Super FamiComplete #15: Sim City (Redux)

 

Title: SimCity

Release Date: August 1st, 1991

Developer: Maxis Software Inc.

Publisher: Nintendo of America Inc.

First off, how did I not put Super Famicom box art on this blog sooner when I made this blog? There have been several good coffee table books depicting Super Famicom box art, and now I see why. It is so much better than the NA box art. Look how good that is! 

So when I first made this blog, this was my first wall. I am not a big fan of simulation games (even though I recently dug into Frostpunk which is just truly a transcendent experience for the player) because I like games that have definitive ends. I am not big into models or creating my own "little world" and have generally avoided all the popular titles. There will be no Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley adventures for me during this quarantine. This was also the first blog post that I was really not proud of when I wrote it. I definitely wrote this one on the back of my paycheck (just kidding I don't get paid). 

Background

This series was originally developed by one Will Wright, the co-founder of the Maxis studio and basically the king of "sim" style games. His development house would be the brains behind the deluge of titles through the 90s: SimEarth, Sim Ant, The Sims, Sim Farm, etc. Good ol' Will would eventually be absorbed into the monolith that is EA, and help them push out their schlock, making the "Sims" part of their IP lineup. 

At the time of this release, though, Sim City was a breakout computer game hit, and so it was natural that they would want to jump this series over to consoles. To help sell this, they added a ton of little aesthetic and Nintendo based "upgrades" to the game to make it more palatable to kiddos in the 90s. More details on that below. 

Gameplay

SimCity places you as the Mayor of a small municipality with the goal of turning your little burg into a booming metropolis. This means balancing your budget in order to build your city, provide jobs to attract citizens to your burg, and provide preventative measures in case of disasters. This sounds simple, but as your city expands, you need to provide more and more for each little "town" within your city. Some basic needs include providing power to your people (you have the choice of good ol' electric, which necessitates the building of power lines, which take up a lot of space,or you can bunker down and get a nuclear power-plant), means of transportation (roads, highways, boats, or airports), and eventually means of entertainment and relaxation for your hard-working citizens, such as a sports stadium or a marina.
 
Generally, it is quite a rarity when your city will not need something, and you will constantly receive little notices in the form of your little helper, Dr. Wright (whose look it based off of Will Wright).

Dr. Wright basically functions as the mouthpiece for your citizens in your burg. He will tell you if they need more jobs, more power for their respective neighborhoods, or if your taxes are too high or low. He will also let you know if there is a natural disaster that has struck your town, such as an earthquake, tornado, flood, fire, or even if your town has a visit from the Koopa King himself, Lord Bowser. Yup! Bowser has a cameo in this game as one of the worst natural disasters that can be wreaked upon your city. Bowser tends to waltz around the city, destroying anything in his path, and leaving fires in his wake. He can pretty easily destroy even a solid infrastructure, and he tends to stay on the map for a good period of time.

If your player manages to create a booming megalopolis (reached at a city of 500,000 people), then your player is rewarded with a Mario statue to place in your city center.

Now part of the fun of Sim games is when you have created your main city, it is then to dive into the "challenges" of pre-determined scenarios. These are scenarios where your city starts with certain disadvantages or conditions. The SNES has these in spades, and these ended up being the scenarios I enjoyed most when I replayed the game for this update. One scenario sees your city without access to water or any special buildings. One scenario sees regular alien invasions which will definitely mess your city up. These are a lot of fun and spice up what, to me, is a boring genre (no offense to my city builders out there).


What about those tasty Sim City jams?
Oh we gots em.

Ads and Commercial

As always Japan delivers with a classically strange commercial.

Final Verdict
But yeah, that's basically the whole game; build a whole city, and then try to prevent it from being destroyed. Basically it is a budgeting and resource management game. It is pretty hard for the game itself to enter a fail-state, so you are allowed to experiment to your heart's content. There are some sub-missions with specific goals, where the restraints are more stringent, but overall this is a pretty simple game. There are many intricacies and complexities to the game, which definitely earns a good bit of merit. In the end, this game is a classic, and worth checking out for one of the first console "sims."