RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition

Genre: Management Sim

Players: 1

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Review:

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a Management Sim originally released on the PC in 2004, subsequently getting a port to iOS in 2015 as well as multiple expansions, with all of this content collected into this Complete Edition released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2020. For those unaware, this game has players designing and managing their own theme park, down to the slightest detail including the price of concessions or even the path its roller coasters will take.

In terms of presentation, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 starts by showing its age, and it only gets worse from there. This game uses ugly, simplistic 3D polygonal graphics to depict its attractions, buildings, and people. This is paired with some pretty generic-sounding music fitting the themes of the various attractions available – Western-themed music for Western-themed attractions, adventure-themed music for adventure-themed attractions, and so on. However, there doesn’t really feel like a cohesive overarching theme tying everything together. What’s more problematic is that the game’s music is only audible when viewing the park from the farthest distance, or diegetic music when zoomed-in close. This means that if you’re viewing a park at a medium distance (the most practical view for actual gameplay), the game is eerily silent.

While the visuals and sound could have used an overhaul, what this game really needed even more than that was an overhaul of its tutorial, which is atrocious. Players are given text box after text box explaining how things work without giving them a chance to test it out or testing to ensure the player understands what they’re told. And rather than teaching players how these systems work and gradually building up their skills, players are given only the most directly applicable info to any menu or selection they’re looking at, and abandoned to figure it out on their own.

Park is losing money and you’re not sure why? Maybe there’s a menu explaining the dilemma, but good luck finding it. Forgot how to get to a certain menu? There’s no convenient reminder how to do so. I’ve played plenty of games in this genre, and I found myself flailing around to try to find out how to create simple paths. My problem? I needed to switch over to the creation menu using the L button and then hold down L and press B to back out to earlier creation menus. If the game explained this button combination, I must have missed it.

Of course, that goes into another issue this game has – the interface. Firstly, I’ll just say right now that players hoping this game makes use of the touchscreen will find themselves sorely disappointed. However, a gamepad can still make for a perfectly usable interface… just not in this game. Here, the game seems to do everything it can to make this an uncomfortable experience – players are expected to use combinations of buttons to navigate through its radial menu system. What’s more, the game can’t seem to decide what individual buttons do – A selects menu options except when X does while Y places objects but you can also hold it down to rotate, life, or lower the object without placing it. Sometimes players are expected to use the analog sticks to select things in menus, and sometimes they’re required to use the D-Pad. There’s just no consistency here, and it makes an already-complex game even harder to play.

Then there’s the other issue – the price. $30 seems absolutely absurd for a 16 year-old game that has not in any way been updated or optimized for the Nintendo Switch or even for play on a console.

Before concluding this review, let me just say that I can see why so many players fell in love with this game when it was first released on PC all those years ago. There is a huge wealth of options here, the ability to design your own roller-coasters and manage the minutiae of the park is enticing, and the ability to select any ride to hop into in first-person is a fantastic feature. However, in the decades since this game first came out, the genre has moved on and built on what this game had to offer, and what’s more age has been extremely unkind to this game.

I won’t lie, the promise of getting one of the Management Sim genre’s greats on the Nintendo Switch was extremely enticing to me, and I salivated at the opportunity to get RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 on the console. Unfortunately, this game has aged so horrendously poorly, and the port is so terribly lacking, that I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone but fans of the original who absolutely need to play the game on the Nintendo Switch. Unless you’re one of those fans who already loves this game, stay away.

tl;dr – RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a Management Sim that has you creating and managing your own theme park. Unfortunately, the game has aged extremely poorly, and the port is poorly-optimized for play on a console. Ugly graphics, poor use of sound, unhelpful tutorials, confusing controls, and a steep $30 price tag are just a few of the problems this game has. While it still has a wealth of variety and the charm of the original, only those fans who fell in love with the game when it first released should even consider buying it on the Nintendo Switch.

Grade: D+

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