Tropico 3

why bother when you could play Tropico 4, which is this game but better?

Not a bad game just really bland. The core gameplay loop lacks player agency and does not feel very engaging. The game is also not very forthcoming with information. All the infos you need to actually make decisions are hidden in various submenus and are hard to access. Clicking through them everytime you want to see how your tropical paradise is doing gets tedious quickly. Supposedly, the DLC [i]Absolute Power[/i] makes the game more interesting and varied. I wouldn't know though because it is unplayable and keeps crashing on start with none of the recommended fixes working at all.

TL;DR - Tropico 3 is a good game, but you should just buy Tropico 4. Ok, so my thumbs up here might be a bit misleading. This is a very fun game, and as such giving it a thumbs down feels a bit dishonest. But I don't think most people should actually buy this one for the sole reason that Tropico 4 makes it almost completely obsolete. Tropico 4's gameplay is practically Identical, and it uses 90% of the same assets. But it has significantly more content (more buildings, more islands, more edicts, more customization, especially with DLC), it runs better (getting this set up was a slight headache and it pretty much just doesn't work with Absolute Power), has better UI, more personality, and a better soundtrack. There are some differences with 3, the islands are different, the campaign and scenarios are different, some buildings and edicts have different costs, there aren't blueprints, there's no ministry. But those don't make up for all the things that 4 does better in my opinion.

Challenging.

El Presidente approves

The citizens will love El Presidente, or else.