Planet Coaster: Console Edition Reviews
Frontier Developments’ Planet Coaster: Console Edition brings a celebrated PC title to both modern and next-gen consoles. New content makes the game feel a refreshed experience, rather than just an old game ported to run on new hardware. I ran into some tech hiccups while playing on console, but it didn’t rain on my parade hard enough to make me wanna close down the park.
Joy, wonder and engrossing park management come together to spectacular effect in Planet Coaster: Console Edition. Frontier are masters of the park building art, and as we enter a new console generation that's never been clearer.
Planet Coaster is a solid theme park sim, and one I can see myself spending an unhealthy amount of time playing. I just need to remember not to be too hasty in loading games the second I get to the PS5 dashboard. Twice now I've immediately tried to boot it up within a minute of the PlayStation 5 getting to the home screen and crashed it so hard the console databases need rebuilding. Goes to show just how much I like theme parks, right?
If you enjoy business management simulations, then we recommend purchasing a ticket for Planet Coaster: Console Edition. While the coaster creation controls can be unwieldy, Frontier's done a generally decent job of mapping a very complicated title to the DualSense controller. The title allows for a ton of creativity, but time-strapped entrepreneurs can also have fun with the many pre-made assets available. It's the kind of game where, once you begin building a park, you're basically pledging the next 30 hours of your life to doing it properly – but once you start seeing those profits rolling, you may find it difficult to quit.
Planet Coaster on consoles is a game defined by its PC counterpart. It's slightly reduced in content but almost equal in complexity, for better or worse. We live in an age beyond console-specific PC ports like Civilization Revolution and Battlefield: Bad Company, but it still would have been great to see some console optimization for those looking for a plug-and-play experience in the living room. However, if players really want to dig into a huge sandbox of theme park creation, Planet Coaster is a deep and joyous rabbit hole that's worth an Annual Pass.
Planet Coaster rides the line between warm and friendly accessibility and in-depth theme park management surprisingly well, even if it does occasionally wobble nervously with the switch to console controls. It's a largely serene experience with an utterly engrossing roller coaster creation tool that just makes the overall package that much better.
Overall, Planet Coaster Console Edition is an absolute joy to play. It had a wonderful nostalgic element to it, taking me back to the days of Rollercoaster Tycoon and Theme Park World. Enough has been added to the game though to make it feel like a modern-day classic. The rides themselves are extremely customisable and you could easily spend over an hour just working on one rollercoaster if you fancied. When they say you can make anything you want, they pretty much mean it. The amount of detail you can add to your creations is astounding and so welcome. It’s a game you could lose hours, days and even months of your life to without zero regrets at all.
With a practiced expertise, Frontier has translated their fantastic coaster creator to the next-gen consoles without compromising the core qualities of what makes this game great. The radial menu and optional keyboard/mouse controls delivers theme park magic unlike any other, and once again claims its crown -- the king of coasters among mere tycoons.
Overall, a ticket to Plant Coaster: Console Edition is a great buy if you’re at all into theme park management. Frontier did a superb job bringing their excellent 2016 PC game to next-gen with console-friendly UI, controls, and everything you could need to get a big jump on your theme park building and management gameplay.
Planet Coaster launched back in 2016 on PC to amazing reviews. Management games are foreign to consoles; controllers can be cumbersome with the reliance on menus in the genre. Finally released on console, does Planet Coaster: Console Edition implement a strong control scheme to bring this fantastic game to a new audience?
If you’re a roller coaster aficionado, theme park sims don’t come much better than this. An incredible amount of work has gone into making Planet Coaster feel at home on console, and Frontier has done a commendable job of doing so without making sacrifices. It looks fantastic, performs admirably, and designing the park of your dreams has never been more enjoyable.
It may have released on PC back in 2016 but Planet Coaster: Console Edition is quietly one of the best launch titles for the Xbox Series X|S, and made all the better by being available through Game Pass. For a park sim, it is incredibly easy to pick up and play as everything is explained and designed as this version was built up for consoles, as opposed to a simple port.
The console edition of Planet Coaster is a great port from PC that works perfectly with console controllers, and if you are a fan of simulation games and patient enough to learn all the mechanisms of the game, you will definitely enjoy it.
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Planet Coaster: Console Edition is the kind of game that's great fun at its core but being able to get the most out of it will require a lot of patience. So, it's worth playing if you enjoy fine-tuning every intricacy of a park and don't mind getting used to its controls.
If you played RollerCoaster Tycoon back in the day, you’ll no doubt love Planet Coaster. It takes the same concept and brings it into the current generation. And despite some console limitations, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable package and an absolute steal as a PlayStaion Plus freebie.
Planet Coaster: Console Edition is certainly something. It may be the most complex simulation title we have ever seen on a console, and with updates and more fine-tuning, I could easily see it maintaining its value for this entire generation of consoles as it has enough here that one could easily sink hundreds of hours in.
Yet the real beauty of Planet Coaster is that it has something for everyone. You may be inclined to a more task-oriented game, hoping to save the worst parks from the brink of bankruptcy, or you may rather splurge cash on everything and anything to make the wackiest park ever. Even if, like me, your creative design choices go as far as “make coaster go very fast and high,” you will still find yourself giggling away as you make ridiculous business decisions with little consequences like some crazed tycoon monster (charging $111 for a decaf coffee is just oh so funny). Despite a learning curve on the control scheme and the tragic fact that guests may not ride your coaster if it is absolutely insane to the point of traveling warp-speed, Planet Coaster: Console Edition is a blast and a worthy port of an already excellent title.
Planet Coaster is a well-acclaimed theme park management game from Frontier Developments. With 400 hours played on the PC version and a love for theme parks in general, did I think this console port was the ride of my life? Find out in this Rapid Review.
Planet Coaster is the definitive theme park experience on console!