➤ Park Beyond, the review of a fun, but impossible management game 🕹

We analyze Park Beyond, a game that takes up the great tradition of Theme Park and RollerCoaster Tycoon, trying to modernize it and make it impossible to operate.

The construction of theme parks has always aroused great fascination in video game developers who, as soon as they had the technical means and exhausted the most obvious sources of inspiration such as cities or railways, they immediately wanted to create experiences that would allow them to build rolling mountains. roller coasters and the most complex amusement parks of all time. RollerCoaster Tycoon and Theme Park are among the progenitors of a genre that over the years, thanks mainly to technological advances, has become increasingly crazy and colorful.

In the Beyond Park ReviewIn fact, you will discover that in the last effort of Limbic entertainment, the studio behind Might & Magic VI and Tropico 6, the tools made available to players are increasingly refined and, thanks to them, it will be possible to create the craziest and most complex roller coasters ever seen. What the game is missing is, surprisingly, a little more craziness. In other words, it's missing a bit of the secret ingredient you'll use in the game to make the various attractions special: impossibilities.

very classic

Park Beyond, the review of a fun, but impossible management game — Behind its crazy appearance, Park Beyond is a pretty classic experience.

In many ways, Park Beyond is very similar to Two Point Hospital: the developers took a classic formula, they covered it with a cutting-edge technical sector, introduced all those quality of life improvements necessary in a modern product, sprinkled in a pinch of humor, and packaged it all for PC and console.

The end result can only be pleasing: these are games where you have to build and perfect some very particular places, and the balance of the various systems is designed to ensure that there is always something to do and improve. In this way many times we find ourselves kidnapped by a virtuous circle of cause and effect which pushes you to continue for hours without realizing that time has flown by.

In this case, then, the topic is particularly fascinating: in the amusing campaign mode Park Beyond puts us in the shoes of a new amusement park creator who, somewhat by chance, ends up helping a group of crazy and disheveled characters, committed in their own way to reviving the fortunes of their company. This mode is nothing more than a long tutorial designed to teach all the secrets of the game, but it has the advantage of being well structured (apart from some objectives or parameters that are not very clear to find) and, above all, well written. The numerous intervening films, in addition to being dubbed in excellent Spanish, give a slightly crazy and carefree tone not only to the characters, but to the entire work. From renovating an old park in an abandoned town to creating the craziest attractions in the world, you will progressively learn all the secrets of Park Beyond so that you can launch into free mode without major difficulties.

Park Beyond is a roller coaster builder's dream

For a theme park to be successful there are two main paths: either focus on traditional attractions or dedicate yourself body and soul to creating the craziest roller coasters on the planet. In the first case things are quite simple: the "traditional" walks (in quotes because some, obviously, are crazier than normal) have predefined dimensions and characteristics and it is enough to find a suitable place for them in the park and delimit a functional entrance and exit. For these trips you can set the price of the ticket and some other parameters, to better control its profitability and attractiveness.

Le Roller coaster, however, are the best that Park Beyond has to offer. You can opt for one of the pre-made templates or you can use the many tools available to create the craziest roller coasters you can create. Because it is true that there are tools available that are a bit exaggerated such as cannons, but before you can open this type of attraction you will have to check that all the cars return safely to the starting point. So no too tight curves or too steep climbs: your convoy must depart and return to the beginning of the journey. How is another question.

The different trails, in fact, can bend, twist, cross mountains or waterfalls. Nothing is prohibited to the player and, in fact, the convenient and powerful tools available allow you to always dare a little more. This does not mean that it is easy to create beautiful roller coasters, you need a good knowledge of each piece and precision in its positioning, but using prefabricated parts, pre-established models and a little patience it will be possible to create crazy rides, but working immediately. . There will be time to chisel.

Also because Park Beyond makes available dozens of different objects just to beautify your park, such as fences, screens and lights: you can use them in the most classic way or have fun placing them where you think is most appropriate. From this point of view the game is very forgiving, there are no more precise parameters to manage, such as power lines, water or anything else, so you can put a restaurant on the top of a mountain with a crazy ramp to get there and to the clients. They will be there, they will leave without any major problems.

In addition to the walks, in fact, you will have to think about the the service. Customers will not only want to have fun, but during the day they will be hungry, thirsty, tired and will have to go to the bathroom. Your task will also be to analyze their needs and insert between one attraction and another those structures that you think adapt to their needs.

To complicate things a little is the demography: The public is divided into families, adults and teenagers. Each attraction has specific parameters that attract one audience more than another: the secret of a good park is to offer the most complete experience possible to a certain type of customer, to have a very satisfied type of visitor and It is not a group of people who are rather cold to the experience.

Also because satisfied visitors will allow your park to take a real leap in quality: your entertainment will, in fact, meet a particular parameter which in turn will allow them to perform impossible actions, or impossibilities to use the slang coined by Park Beyond. Behind this name lies the possibility of improving the park's staff or facilities so that they perform even better. Maintenance workers will be able to unlock a flamethrower that will greatly speed up cleaning dirt from the streets, unserviced stores will have new products, while roller coasters will be able to unlock an additional unique feature. This is a way to give an extra touch of madness and personality to your park, although it does not alter the development of the game: all the euphoria generated must be balanced in some way so as not to make visitors dizzy.

Predictable action

In Park Beyond, therefore, everything works quite well, sure there are some balance problems, but nothing that cannot be solved with future updates. The graphics are colorful, the tools to build roller coasters and terraform your own map are powerful, and the options are many. The impression, however, is that the developers have concentrated a lot on wanting to publish a game thanks to which Build the most beautiful and brilliant theme park in the world, without delving too deeply into the more managerial mechanics. Kind of like the Two Point Hospital mentioned above. As long as the game unlocks new options and possibilities, everything works well, the co-stars are just the right amount of crazy and the feeling of freedom that occurs in the construction of the attractions is total, despite the environmental and urban planning permits ("it's faster apologize rather than ask permission" is the sharp philosophy of Phil Bailey).

However, once all the improvements have been obtained, Park Beyond seems to lack that extra advantage, that impossibility of action that would allow it to be a classic. In fact, everything becomes too predictable and controllable, without unexpected events, big problems on the horizon or limits to overcome. That's the flavor of this type of experience.

However, it is one very solid base on which to build, with which editor lovers will be able to indulge themselves in creating the most beautiful and complex attractions ever imagined. Those who "limit themselves" to playing and were looking for an heir to the great classics of the past will find themselves faced with an absolutely well-packaged experience, but more ephemeral than the infinite exponents of the past.

Conclusions

Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam Price 49,99 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (11) 7.3 your vote

Park Beyond puts a series of powerful tools in the hands of players with which to build and design the most beautiful theme parks ever seen on PC and console. This total freedom, however, makes the entire experience too predictable and controllable, since it lacks those obstacles and that impossible to find balance that usually make management games practically infinite. However, it is a very solid and fun experience, more focused on the creation of the park than on its management, for a more compact, but certainly valuable product.