Why is Anno 1800 a masterpiece? We have already dedicated a very long article to this answer, but this is it. revision of Year 1800 Console edition and a review is more than necessary. Ready? It is a masterpiece because it has spectacular graphics, an astonishing level of detail, an exceptional urban system and an economy that makes your head spin. It also hides a dizzying number of systems and subsystems, which multiply if we take into account the additional paid content where two new scenarios are also introduced, Africa and the Arctic, in addition to the two already present in the base game, Europe. and the Caribbean.
Porting a surprise
It's a shame, but don't worry, that this new version for next-generation consoles currently has to give up the numerous expansions released; however, some of the smaller cosmetic packages will provide little consolation. While it's a disappointment not to be able to aspire to the wonderful full package available on PC, even in its basic form Anno 1800 is a wonderful title packed with gameplay. We're talking hundreds of hours between a rare transportation campaign and a sandbox mode that you'll find potentially infinite. There's so much game that many users probably won't feel the need to want more; Those who always want more will have to wait for Blue Byte to bring all four season passes (each made up of three major expansions) to consoles as well. This, however, is not so obvious: Anno 1800 is a complex game, particularly hungry for RAM, and on PC to make the most of all its content it is recommended to have 32 GB available; while 16, that is, those of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, are more than enough for less extreme use. Maybe decisions have to be made, maybe not, in the meantime let's enjoy a game that we didn't even think would come to the console.
Anno 1800 is a product that could drive you crazy, especially if you miss nights with Caesar and Pharaoh and want something equally beautiful and catalyzing. In Anno 1800 the player's objective is build an increasingly prosperous city on an unspecified, but clearly non-existent, archipelago of Central European islands. You start with a pre-built port/warehouse and a ship; Therefore, we will have to take care of the roads, the market and the houses. The first to arrive will be the farmers, with their thatched houses and their simple primary needs: fish to put on the table, for which a fishing dock will be necessary, and decent clothing, for which a farm will be necessary. sheep and a weaver. The more people's requests are satisfied, the more the houses will be occupied up to their maximum ceiling, providing us with more workers for each square built.
Anno 1800 Console Edition is essential and superfluous
When a house is completely occupied, we can finally improve it by evolving it to a higher class: in this case from a hut we will move on to the first one- or two-story houses, mainly made of wood and stone. . This is how the workers will arrive, more learned than the first and naturally with more needs: a church, for example, meat and soap, which are two products that they will extract from a single resource represented by pigs, then a pub where they will finally be able to have fun and let themselves be carry. Beer flow in rivers. Speaking of beer: to produce it you will need grains, hops, a malthouse and finally a brewery; Naturally, each of these buildings will need a certain number of workers at different levels to operate, and they will all require maintenance costs that will be absorbed by taxes. After the workers will come the engineers, the theater, the museum, increasingly larger and more shiny houses, tracks and trains, even electric lights, illuminations and everything that has distinguished, for better or worse, the Industrial Revolution.
welcome to the caribbean
The rich, however, are not the type to be easily satisfied. Sooner or later you will discover that the island you call home will not be able to meet all the needs of the most specialized citizens, so you will have to rely on trade or go colonize new islands. Inevitably, the time will also come to organize the premiere. expedition to the new world, where in a totally different scenario you will have to create a new colony to grow and produce everything that cannot be found on the old continent: rubber, rum, bananas, coffee and much more. At this point you will have become familiar with the trade routes which, as you will discover, you will also have to defend from the more belligerent AI. Anno 1800's combat system is exclusively naval and in sandbox mode, like the diplomatic part, it can even be excluded completely to better concentrate on the true objective of the game.
Special shipments
We are talking about a game full of subsystems and there are many things to tell you. For example, naval expeditions are played as a kind of exciting book game, whose choices are conditioned by the special units that we can insert into the free spaces of the ships. An expert sailor or a reinforced hull can make the difference in saving the crew in the thorniest situations. Special units can also be used in some city buildings to take advantage of bonuses that allow, for example, increasing the harvest of specific resources or improving the health coverage of a hospital. The rest, hell, you'll have to discover for yourself by playing and enjoying Anno 1800's extremely high-quality graphics, so full of details that we're sure some of you will spend hours simply admiring its creations, from every angle, during the day and at night, in the rain and on the sunniest days.
console edition
Technically, the console version works very well: the beauty of Anno 1800 remains intact, although there is a certain parsimony in the definition of the textures, which very often scale in quality precisely to keep the application light. Tricks that will be essential for Anno 1800 to remain playable even when our empires extend across several islands on two different continents. In this version, the game interface has been completely redesigned and relies heavily on various radial menus which can be recalled instantly, at any time, completely replacing the menu at the bottom of the screen that distinguishes the PC version. Although the comparison with the comfort, precision and speed of a mouse remains uneven, the solution found is decidedly functional. If you are used to holding a pad, especially accepting it, these are problems that practically do not exist. However, we still do not understand why all these adaptations in strategic and management consoles do not include a version compatible with mice and keyboards...
Conclusions
Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery PlayStation Store Price 39,99 € Holygamerz.com 9.0 Readers (11) 8.0 your voteAnno 1800 Console Edition is a quality conversion of a game that we no longer expected to see in the original Xbox Series precision. The only real flaw, which is not a limit given by the controller, is the lack of official plans regarding the arrival of the numerous additional content present on PC. But how important is the lack of DLC when this Anno 5 remains, without a doubt, the best exponent of the genre on consoles?
PRO
- Excellent gameplay
- A really well done campaign and then there's the sandbox mode!
- The new console interface is good.
AGAINST
- Will the DLC arrive or not?
- Radial Menus Are Convenient, But Not That Convenient
- Fluctuating performances in later stages and textures updated too frequently.
