Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition Review

Game: Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch ( also on Steam, PS4, Xbox One)
Developers | Publishers: Limbic Entertainment | Kalypso MediaGroup
Age Rating: EU 16+ | US Teen
Price: EU €49,99| US $49.99 | UK £44.99
Release Date: November 6th, 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Kalypso MediaGroup

Tropico 6 is the sixth game in the long-running Tropico series of simulation, strategy games. It is the first in the series to be released on the Nintendo Switch. Have you ever wanted to be president? Well, now is your chance to be El Presidente of a tropical island.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
El Presidente

Become El Presidente

As El Presidente, you are the all-knowing, all-powerful dictator of Tropico, a small island country somewhere in the Caribbean. You must build a prosperous city, whilst attending to the needs of your citizens and the multiple factions, as well as external superpowers. The ultimate goal of the game is to stay in power and keep your office. You can choose to be a kind dictator or rule with an iron fist. Either way, playing Tropico you’ll have your ever-faithful minion, Penultimo, to guide you through the basic mechanics and introduce you briefly to some of the larger concepts.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
My fancy big home!

More Layers than an Onion

Having never played Tropico before I have to say that this is a strategy game that has more layers to it than an onion. This isn’t just a straight city builder game. Economics, politics and presidential elections all come into it and at times it can be a lot to get your head around.

However, there is a Comprehensive Story Mode, of 5 chapters that take you through the basics and advanced gameplay. Peppered with humorous dialogue, it also establishes the ruler/slave relationship between you as El Presidente and the unassuming Penultimo. But other than that it’s more of an in-depth tutorial which shows you various features. Some of the tasks in it get repetitive, as you’ll often do the same thing over and over again.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition. LadiesGamers
The start of my kingdom

Different Modes of Play

Added to the Comprehensive Story Mode there is a Sandbox Mode with heaps of maps to play on and you can customise the settings just how you want them. And finally, a Mission Mode where you complete 15 specific missions such as smuggling, logistics and independence.  With 3 difficulty settings Easy, Normal and Hard to choose from. If you are new to the game I suggest starting on easy. As there is a lot of trial and error involved, and you can expect to start over several times, learning as you go.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
Island paradise

You’ll start your game in the early 1900s, and progress through four eras. There’s the Colonial Era, the World Wars Era, the Cold War Era and the Modern Era. Each one of those eras has relevant buildings and challenges, specifically from what the citizens may demand from you, but also which superpowers are interacting with you. It would also be fair to say that as you progress through each of the eras, so will the difficulty increase.

Objectives must be met, such as exporting gold or building a Tannery. Your primary objective in Tropico 6 is the creation and maintenance of an efficient city plan, where all aspects of your citizens’ daily lives are met. At first, the citizens won’t demand too much more than housing and prosperity, so you simply need to build mines, farms and export base products from them.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers

A prosperous economy needed

A properly functioning and prosperous economy is also needed to keep your citizens happy. This is accomplished by building up and expanding various businesses from agriculture to entertainment.

To do this right, you’ll need to organize, as where you place which business or building can have an impact on its success. You’ll need to connect businesses to roads, which connect to ports, allowing you to export your goods to other countries for profit.

As the game progresses it starts turning the tables by introducing the Votes, and the citizens demand an election, El Presidente! Elections and presidential speeches add another layer to Tropico 6. You’ll have to deal with different fractions such as environmentalists, communists and capitalists. They won’t always agree with your decisions, and if you exclude too many people, you’re likely to lose your next election, ending the game.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
Lots of info

Keep your Citizens happy

You’ll spend your time making sure your citizens have sufficient housing, entertainment, access to faith, healthcare and education if the job requires it. There are plenty of tools to help you keep track of this stuff though, with a heat map showing things like high crime areas or areas of low liberty.

You can pore over a range of trade routes that offer various returns on investment. Overall, these tools are handy when you want to maximize your economy and make a sustainable tropical empire with a happy population. After all happy workers will earn the country money and will vote for El Presidente!

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
Voting rights

World Wonders

In the Mission Mode, there are different island topography to play on as well as the different time periods they’re set in. Playing the missions rarely feels like you’re doing the same thing again and again during the campaign mode. Some missions see you start with a ready-made country and you’ll be charged with changing it dramatically either politically or infrastructurally. Others see you having to raise a certain amount of funds, or achieve a certain level of support from one of the factions, like the communists or the church.

As the decades pass you gain access to new buildings and technology. But my favourite feature by far is the ability to obtain World Wonders. Building a Pirate Cove allows you to send a crew of pirates, led by the ever-loyal Penultimo and steal a landmark from another nation. Aside from improving the scenery, landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty provide various boosts to your island. And nothing prevents you from collecting all of them and spreading them across the island.  It’s quite funny seeing the Statue of Liberty plonked next to a tropical communist island.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
Flying in the Statue of Liberty

Lots of Building Types

Construction in Tropico 6 is pretty easy to do. I do like the way the menus are implemented in the game. Holding the ZL button brings up a construction wheel, segmented into various building types/functions. You simply pick the building you want to construct, find a good place for it, and let your hard-working citizens take care of the rest. If you’re impatient, as I am, you can speed up time drastically and finish construction in a matter of seconds.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition LadiesGamers
Construction wheel

But it’s not all play sailing in Tropico 6. There were a few instances while I was playing the game an icon would pop-up above certain buildings, such as the mine. I’d no idea why the icon appeared above the building. And after looking in the almanac and at the building info screen, I did eventually find the answer. Some things are not obvious from the start and not explained in detail to the player. However, you can usually find an answer to your situation in the almanac, if you study it enough.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition. LadiesGamers
Mystery icons!?

Visuals and Controls

There are three islands under your command, all of them as beautiful as any other tropical paradise you’ve seen in games. There is also an incredible amount of detail injected into every part of your daily island life. You can zoom out and take in your nation all at once. You can also get up close and personal with every citizen walking a beat in their neighbourhood. Watch them frequent the bars they spend their money. It’s quite fun to watch your citizens go about their daily business.

Tropico 6 runs pretty well on the Nintendo Switch. However, it does have the odd frame-rate shudder if your island is built up a lot as you pan the camera around. But it’s not game breaking just distracting at times.

The game is controlled by the Joy-cons and the controls feel quite intuitive to me. There are certain aspects of the game that can be controlled with the touchscreen, it’s mainly menu closing and the like, as it’s not fully touchscreen controlled.

Tropico 6 Nintendo Switch Edition. LadiesGamers
My island paradise is growing well.

Conclusion

Tropico 6 is welcome edition to the strategy genre on the Nintendo Switch. It offers many hours of solid deep strategy and simulation. Being a huge fan of Civilization,  I for one am happy to see Tropico 6 being released on the Switch.

If you’re like me and appreciate a good strategy game, that you can get lost in for hours which offers a good challenge, this could be the game for you!

Final Verdict: I Like It A LotI like it a lot!

2 comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *