Something went wrong. Try again later
    Follow

    RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D

    Game » consists of 1 releases. Released Oct 16, 2012

    The fourth instalment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise and the first to be available on a handheld.

    deactivated-5b2a0c87cb5fc's RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D (Nintendo 3DS) review

    Avatar image for deactivated-5b2a0c87cb5fc

    If a 3DS can handle Sims 3, it should excel at a Roller Coaster Tycoon title. A direct port would have been better...

    It's downright heart-wrenching how n-Space treated the RCT franchise. Thank to this game, Atari may never be interested in publishing another Roller Coaster Tycoon game ever, and that's even more upsetting for an RCT classic fan.

    If you ever played the original, you remember the endless hours spent tweaking that one coaster you tried to build in that back corner. Or being able to adjust the price of fries in the Old West town you just built. Or, heck, making use of the terrain to make cool tunnels and such. Or, you know, "building a boat hire, because you're, like, on a lake."

    When I first bought Roller Coaster Tycoon 3D, I was ecstatic. It was a dream come true! Finally, an RCT I can take on the road! Then I started playing it, and noticed several shortcomings. I immediately took to calling it RCT Junior just to try and comfort myself about the quality of the purchase I had made. Now that I'm expecting the reduced functionality, I can go on to enjoy the game. Oh wait. No I can't, I hit the park object limit halfway through a coaster. But more on that later.

    First off, once you start a challenge park from story mode; there is no saving your progress and coming back to it later. You have to beat it all in one sitting. You should at least be able to keep a saved version of the park in memory while you turn off the system. Rogue-likes do it all the time, all the way back to the Apple II-g systems and DOS (I think).

    The only time you can save any game at all, is when you're playing in Sandbox mode. And even then, you only get one save slot. If you want to work on a new park, you have to completely delete your old file. This would be tolerable enough, if it were an old RPG game... Oh wait, you got THREE saves in Final Fantasy I.

    Not to mention, all the customization you have come to expect from the series is practically gone. You can't change the colors of any of the rides you might build. You can't change the terrain in any way. You can't change the music of various rides, as there's only one song that plays while you zoom out. There's no way to name your rides, or your janitors, or even your dang park (whether in Sandbox mode or not).

    There are NO pricing options. If you build a roller coaster, it's a high income; a shop, a low income; a mechanic, an expense; etc. You can't even click on the peeps to see how much money they have so you can guess the length of their stay in your park. You can't raise the prices of umbrellas because it just started raining (never mind that weather is non-existent in the first place).

    Of course, you can still build a roller coaster any way you like, and add scenery, and such, but BEWARE! Each park has an object cap to it. And more often than not, you'll find yourself "violating building permits" right in the middle of (or worse, a few pieces from the end of) a coaster you were working on. That happened to me in nearly every challenge park I did with a coaster.

    There is a scenery cap as well. Now, this wouldn't be so bad for a portable game, except that it's often very low AND each bench and trash can counts towards the cap as well. So you get to decide whether to build a garbage can to prevent trash build-up on your paths, or to put a bush in that corner to give it that extra pizzazz. Oh, and that's if it's a scenario that allows you to build scenery in the first place.

    There are also no water rides, period. There aren't any height marks to help with building. You have no direct influence on the peeps. You can't even place the workers where you want them. They all come in the front gate, lazily follow the paths you designate, and that's it.

    There are TWO saving graces. It does make rather clever use of the gyro controls on the 3DS. You could already ride Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 rides in first person and look around. But with the 3DS, you actually feel like you're looking around an amusement park. And two, I think it's kind of fun to see avatars straight out of Minecraft walking around your park.

    All in all. This title was so disappointing I just had to write a review letting folks know what they're in for, if they were considering this game. I personally returned it after 6 days of trying to work with it. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3D would have been better off left on the drawing floor. At least there, it wouldn't have stomped all over my fondness for the series.

    NOTE: This is practically a copy/paste of my review on that other game review site (http://www.gamespot.com/rollercoaster-tycoon-3d/user-reviews/803106/). With some very minor changes allowing for the different rating systems.

    Other reviews for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3D (Nintendo 3DS)

    This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

    Comment and Save

    Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.