Recent reviews by Joel

I have never written a review before, nor ever felt the need to write a review. However, with the launch of Anno 2205, that changed. I know this is a way for the developers to read about what players think about their game, so I would like to put my opinion out there. This review is not hating on Anno, however, it highlights differences between this one and previous ones.

Now, I'm sure people are going to challenge my opinion because I have less than two hours in the game(as of launch day). However, I own almost every other Anno to date, either virtually or hard copy, so I think I have a pretty good knowledge base when it comes to city building, micromanaging, and fully enjoying an Anno game.

On a good note, the game runs beautifully on Ultra High graphics. The textures look astounding, from buildings to oceans to mountains. Anno 2205 is a more casual, new user friendly game compared to other Anno's(1404,1701, 2070), which I assume because the developers want the game to target a wider audience. However, Anno 2205 feels like a dumbed down version of previous Anno's.

What do I mean by that? The challenge of "building a city" is gone in this Anno. Instead, you are building a corporation to fight for resources and land in temperate, artic, and lunar zones. Yes, there is still building of houses, managing of energy and money but many of the tasks which made Anno stand out are gone.

-The concept of storage is gone(edit: changed per say), same with overproduction and underproduction. In previous Anno's, you had to balance amounts of materials you obtained, otherwise you would end up with a surplus or a deficit of material. If you mined too much or too little, there were repercussions. Also, This Anno has removed non-renewable resources all together. For example, I can mine coal out of a mine until the end of time, whilst in previous Anno games, you'd eventually run out of coal on one island and need to switch to another.

-Anno 2205 limits the user to where they can build on land zones. For example, You want to build a algae farm(which is built on the coastline). It must be placed on a spot which gets highlighted for the user when they try to build the algae farm. You cannot choose where the building is placed on the coast like you could in previous Anno's. In simple terms, Freebuild has been limited.

-This may be the biggest one for me. No Skirmish or Multiplayer. For $80, I do not want to play a campaign only. I enjoyed having the ability to create a randomly generated world to play on. It keeps the game interesting, as you don't ever see the same map twice. The Ability to add or delete AI's, and make the game as challenging as the user liked. Being able to spend hundreds of hours with friends building and cooperating. That is what defined Anno as my favorite city builder of all time. Without these features, the game will become boring very fast for many players because no one likes repetitive things.

Now, I will be updating this review as I keep playing the game, as I have only played a short amount of time into the game. If other modes to play are released in the future as well, this review will drastically change. However, until updates happen and changes to the game occur, I will have trouble enjoying this Anno like I enjoyed the rest of them.


Edit 11/3/15(answers to comments, cleared up some things):
Just some random answers:

"For example, I can mine coal out of a mine until the end of time, whilst in previous Anno games, you'd eventually run out of coal on one island and need to switch to another." Well that was also removed in 2070, so you can't really comment on that

-The player would have to build something(or buy it from traders) to obtain more coal on the island, which means you had to plan ahead for when you ran out. And it added a miniscule amount of coal compared to what the island started with.


"You cannot choose where the building is placed on the coast like you could in previous Anno's. In simple terms, Freebuild has been limited." - I'm not really sure what you mean by this but it's not like you could place buildings where ever the ♥♥♥♥ you wanted in old Annos. Coastal buildings especially only went in certain places.

-Coastal Buildings can only be placed in designated "slots" now. There are no beaches to fill full of fisheries etc. like in Anno 2070. So I guess you could say its like Anno 2070 crab fishing now, where there were designated areas only for crab fishing.


"There was no challenge in anno 2070 either when it comes to managing production and overproduction. All you had to do is look it up online. So in essence I see no problem with removing a bit of tedium of looking up something online."

-I guess I never looked it up online, but by taking it out it still simplified the game too much, at least in my opinion. And I will be playing this game all today to see what else I can say about it.

"1.5 hours played !!!!! ROFL"
-♥♥♥ it was launch day bud, I had to put out something of a review to give advance notice to other anno players to changes made