@Solid_SerpentJanuary 29, 2025
Received this game as a gift from a dear relative in 1999 or 2000, would have been 7 or 8 years old, in any case my dad helped me install it on our Dell Pentium 4 and I remember I sat there and played it for 6 hours straight, taking out loans, running my parks into the ground and having to start a new file, it crashed periodically every couple hours, even when I later played the PS2 port, same issue, but I loved seeing the different intros on startup, and it taught me early the importance of saving frequently.
I remember my Dad looking online at that time and finding an exploit for tons of cash, basically set up any store and adjust the price to the max, if an npc had already entered, they needed to pay whatever the price was to leave, so set the slider to 25k for some fries or a gift at the gift shop and you'd never need a loan, absolutely magic game.
It had a pleasing art style, rides were imaginative, roller coaster building was finicky at first, but once you get it, you can have it doing laps through the whole park, it even included a go kart ride and you could design that track too, and then if you wanted you could walk around the park, meet the 2D sprite NPCs and go on the rides, even if it was just a bouncy castle. Four different park themes too.
I've kept my physical copies and collected more over the years, discovered the sequel recently in a second-hand shop, but I've gushed enough.
This is one of the first games I searched up when I created a GOG account, please bring it back EA, I'll buy it again.