Imagine Earth

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of a good management sim. Sure, on consoles there are certain issues that can crop up, such as poor performance and controls, but should the game be able to pull those off well then it can provide a rewarding experience as you manage all the different systems to make everything run as it should.

Many thanks to the publisher for the review code.

A WORLD OF IMAGINATION
Imagine Earth puts you in the role of a planetary overlord as you develop the world’s civilization by juggling the population, infrastructure, and interplanetary trade system. Growing your population is your primary concern, as that will advance the planet’s technology – but doing so will also increase the demand for all the essentials in order for them to both survive and be happy.

The campaign mode does a good job at easing you into this rather seemingly rather stressful gameplay loop by guiding you into resource management by ways of the narrative. It’s a relaxing introduction and well done, even if from a narrative perspective there’s not a whole lot to it. The lack of a decent story though isn’t all that much of a concern as new things start getting introduced to you thick and fast, meaning that your concern will be more about the overwhelming number of spinning plates you have to manage. Each new metaphorical plate seems manageable every time one gets added, but as the campaign goes on you’ll have a lot of plates on your … well, plate.

But that’s the beauty of the genre, and it’s something veterans will no doubt adore. The increasing difficulty and all the different attributes to manage are what makes these games fun, and the beautiful presentation really helps make it to stand out. The game really is a wonder to behold and, whilst we’ve seen cylindrical rotating world in other games like Civilization 6, being able to see the whole planet as it rotates amongst the stars never gets old.

Of course, the real crux of the matter is just how the game runs on the Switch and I’m pleased to say that it seems to run well for the most part. Despite the impressive visuals, I didn’t have any huge issues until later in the campaign when you have a lot going on. Of course, when you start having to manage so many things there can be hiccups, but nothing that drastically affected my gameplay experience. 

VERDICT
Imagine Earth is a beautiful planetary management sim, that manages to ease you into the hectic world of space management rather well. It’s poor narrative may be slightly disappointing, but if you’re wanting to take charge of your own world then this is a good place to start.