Pharaoh: A New Era is not doing badly on Steam so far, but a clear downward trend can be seen in player reviews.
It seemed like Pharaoh’s return in the form of a remake titled Pharaoh: The New Era proved to be quite successful. Critics seemed pleased with the game, although it was far from groundbreaking. Apparently players have a different opinion, because Currently Pharaoh: The New Age has mixed marks on Steam.
For the moment, the situation is not serious: 65% of more than 1.3 thousand users gave the game a positive rating. However, it remains a significant contrast to the widespread praise from critics. Especially since, as is often the case on Steam, some reviews are only positive in name. Let’s add that at launch, rave reviews made up about 75% of all ratings on Valve’s platform.
This begs the question: are these negative reviews the result of the title’s actual ills, or did nostalgia play its part? Unfortunately for Triskell Interactive, the reviews on Steam mostly seem to point to the first option.
Yes, the image claims (referred to as “too cartoony” or “like a mobile game”) can be considered subjective. The same goes for the look of the interface, but that’s not the only thing players complain about the new Pharaoh.
The charges against the interface and the game as a whole can be divided into two categories. The first is elements modified from the original or even deleted. The lack of a minimap and the ability to rotate the camera hurt even satisfied fans, as did the lack of support for certain resolutions (including widescreens).
The combat system, on the other hand, was not changed until it was de facto removed (i.e. the command typical of RTS games was removed). Players admit that the battles in the original left a lot to be desired, but, in their opinion, the developers should either try to improve this system or develop a completely new one.
Some Pharaoh veterans didn’t like the new design and interface. Source: Triskell Interactive / Dotemu.
We thus arrive at the second category of relatively objective objections: “new era” Pharaoh it’s too faithful to the original in some places. The developer made the interface “less Egyptian”, without improving some elements that could have already annoyed in the original, let alone after 23 years of progress in game design (eg the need to click on buttons) . the gods).
On top of that, there are issues that bear little relation to the original. Not everyone is complaining about bugs in the game (other than visual issues), but a good number of players are reporting numerous bugs related to building and trading, among other things. The issue of completing mission objectives after the initial notification has closed has also caused difficulty for players.
So far, Pharaoh: The New Era has not received a major update that could fix these issues. The developers just released a fix and a reminder that Work on the map editor has been put on hold to focus on improving the game. Apparently another set of fixes is on the way.
However, one wonders if the developers will be willing and able to respond to complaints about lack of features, interface, etc. However, many players do not complain too much about the presence or absence of some of them. Especially the RTS-like combat system.
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