get it for a bit, but if it wasn't working, I'd just use the cheat code to clear the mission. I wasn't proud of it but after literal hours of just focusing on one rating and Googling solutions to no avail, I was too frustrated to continue to bang my head against it. And that's coming from someone who is extremely stubborn and generally refuses to ever use cheats. I really didn't like having to resort to cheats on those 3 or 4 missions but in retrospect, I had little real choice or I probably would've given up the campaign. I did eventually discover that creating an entertainment district with a fuckton of dancing and music stages and pavilions and juggling booths could get me there. I think the fluctuation in rating was partially due to the coverage of my walkers from religious buildings. Even still, my method wasn't perfect. All that said, I do want to note that they patched the game when I was about 75% through my campaign and increased the coverage for a lot of buildings and that seems to have made Culture a lot more reasonable, if still a little unruly. So thankfully, I was still able to complete almost all of the missions legitimately.
I don't want to go into all of them, but there were a number of glitches and/or systems that were so hard to follow how they were really working I wasn't sure if they were glitches. One issue was trading ships getting stuck and piling up at a dock, which at least in some cases I discovered was because my walkers were going to fetch something all the way on the other side of the map for the ship before letting it leave. Maybe that's intentional, but it probably could've used at the very least a little protip on a loading screen to give a heads up. There were several things like this that drove me a little crazy. Similar to the Culture rating, I'm not sure how many of them are things that are working as intended that you're just supposed to figure out on your own and build around, and how many could be considered glitches, but it was very annoying.
All in all, I'd recommend this game if you don't mind a challenge and have a passing interest in Ancient Egypt. Honestly I consider A LOT of the game to be really awesome and would like to give it 5 stars, but I feel the frustrations I felt in the game with Culture and the other glitches (or bad design, whatever you want to call it) are too hard to ignore. Ultimately, I was still really impressed with the title. If try it and run into the frustrations I did, I'd recommend not feeling as hesitant and guilty about using cheats if you get to points where you're just totally stuck. I like challenge and feeling I earned my victories but ultimately, I had a lot more fun getting to new missions than I likely would've sinking 3 more hours into those I couldn't get Culture to work on.
