MEMORIAPOLIS Review

When it comes to constructing a city, there’s a lot to consider, be it the temperament of your people or the religion they wish to follow. A city building simulator aims to have players juggle all of these factors in an attempt to succeed or, as is more often the case, fail. This is the task given to you in 5 PM Studios’ latest title, MEMORIAPOLIS. The question is whether this is a journey you should take or if you should have stayed in Rome. 

First and foremost, there isn’t really a plot to MEMORIAPOLIS. Instead, the plot is the story of your village/town/city and how it grew from humble beginnings to a beacon of civilisation. However, you do have the option to select what kind of society you’re going to be. For instance, you could choose to be militaristic like Sparta or filled with politicians like the Roman senate. Admittedly, you don’t notice the biggest difference outside of the cultural building options at first, but it becomes more prevalent later. 

The actual gameplay of MEMORIAPOLIS is more like a puzzle game than anything else. Your job is to make sure that your city survives through five historical eras, from the age of Antiquity to the Industrial Revolution. Now, you won’t have any control over how the city grows exactly, as your population will usually choose to settle where they want. However, you will be able to place resource-gathering buildings, cultural centres, and expand the zone where you can build. It’s not the most intense simulator in the world, but it’s interesting watching your city slowly grow organically. 

Your main focus will be on keeping your people, and more importantly, your factions, happy. Over time, your citizens will slowly start to form their own factions in your city, all of which will grow in size and power as you expand. These groups will be both your best friends and your worst enemies… at least in theory. Here’s the thing: your citizens have five moods you have to keep level: Health (prosperity), Security, Belonging, Esteem, and Creativity. Each of these is influenced by certain civic buildings that you’ll need to research before you can construct them. However, the build-up is rapid, which can make it difficult to keep pace with the wants of your people.

It's also worth noting that this is a game about crunch: you have to minmax everything to get the best result. The map also doesn’t really change in a different playthrough, and the resource locations are all the same. The historical events also repeat themselves, so there’s little reason to replay after a while. 

Thankfully, MEMORIAPOLIS has a pretty easy-to-understand UI, so you at least know why you’re struggling. With that said, it might be visually simple, but boy, does that come with the downside of it being boring to look at. This does help you to look at the overall world with an uninterrupted view, and this is where MEMORIAPOLIS shines because, while you might not have a lot of choice in where the city grows, it’s nice to see it happen organically. 

Overall, I think my issue with MEMORIAPOLIS is that, despite everything working as it should, there really isn’t a lot to it. Because you don’t have a choice in how things are built, you don’t do much other than place the odd building you do have control over. It feels like you’re watching the growth of the city more than anything else. The political intrigue is nice, but it takes a while to get to that point, so for a long time, you’ll mostly just be watching numbers go up while working around supply chains. If you’re into that kind of thing, then MEMORIAPOLIS is great, but it needed something more to help break up the process.