Park Beyond Review
The magic of a park sim is its ability to make time disappear. When you are in the zone building your park, managing the wants and needs of your attendees, and creating a self-sustaining financial juggernaut, there’s potential for an almost euphoric Zen from the best of the genre. At its best, Park Beyond hits these highs with interesting rides, a simple and compelling upgrade system, and a whimsical sense of imagination. But, like a poorly maintained rollercoaster, there’s a looming threat that things will fall apart with disastrous results. It’s this tendency for things to come off the rails that left me feeling queasy after spending a few days in this park.
A game like this lives and dies by its building mechanics, and Park Beyond is pretty solid in that regard. Crafting a thriving and growing park from scratch is a lot of fun: building paths, flat rides, roller coasters, and shops is easy, thanks in part to a simple interface and controls that are straightforward when it comes to the simple stuff.
After your grand opening there’s a linear, step-by-step process to upgrading and expanding your park that’s easy to understand and fun to execute. The capacity, and by extension income potential, of the park is limited at first. In the beginning there are only a few rides that can be built to entice customers. The amount of fun people have and the cleanliness of the park increases Park Appeal. Earn enough appeal and the park ranks up, increasing capacity and unlocking additional rides and shops.
Which upgrades to select presents an interesting tactical choice. You can focus on obvious things, like unlocking shops to fulfill basic needs like food and drink and add some more basic ride options. Or you can be more strategic,
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