Empire of Sin Reviews
Empire of Sin has its bugs and some rough cinematic moments. But Romero Games pulled this project off with a team of just 30 people. For a game of its ambition, that seems like a small team. It’s pretty much an indie project, or perhaps “double-A,” compared to other games that are more polished but have hundreds of developers — or even more — working on them.
Empire of Sin is a great conjunction of different genres perfectly balanced each in its own right. It is a deep, dynamic game that can satisfy strategy lovers, fans of turn-based fighting games and fans of resource management alike as it has rarely been seen. The truth is that I find it difficult to find a similar game to compare his great mix of mechanics.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The game has solid tactical combat and RPG elements but is let down by a weak strategic layer.
Empire of Sin's criminal management sim and turn-based tactical combat combo sounds brilliant on paper, but it completely fails to live up to its aspirations due to major imbalances and bugs.
As a prohibition-era mob boss, you're at war with rival gangs as well as the police in this ambitious, if uneven, gangster sim
The way Empire of Sin combines diplomacy, turn-based combat, and narrative gameplay mechanics is incredibly ambitious. While there’s plenty to keep you engaged, the format doesn’t always work, and sometimes it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stats and missions. Even though the game has its shortcomings, its atmosphere, characters, and environment are fantastic. And if you decide to persevere, there’s plenty to love in Empire of Sin.
Empire of Sin is a great example of how you can use the prohibition era in games. A pleasant, rather simple strategy that does not lack combat and interesting gang management.
Review in Polish | Read full review
With some more time ageing this could have been a cult hit, but right now playing Empire of Sin is an offer you probably should refuse.
Despite of it's very successful atmosphere and its interesting management mechanics, the game suffers from many bugs. Moreover, the fight is not dynamic enough and not interesting enough to captivate the player over time.
Review in French | Read full review
Empire of Sin is undoubtedly an excellent idea, a clever meshing together of management sim and turn-based tactical action that's set in a hugely compelling era of Chicago's criminal history. There are some cool mechanics here, too; the well-executed overworld map of the town, the gangster black book with its complex relationships and those tense sit-downs with rival ganglords. However, all of this promise is held back by copious technical problems, game-breaking bugs and management and combat systems that feel half-baked and scrappy. There are more patches and updates planned and we desperately would like to see this one sort itself out but, as things stand, it's virtually impossible to recommend – and it remains to be seen if future updates can bash it into shape.
While the flaws in Empire of Sin are significant, they are not enough to take the shine away from this Romero Games title. The bold proposal to mix different genres and moments in a game only ends up making the experience varied and interesting, especially for fans of the theme and genres contemplated here. When you spend time with the game, you get the impression that it would benefit from a little more development time. Still, creating and maintaining an empire of respect is as fun as it sounds. Honestly, I hope that the developers and the publisher continue to support the franchise - there is undeniable potential here.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Despite a couple of negative aspects, if you are fans of the mafia genre, strategy and management, Empire of Sin will make you an offer that you will not be able to reject.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The potential for an exciting period strategy game is clear but that only makes the buggy mess of unbalanced combat and simplistic tactical decisions all the more frustrating.
The complexity of the interlocking systems in Empire of Sin feel like more than the game can handle. For every time a story emerges about love and loss as I described above, there are times when your speakeasy suddenly starts losing money and the game doesn’t communicate why. I’m sure through hours of play a pattern will emerge, but for now too much is too opaque and difficult.
Not quite the single malt, but not the cheap swill either.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Oh dear. Empire of Sin has a fantastic idea at its core, and the jolly soundtrack perfectly complements the over the top character designs. But the game is a technical mess, littered with a spectacular array of bugs, and crippled by poor design choices that derail whatever little momentum the game may otherwise have had. Empire of Sin? They should have called it Buggy Malone.
But the current implementation, especially that of the battles, is frustrating. Romero Games needs to make management more important and to bring the characters to the front more. Patches also should include auto-resolve and a big balance update. Empire of Sin needs all of this to begin to realize its clear potential.
Empire of Sin is a poor and skeleton-thin management game at its core with complicated systems, menus, and tutorials that do a poor job at getting you acclimated to the experience. Add on top of that a library worth of bugs that force you to restart, ruin pivotal moments of the game, and just make the experience more frustrating and you have a game that is not worth even worth a slight bit of consideration. Empire of Sin is a massive disappointment.
“Empire of Sin is great when every mechanic and system are in its place and in perfect harmony. Sadly, these moments are few and far between. At this point its just a very great game in theory. Maybe Romero Games will make it better with expansions and updates, but that remains to be seen”.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The music is lovely and it controls quite nicely on consoles but that's all the good things about Empire of Sin because the core gameplay feels very simple and willy-nilly designed and the amount of bugs and glitches are unbelievable.
Review in Persian | Read full review