Pharaoh returns to take his rightful place on the throne of the city builders. The game has a few shortcomings, but it’s still a great remake. A New Era treats source material with respect, while making it more accessible.
The exam is based on the PC version.
I regularly come back to most of the city builders created by Impression Games, including of course Pharaoh and Cleopatra. Each time, I wonder if there is a possibility of remastering all the productions of the series. They are still very playable and visually appealing. (at least for me), but upgrading the resolution was mandatory to say the least, and the mods offered only a rudimentary solution.
Fortunately, some fans had the right skills. to realize the dream of remaking these classics. The experience gained while creating Lethis – Path of Progress has now sprouted. Pharaoh: A New Era That’s what I personally expect from a good remake: polished visuals, more resolutions, and lots of gameplay improvements., which we will discuss in a moment. Of course, it’s not perfect and some aspects could be improved. However, it was a great opportunity to rediscover this timeless classic.
BENEFITS:
- The graphics perfectly imitate the original.
- Music gives good mood.
- Ability to disable recruiters
- good old pharaoh
AGAINST :
- There is no list of names when creating a profile
- slow camera movement
- Interface needs minor improvements
- The mission objective bar could be moved to the scenario description.
New Pharaoh stays true to its pedigree
When I hear “remake”, I always approach the subject with caution. You never know if the creators will decide to add too many new ideas, as if they were trying to show that they know better than the original creators how the game should be. Fortunately, in the case of Pharaoh, the developers at Triskell Interactive approached the issue with respect and care. They didn’t try to add anything particularly weird that was originally supposed to “diversify” the game. The production heads are fans of the original who wanted to give the game a real facelift .
Farewell recruiters. I won’t miss you.
Pharaoh: A New Era is the same classic game from 1999, but in a new package. The graphics faithfully reproduce the models of the original production. Admittedly, it’s more “caricatural”, which will probably not suit everyone. It didn’t bother me and I was immediately sucked into the game. This was helped by an extremely important option which, in my opinion, eliminated the biggest drawback of the original. Pharaoh – the ability to disable recruiters. This resulted in a game model closer to Zeus: Master of Olympus oh Emperador: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom.
The important thing is that if someone wants to, they can continue to play the old way. It’s entirely up to player choice, so we’re just winning, not losing.. These elements can certainly be considered positive. Additionally, the game explains its own rules to newcomers in a more visual way. The original already benefited from clear descriptions of goals and subsequent tasks. For example, we receive a proposal for a solution to build roads and the first houses right after entering the map, directly on the town board.
VERDICT:
Pharaoh A New Era is the same classic game from 1999, but in a new package. If anyone wants, they can still play the old fashioned way. It’s entirely up to player choice, so we’re just winning, not losing. The new era of historic city builders sounds really exciting. If only it brought more remakes like this.
This is a very good decision, because not everyone may know that Pharaoh’s houses can be built in two rows, and those in the back do not require direct access to the road. I personally learned this through trial and error. In terms of play, A new era does a fantastic job of restoring a twenty-plus year old game to its former glory. We also had a complete overhaul of the UIbut here, unfortunately, not everything works as well as you would like.
On the right side of the screen we have the construction menu. Depending on what we need, we can immediately get a list of buildings to build by clicking on the icon on the right. However, once we have to deal with the subcategories, we first see another icon of said subcategory, and only then can we access the buildings. I often found myself clicking on the subcategory icon, thinking it was actually a building. The solution was similar in the original Pharaoh, just using text instead of icons, which made it less confusing.
I don’t need constant reminders to expand my city.
Also, the notification bars on the top half of the screen are annoying because they are too big and end up obscuring the screen. If that was the intention, it turned out to be a bit pointless. Another problem is the inability to rotate the map, which prevents you from looking at the city from different angles.. This makes it harder to place buildings and remove them. Because of this, I always felt that I might accidentally destroy a larger structure that was behind the object I wanted to remove. Map navigation also becomes less convenient as the city expands. Screen scrolling around the edges is very slow and cannot be adjusted in any way. There’s also no minimap, which means you can’t instantly jump between different pieces of the map.
I should also mention the scenario description card. There are defeat conditions, but for some reason there are no… victory conditions. These are displayed before entering the mission, and during actual gameplay they are only displayed on the bar, which cannot be disabled. I found it quite boring; I don’t need to be constantly reminded that I have to develop houses to a certain level, for example.
Pharaoh looks and sounds great!
Ok, now let’s focus on the audiovisual layer. So far I have only mentioned the graphics, but the sound design deserves attention as well. What we see and hear in Pharaoh: A New Era shows it’s a proper remake. I’ve said before that the new version of the classic city builder is a bit cartoonish, but that’s all about the people of our city who roam its streets and go to work in different parts of it.. As for the buildings, they would best be described as “hand painted”..” You can see that this is not a mod, but a game created from scratch.
Pharaoh is stunning up close.
Thanks to the graphics, Pharaoh: A New Era has its own identity. The ability to zoom in and out lets you enjoy both the view of individual buildings and the view of the city from a bird’s eye view. I was impressed by the care taken to reproduce the original buildings of the ancient Egyptian metropolis. The picture itself, however, wouldn’t be complete if it weren’t complemented by a soundtrack.
And on the music side, we are also dealing with a new version. If anyone liked the tunes from the original production, they should be thrilled this time around. From the start, familiar sounds stung my ears in its renewed version.. The sound is definitely cleaner, which shouldn’t be so surprising considering the age of the original Pharaoh. Sometimes certain sounds seemed too loud, but maybe that was just me. The soundtrack, on the other hand, definitely makes the game more enjoyable.
Whoever is responsible for giving voice to the inhabitants of the city also deserves a firm handshake. Each of them can tell you more about the city. The only thing that bothered me was that every little human in the game seems to use a single line of dialogue that they repeat every time, but maybe that was a problem? If not, hopefully a future update will fix this issue. I always enjoy listening to the people I lead in a game like this, and I always have witty dialogue. Unfortunately, this wish remains unfulfilled for the moment.
I want more
After spending hours with Pharaoh: A New Era, I can’t wait to find out more. I hope this remake is not an isolated case. I also want Zeus: Master of Olympus complete with Poseidon: Master of Atlantis, Emperador: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, and particularly, Caesar III undergo a similar procedure, especially the last one!
Studio Triskell Interactive has a chance to breathe new life into a venerable series that would otherwise scare gamers with its age.. After all, hardly any young gamer likes games that offer archaic quirks and gameplay. Pharaoh: A New Era is a chance for a whole new opening here, and there’s no denying that old Impression Games productions deserve a second life.
Of course, the game has some bugs, as you may have read above, but they could easily be fixed with a minor update.. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get a community workshop and a bunch of new missions and campaigns in the future! The possibilities are limitless. The new era of historic city builders sounds really exciting. If only it brought more remakes like this.
Zbigniew Woźnicki | juegopresion.com