Cities: Skylines II Review (ProCal)
Let me start off with some basic and relevant PC specs:
CPU - AMD 7900X 12 core / 24 thread (No OC)
GPU - EVGA RTX 3080
RAM - Corsair 32GB 6000 MHz
Storage - Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe (Game Storage)
Monitor - LG 27 inch 1440p 240Hz OLED (Model: 27GR95QE)
So after playing this game for a little over 7 hours, here are my thoughts.
Game play: Overall, very enjoyable and above and beyond what vanilla Cities Skylines 1 had to offer at the start and I love that some DLC are already included in the new game that were not initially available in the older one. That said, you can tell that there are a lot of things that will eventually be added to the game in the form of DLC or mods. But it does not subtract from the game, due to the fact that there are so many quality of life improvements and so much has been added in general. Personally, I never felt a need for much extra and the game did not make me feel like I was missing much. There is a ton to do in just the base game, although it can feel a bit tedious and micromanaging at times. It's definitely fun and will undoubtedly take up countless hours of my time just like Cities Skylines 1 did. There are some mods that I do sorely miss but I'll go a bit more in depth into that later.
Bugs: There are what feel like quite a few small bugs, and I assume a lot of them are just because the game is much more in depth and I am doing something wrong or incorrectly. For example, I always have the icons for "high rent" or "not enough customers", even though there are plenty of low rent residential and medium housing available and a ton of outside connections. At times it can feel like the infinite demand mod is in the game as well, since you zone a particular area and even though you just zoned more of the demand it just skyrockets right back up. There are also times, that road placement can be a bit hit or miss and there are a lot of small texture bugs that go along with that. There is also the occasional residential house that has no access to a road or pedestrian access even though it is placed directly next to a road. That problem is often easily solved by just bulldozing the house and letting it rebuild itself. That is the most I've encountered in my playtime, and I'm sure some if not most is due to user error on my part.
Mods: Although this is a bit of hot topic, I for one do not care where you can access them from, as long as they are available. Sure, being able to easily access them directly from Steam was a nice luxury, but I do not mind having to go somewhere else to get them if it means more people can enjoy their game more. Some mods I definitely miss, for example, Traffic manager, move it, prop line tool, anarchy, etc. Not being able to individually choose how I want to place road signs can be a bit frustrating at times and so I have a ton of roundabouts in my city now. Hopefully this will come in the form of a mod or an update and soon. That's really all I have to say on the matter.
Performance: Again, another hot topic. I've read a lot of reviews about performance being an issue. And to them I'd say maybe try adjusting settings, or checking your PC for issues that might be causing bottlenecks. I have yet to have any real frame rate issues and the game runs infinitely better than Cities Skylines 1 ever did even without mods. Most of the time, I am hovering anywhere between 70 and 80 FPS at 1440p with occasional dips to the mid 50s when I zoom out enough to see my entire city. And this was all with a population of 25,000 citizens in a pretty dense area. I'm running most of my settings on high with some specific features turned down or disabled all together. Leave a comment if you'd like more info. All that being said, I do think we should see a bit better performance but I do not think it's terrible by any means and I only expect it to get better in the near future.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend the game. It's fun, feels much more involved, has a ton to offer in just the base game, and it will only get better from here. Also, always remember that you have a refund window if you are unhappy!