At first glance, Tropico 5 seems dangerously similar to its still-recent predecessor, Tropico 4, and you can be forgiven for wondering whether developer Haemimont games didn't just tweak the graphics and slap it in a box. The music, the characters, most of the gags, and the art are almost indistinguishable. That feeling of deja vu is misleading, however, because Tropico 5 improves on Tropico 4 in one key way: it's a more challenging and engaging city-builder, one that does a better job of making me feel like the tin-pot dictator that I’m supposed to be.
As a city-building game, the Tropico series has historically emphasized fun and style over challenge. That's not necessarily a bad thing: it's generally let you get on with the fun of building without tearing your hair out over finicky optimization games like the (also excellent) Anno series. You slap down a few plantations, start exporting bananas and coffee to the rest of the world, and then get to work expanding your shantytown empire — all while taking in the lush sights and sound of a slightly debauched tropical paradise.
Tropico 5 largely sticks to that formula with a couple key changes. First, it now unfolds across a series of eras, each with their own associated buildings (unlocked via a simple and almost meaningless research tree) and world events. You start in the early 20th century and work your way up to the modern era, though the art doesn't convey the changing eras very well.
The march of time also escalates the challenges you face. The early Colonial Era gives way to the World Wars, where both Axis and Allies are furiously buying up supplies and vying for your affections. It creates some basic risk-reward decisions, as getting cozy with one gives you the most favorable trading offers… but could also get you swatted down by the other power.
That pattern continues through the Cold War era, at which point your problems are starting to become more economic and political. They also get more interesting. Each new era brings more factions to the forefront, while your own efforts steadily strip your island of its resources. From the Cold War into the modern era, you have to be thinking about making the switch into a more developed import/export economy, lest you risk stagnation.
It also creates tricky and demanding re-development challenges. The slapdash plantation town you built at the start of your game begins to get pretty creaky as residents demand better living conditions and utilities, but nobody likes having El Presidente just demolish his house to build a modern apartment complex. Suddenly my island was divided between gleaming apartment towers and shantytowns, and the desperate have-nots were starting to join the rebel movement.
I do wish Tropico 5 did a better job of showing you what's happening, and why. There's no clear display of what the coverage area of a police headquarters actually is, or why people in one block are happy with their local entertainment options, while the next block are seething with boredom and resentment. There are a few useful overlays in Tropico, but I was dying for SimCity's awesome arsenal of infographics.
Tropico is particularly abysmal at helping you map out your economy. In the late game, when your mines are depleted, your forests have all been clear-cut, and high-output farms have drained the soil, you need to start importing basic commodities and exporting intermediate and finished goods. But Tropico doesn't give you a clear sense of what's coming in and what's going out. That's a big problem since the late-game economy is entirely about managing that exchange of resources.
On the other hand, that might actually be why Tropico 5 stays interesting. Its economy is dead-simple. Commodities don't really change prices, so you don't need to worry about being plunged into poverty by a sudden collapse in the price of bauxite or tobacco. There really is always money in the banana stand, but that's not really how the world works. Tropico 5 could do with a more dynamic economy, one that throws more curveballs your way. Especially in the endgame, when you unlock buildings and technologies that basically make every problem disappear.
Nevertheless, I still had a tricky and rewarding time just trying to evolve my island without wrecking it or getting deposed. From time to time, people expect an election, even a rigged one, and most voters identify with a few opposing ideologies. Those ideologies change with the development of the island, however, so you always have to keep an eye on the balance of political power and know where to put your thumb.
Fortunately, even if the endgame starts to let you down, there's a pretty entertaining multiplayer game here. You and some friends start together on an island and immediately start trying to fulfill challenges for points, like see who can export the most cigars and who can be the first to build a drydock. Since you're all competing for land, eventually you start to run into each other, and you can even begin sending your armies out to fight and destroy each other's buildings. It's Tropico as an arcade game, and it's a nice addition, even if it doesn't totally address Tropico's issues as a city-builder.