Pharaoh: A New Era – the era of decline. review

The publisher positions Pharaoh: A New Era as a remake with many revised elements, improved graphics and even a slightly updated soundtrack. All this was designed to turn a classic strategy into a project that will attract the attention of both long-time connoisseurs and new players. Some noticeable changes have obviously been made for the latter – for example, the hostilities now go behind the scenes and the aesthetic classic UI has become modern minimalist. Otherwise, Pharaoh is still an upbeat strategy, if not without nuances…

The hand-drawn intro was pretty soulful

Return to the banks of the Nile

In the first few hours of the game, the many possibilities and subtleties of the original pharaoh will open your eyes wide. Here and rich management, which requires close control of the financial and industrial spheres and interaction with capricious and jealous deities, whose dissatisfaction may well bring trouble to our state. And of course, how can one forget about various social aspects such as health care (even a dentist is included in an ancient Egyptian’s compulsory medical insurance!), entertainment for citizens and law enforcement. All these nuances can still captivate.

In order to show the talent of the ruler, the historical story campaign will first deal with solving many state dilemmas. Definitely worth paying attention to if this is your first time trying king millet. The global plot goes through four thousand years of ancient Egyptian history while smoothly devoting itself to the administrative and other nuances of the project.

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But for players with experience, it makes sense to immediately switch to mission mode, where you already have knowledge of the matter to lead people to prosperity. Somewhere it is necessary to increase the population level to some impressive number; in another task – to provide several indicators at once, showing the undoubted prosperity of the nation; Another mission requires building the legendary pyramids! The main thing is that local bugs don’t spoil all the fun…

Rough restoration

The question of the usefulness of a remake should always be approached with caution, not forgetting the true fans of the series who will be happy to return to their favorite game after so many years. And Pharaoh: A New Era does this quite well – the remake is able to evoke nostalgia for strategic exploits of the past, and the overall formula of the game definitely stands the test of time.

The number of pop-up notifications is sometimes excessive and eventually becomes very annoying

But alas, warm memories quickly fade into the background, giving way to confusion. First of all, due to a fairly wide range of bugs: from small ones that block the ability to select objects on the map (the problem is solved by exiting the general map and returning to the game) to very, very unpleasant bugs can “break” the passage.

Another source of frustration is the updated user interface. Although his changes seem dictated by the modern standards of the genre, they look extremely iffy. At first, navigating here is simply inconvenient – even a few hours after meeting with you, you can spend quite a bit of time looking for the necessary building. The icons convey little basic information about the areas in the menu, and they just look nondescript and rather small. As well as insanely small font that cannot be resized.

Buildings look nice but not as authentic as the real thing

There are also questions about the updated visual incarnation. At first glance, the picture in Pharaoh: A New Era is bright and pleasant. But it’s worth referencing the screenshots from the original game, or even them Fan, scheduled with the release of the remake, how the impression changes dramatically – everything looked much more aesthetic in the classic project. Let’s say this is the notorious taste, but that’s why the developers didn’t add to the project the usual feature for remakes – switching between the classic and modernized visual modes – the secret is smarter than the mysteries of the Sphinx. As another burning question, is a remake a project that frankly falls short in quality from the original?

Advantages:

• A strong strategic base and curious nuances can still be seriously intriguing.

Defects:

• somewhat “sterile” transformation of graphics and the inability to switch to the classic look;
• inconvenient and unintuitive interface;
• a plethora of mistakes.

Score: 6.0/10

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