Pharaoh: A New Era Reviews
Pharaoh: A New Era’s visuals, music, and gameplay tweaks make for a very easy-to-grasp, complex-to-master setup, and there are loads of options to soften the challenge whenever you feel like it. More than that, when you get your cities bustling with farms, markets, industry, entertainment, religion, and monuments the whole thing is a busy spectacle of beauty. Some archaic bits can make things difficult, and this isn’t my favorite city builder I’ve played, but it’s still an excellent spin on a classic.
Pharaoh might be a little out of date in 2023, but A New Era is the definitive way to play an absolute classic city builder that nails the fundamentals
It's obvious that Pharaoh: A New Era was a labor of love by Triskell Interactive and Dotemu. I am sure there wasn't a massive demand for this title, but there are some die hard fans out there (like me) who enjoyed and appreciated this game beyond comprehension. It keeps the heart and soul of the original Pharaoh, while making just enough tweaks to improve upon a timeless classic. The nostalgia factor is high on this one, and if you liked any of the late 90s to early 2000 city-building titles, then picking up Pharaoh: A New Era is a must. My only request: please consider remastering Zeus & Poseidon!
The straightforward rules of Pharaoh: A New Era make it great on the replay. Even apart from the campaign, you can find maps where all you are supposed to do is grow your population, your prestige, and your pyramids. And if you have the city building bug, you will love watching dusty browns and yellows explode into a cosmopolitan blast of color. To newcomers Pharaoh: A New Era easily takes its place in the modern library of deeply playable city builders.
The original Pharaoh came in 1999 towards the end of a generation of city builders. In 2023, Dotemu's Pharaoh: a New Era retains the classic gameplay, but the lack of innovation weighs more than ever as it competes with a new generation of games in the same genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Pharaoh is a throwback in the best possible way. Harkening back to a time when city management games were actually manageable, Pharaoh will still present players with a good amount of challenge. There is a ton of game here to enjoy, and it continuously pushes the player to find unique ways to solve interesting problems. It is worth mentioning that there may be a gators hiding in the Nile right out of the gate upon release, but one can expect those to be cleaned up in short order; there is nothing here that should stop prospective players from starting their own Egyptian empires. Fun and addictive.
After becoming familiar with its systems, Pharaoh offers tremendous city building flexibility and a plethora of challenges unseen in any other city builder. A New Era has introduced numerous quality of life features found in contemporary city building titles to an already solid classic. From sandbox to successive dynasties, with new options to tune the game to your playstyle introduced, Pharaoh: A New Era beyond satisfies.
One of the greatest classics of management games, finally playable in good conditions in 2023. A new interface and 4K graphics to welcome in 2023 the king of Egypt with open arms.
Review in French | Read full review
Pharaoh: A New Era has a lot going for it, and if you can get past the generic graphics and occasional bugs, you'll find a deep city-building experience in here.
Pharaoh: A New Era is a good example of how to make a good and respectful remake, improving where it's needed but without changing all that already worked.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Still, a good opportunity to jump into the nostalgia for the fans, but for the genre connoisseurs Pharaoh: A New Era is not something compelling.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Pharaoh: New Era manages to preserve the essence of the game we loved years ago, but it is also notable for its shortcomings such as mini-map and army management. If the studio manages to address these shortcomings as promised, it can be a much better game. Still, that doesn't change the fact that at its core it's one of the best city-building simulations ever made.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
The remake of the cult classic brings the immortal glory of the pharaohs with a slightly more modern twist and many hours of fun. You definitely won't make a mistake by buying this game.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
It would take a careless development team to create a terrible remake of a game, and Triskell Interactive are not one of them; they faithfully created something worth playing while integrating the feeling of playing the original. Buy it now!
Pharaoh: A New Era is a slow-paced experience focused on micromanagement and logistics. It is not for everyone, but for a specific niche of city-building fans who enjoy strategic titles that reward patience and long-term planning, it is definitely worth checking out. An excellent city-building game that’s both fun and engaging, with improved visuals, well-designed gameplay mechanics, and various difficulty settings providing a fantastic experience for both newcomers and veteran players.
Pharaoh: A New Era renews a classic of simulation games. While it could have improved some things, like the camera, the core gameplay basics from the original game are still there, updated for the new generation of players and for oldies like me too!
Pharaoh: A New Era is not quite the perfect remake of the classic city-builder from the 90s that I was hoping for. The good news is that all of it is fixable, so we just have to hope that the developers will keep working on the game to iron all of its bugs. If they do, then this will be a fantastic remake of an already excellent game. Right now, though, it stands as a decent remake of an excellent game.
Pharaoh is a fun city-building simulation that is challenging to understand, but very rewarding when players manage to pull it off. It is definitely one of those games where players will either spend an hour and quit, or continue to play until the major half of a day is over. Players looking for a challenge and don’t have a problem with the dated graphics should definitely try this out.
It was time to do a remake of Pharaoh, this one isn't a really proper one in some ways though. Some aspects of the mechanic remain strange and there are a few technical issues. Nevertheless, it's still fun to see one's city grow.
Review in German | Read full review
More love needs to be given to this remake to make it live up to what a fan of the classic Pharaoh expects.
Review in Spanish | Read full review