Overall – 65%
65%
Planet Coaster 2 harbors a level of creativity unmatched in this space. Its attention to detail is so intense, that its biggest challenge is forming a straight path without destroying half the planet. A wonderfully creative playground is available for those with the patience to work through it, but it proves to be a frustratingly cumbersome journey for the rest of us.
I continue to long for the Theme Park of yesteryear.
On the surface, Planet Coaster 2 looks to be the perfect combination of simulation and creation. A robust suite of tools and social connectivity provide a backbone for a charming and colorful world, in which players can let their imaginations run wild. Wild is the word.
Let’s start with the campaign
Planet Coaster 2’s campaign is as frustrating as it is exhausting. Spending several minutes listening to floating heads discuss the historic nature of the parks, only to load in and be met with near identical mission objectives to the last, it starts every new adventure on poor footing.
Build a few flat rides. Build a coaster. Carefully curated steps that always lead to the same destination, breaking absolutely everything in the pursuit of constructing a pathway.
There are parts of Planet Coaster 2 that are incredible and unrivaled, serving as the very peak of creative construction in the video-game space. However, in delivering such, it completely fails to capture the very heart of what managing a successful theme park should feel like.
Planet Coaster 2 Review – Derailed
Those with an artistic eye and an interest in architecture will be able to create some truly jaw-dropping rides, attractions, and natural wonders of beauty. Having the option to download and share these is one of the franchise’s most impressive aspects, but none of it is any use if the park doesn’t actually function.
Whatever you do though, don’t you dare try to edit a path, or so help me god.
That’s exactly what happened here. I attempted to attach a single shop to a pathway and well, I can’t even begin to explain this monstrosity of Penrose stairs.
Unfortunately, this happened in nearly every single mission. A tiny adjustment, one that would take seconds in any other game in this genre, often derailed the entire campaign mission to the point of giving up. I’d just jump straight to the next career location.
That may sound hyperbolic, but that single pathway above was the backbone of my entire park. The solution? A Frankenstein’s Monster of a staircase.
In a game that looks so beautiful, where you can create truly inspiring attractions, it can be an arduous task to create something with a semblance of normalcy.
In addition, Planet Coaster 2’s impressive creation suite regularly feels completely detached from the world it populates. While players can create anything they can imagine, they can also throw it in the middle of a roller coaster. When this happens, it quickly puts the brakes on the entire park without consequence – so to speak.
The picture above shows a Tea Cup ride constructed within a swimming pool, completely engulfed by a roller coaster. It all functions perfectly well, as if a product of architectural genius.
The guests herd along, ignoring clipping through entire structures and deadly objects. They’ll be the first to complain if a neat and lovely path doesn’t reach the entrance of a ride, but they have no issues literally walking through a moving roller coaster cart.
Planet Coaster 2 tows a very thin line. It offers players the creative freedom to customize rides unlike any other game ever made, but in doing so sacrifices a level of authenticity and realism to just completely detach the player from the simulation elements of the game.
Much like Jurassic World Evolution 2, the simulation elements of the game feel fabricated, simulated to feel like a simulation.
Despite spending several hours attempting to fix a singular staircase in a later mission, my park flourished. Guests were pouring in, screams of joy and laughter from the one ride I had placed, the queues for sustenance fast-moving and profitable.
It didn’t matter what level I was on, or what my objectives were, a couple of rides and some shops were often all I needed to rake in profits.
In one park, I carefully crafted Staff Zones, a feature that lets you paint areas for specific members of staff to patrol, in another, I left them to roam. I didn’t notice any differences. Both parks had a constant spree of negative messages regarding ride health, generator power, and disgruntled employees.
That last part was on me, I lowered the wages to see how long it would take them to complain. Turns out, not long.
Nothing within the simulation aspects of the game ever felt challenging.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Navigating through much of this process was challenging and complicated, but those aren’t typically the goals of a menu system.
Even now, this still confuses me. The controls of Planet Coaster 2 are very well done; after just a few brief tutorials, everything felt intuitive – no easy feat on a controller.
However, the layout of Planet Coaster 2’s menus is a Rubik’s Cube of puzzling.
I spent ages trying to locate benches and bins, tucked away behind custom construction options in the Scenery tab. I constructed a huge pool, complete with epic flumes and wave machines, but the filter and cleaning machines were not in the Pools menu, or the Pool Extra’s menu, or the Create Custom Pools menu. I had to find those in the Facilities menu.
Developing these kinds of games for consoles is a monumental undertaking. Planet Coaster 2 nails much of the controls, although tweaking rides and coasters is tedious at best, but really struggles with a streamlined UI that consistently fails to make sense.
This is the total opposite of the simulation elements, which has a streamlined UI that puts every stat and tidbit of information imaginable in an easy-to-follow and structured layout. It’s just a shame I was able to get by without really needing any of it.
Every park was going to be THE park. This was the one I was going to stick to, to beautify, to accrue so much money I’d never need work again. That mentality lasted all of 20 minutes, before trying to make yet another tiny change completely butchered things beyond all recognition.
I’m not sure if there is an undo button. I couldn’t find it, but it would make a world of difference.
It was at this point, I left the campaign behind.
I decided to jump into Franchise mode, which has an online component to it, but one I’ve not had much luck trying to explore. Initially, this felt infinitely better than the campaign experience.
A huge, open, and most importantly flat location, meant I was able to create without fear of constructing a staircase that led to the 9th circle of hell.
I built my trademark square design from the early Theme Park days, ensuring to funnel my guests through carefully crafted avenues of pure capitalistic opportunity. All I could see was a shade of greedy green.
I’m not completely heartless, so I wanted to create an epic attraction to send the gate tickets soaring. I mean, provide a unique experience for guests.
What better way to do so than to utilize Planet Coaster 2’s big appeal: Water.
On that note, I went to create a pool. I had grand designs of a lazy river, filled from shore to shore with beautiful scenery and captivating creations.
That went out the window fast.
I tried to make a big square pool, but that didn’t work. So I tried to create a pool, line by line, but that didn’t work. For some reason, I could impale a roller coaster with a giant swinging ship, but connecting two lines of water was beyond my creative talents.
I had to turn a Merge setting on and off, I had to mess around with enabling and disabling a Stamp grid. Even after all that, I managed to make an ugly pool.
That’s an issue that is very much going to vary from person to person. If you want to dedicate huge amounts of time, you will not find another game offers this level of creativity, but for more basic players, it needs work.
I wanted to test just how important and impactful the game’s management aspects are. I built a very basic part, a few rides, a line of shops, and just dropped staff into random location.
I left it overnight. When I returned, I had millions in the bank, I had enough Research Points to unlock everything in the catalog, and besides a few power issues, my park was much how I left it.
In its admirable attempt to offer a truly innovative and rewarding theme park construction experience, Planet Coaster 2 overwhelms even the most basic of levels. From creating paths to tweaking simple designs, it all required too many menus and too many buttons.
If you want to create epic-themed custom rides, Planet Coaster 2 is the perfect game. If you want to create a custom suite of shops and guest services in a huge and entertaining space, Planet Coaster 2 is the perfect game. If you want to create nearly anything to make a park look incredible, Planet Coaster 2 is the perfect game.
If you want to manage and run a theme park? Planet Coaster 2 is not the game.
There are moments of Planet Coaster 2 that are nothing short of astounding, completely engrossing the player with every slab and brick of construction, but it all too often takes a backseat to frustrating UI and design elements.
Planet Coaster 2 harbors a level of creativity unmatched in this space. Its attention to detail is so intense, that its biggest challenge is forming a straight path without destroying half the planet. A wonderfully creative playground is available for those with the patience to work through it, but it proves to be a frustratingly cumbersome journey for the rest of us.
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