izigame.me

EDIT 1: I'd like to add one negative I forgot to mention in my initial review! The pathfinding on the park guests is pretty awful. If you have scenery on your paths, chances are they won't make any attempt to avoid it. They also tend to crowd and walk in a straight line to whatever they're most interested in, rather than spreading out.
After watching nearly all of the official PC2 content ahead of release, it's safe to say I was extremely excited to try it out! Then, the game releases, and I see it has mixed reviews. Clunky UI, unreasonable guest cap, crashes, blurry visuals, etc. All of this had me extremely worried since PC1 is fantastic and this game adds everything I wanted from a sequel. However, I'm happy to say that while these critiques are valid and deserve to be discussed, my experience with the game so far has been amazing. I'll go over a few points and provide my pros, cons and wishes for each one!
Graphics:
PC2 looks fantastic. Vibrant colors, nice global illumination and reflections, fantastic animations and effects, it's definitely an improvement over PC1. And they finally made lighting work properly inside of buildings so that you can have REAL dark rides which is fantastic, I can't wait to mess with that. I always felt that PC1 looked a little "murky" if that makes sense, but I don't get that from this game. I don't really have any cons or wishes as of yet graphics-wise. There is the complaint that visuals are blurry, but you can fix that by turning off motion blur and depth of field (which was patched in the latest hotfix by making the game turn these settings off by default for new players).
UI:
This is the big one. I thought it was going to be genuinely awful based on how people were describing it, but I personally had no major issues? I could see why the coaster select screen would be a pain though as it is a lot of buttons, and I would like a way to duplicate colors from other objects without the use of hex codes (or even better, create custom pallets). Aside from this, the UI does lag when you're loading in new tabs. However, other than that, my experience with it has been mostly smooth. I'm completely against dumbing-down a PC release for the sake of console parity which is why the UI isn't as good as it could've been, but I don't think it ruins the gameplay at all.
Building:
Probably my favorite part of the sequel! I would always get OCD with PC1 when trying to perfectly center a gridless piece, but the new snap distance feature really helps remedy that. It's still not absolutely perfect, I did find myself having to use some weird techniques at some point like I would in PC1, but it's an extremely useful tool overall. And then you have the ability to attach scenery pieces to coasters and rides which is an absolute game changer. So many new creative possibilities when paired with the equally amazing scaling tool as well as improved color control and patterns. Another major complaint was the lack of the PC1 themes. I can see why people miss them but... isn't the point of a sequel to provide new stuff on top of the base mechanics of the original? All of the new themes are fantastic, and I wouldn't be surprised if they brought some of the old PC1 themes back in the future.
Pools/Flumes:
I'm so happy they brought these back from RCT3. When I first got PC1 I was actually extremely disappointed that it didn't have them (at the time I didn't read much into games before buying them so it was a surprise to me). I haven't gotten to mess with the flumes yet so I can't speak on the physics issues, it's nice to know that Frontier is working on fixing them though (not that it's an excuse for releasing them in a poor state in the first place, there's too much of that in the gaming industry already). The pools, however, are great. I love how the water looks, building them is really satisfying, and there are plenty of depth options for variation. I've been playing on sandbox so I won't be speaking on the management aspect of them. I also haven't gotten to use the wave machine or lazy river features yet which I'm very excited about. I do wish there were more pool extras though, hopefully we see a lot more in the future.
Rollercoasters/Rides:
The rollercoaster building system is fantastic as usual. Now, there are even more pieces to mess with such as drop and switch tracks. I don't have much to say about it, but I do love what's been added. Rides as well, customization is fantastic and there are plenty of great ones already in the game.
Management:
I mentioned previously that I've been playing in sandbox so I haven't really experienced the management. If I mess around with it at any point I might update my review!
Path System:
It's everything. Takes some learning, but once you know what you're doing with it, the possibilities are endless. I agree with the complaint that there needs to be stamps for queue paths, though. My plazas have never looked crispier than they have with these tools. Pools use the same system as well so there's a plethora of creative opportunities.
Extras:
Hate day one DLC. An extra $24.79 (CAD,) for 10 rides? Players who are unable to get the deluxe edition or upgrade to the DLC will feel left out even though it's not a massive amount of content. If they wanted extra money to (presumably,) support the promotional campaign ahead of the game's release, maybe they could've done a special physical edition, but locking 10 rides behind an overpriced DLC is disappointing to see from Frontier. The guest cap is definitely ridiculous, that literally could've just been made a setting, but it is going to be fixed soon which is nice. Hopefully this serves as a lesson to Frontier that PC and console should stay completely separate instead of being molten together to suit parity. The same goes for the Frontier workshop. I'm not too picky on the GB limit, but the Steam workshop should've at least been an option as well. People are used to it and like it. Aside from these bigger issues, I did have one crash randomly while building (I think I had been playing for about 14 hours at the time), but the autosave was automatically set to 3 minutes so I didn't lose much.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I'm absolutely loving Planet Coaster 2. I think it's a massive improvement over the first game in nearly every way. While the critiques are valid, I don't personally think that any of them ruin the gameplay and Frontier is already working on fixes for most of them. Do I think the game deserves a mixed rating? Kind of. I think it would've been better off with a mostly positive. On one hand, it sends a message to Frontier that these are issues which need to be fixed. On the other hand, it may turn off a lot of players who wouldn't otherwise be bothered by some of these issues. I hope that the reviews go up once the game is updated a bit more as I genuinely think it's worthy of the time of anyone who enjoyed the original. I'd give PC2 a 9/10, it has an incredibly strong base that could be close to perfection with a little polish! Give the game a go if you've been waiting for it, I'm having an amazing time.