Didn't like.

The game is very repetitive. Despite gaining a multitude of powers, very few are worth using over others, and the variation in terrain between levels often ends up being irrelevant. As such, you end up just doing the same thing level after level.

Ridonkulously easy once you know the way to tackle EVERY MAP. There is almost no variation, even if the maps are laid out differently. You just pursue the same steps and you are guaranteed to win. If you want a really high score, you need to keep the enemies hobbled but alive for aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages to let your people cover the entire map.

This is a pretty faithful reconstruction of Populous from the golden days of gaming. However, Populous had many hand-crafted maps that you'd play (every 5 levels) with procgen levels sprinkled between. In this, the levels are all just higgledy piggledy. Because players can "leave a legacy" (i.e. use their 'legacy points' to alter the map for the next person), the maps swing from maddeningly easy (the previous player flattened half the map for you) to stupidly hard (the previous player left you on top of a mountain, while the opponent is on a flat plane).

But... No matter the layout, the process to win is the same... Once you figure it out, the game just becomes a cakewalk. When that happens, it can be quite zen.. You just follow the pattern and win. In some levels you can win in under 60 seconds if you're REALLY fast on the clicking and accrue enough mana points in the first 30 seconds to unleash a firestorm on an enemy..

HOWEVER, THE GAME (AS OF 1/4/2023) IS BROKEN. IT IS NOT COMPLETABLE.

* The universe ranking is broken, so your score doesn't matter.
* If you save and quit midway through solving a planet, you end up being given the levels you already finished to play again when you next re-load, but you don't get to play the other ones. So, say if you save and quit at level 4 of 8, then you play levels 1,2,3,4, save and quit, and then when you reload you play levels 4,3,2, and 1 again in that order... weird bug!
* Sometimes the screen just goes blank except for the minimap and UI... At this point, the only thing you can do is resign the island and start over and hope it doesn't break again. This happened five or six times to me. Annoying, but not catastrophic.

The dev has recently updated the game, so it's possible (s)he broke it when they migrated to a new server, but if you're planning on playing this game... wait until you see some news to say that the above issues have been resolved.

For that reason, I'm giving a negative review because I put in almost 70 hours to see the conclusion to the story, to find that the game's difficulty remains completely flat all the way through, and there IS no endgame because I never reach 100%, so I'm really disappointed. If the dev fixes the issues and I can get to 100% and see the ending, I'll change to positive.

The main trouble is that at the end of the day, the game is far too easy. Step one: gain enough mana to blast the enemy town with a spell or summon a hero. Step two: mop up whatever's left. I finished most levels in under five minutes this way.

One day there'll be a worthy successor to Populous: The Beginning. One day...

It's fun for a bit, but once you figure it out the game becomes very formulaic and you find yourself wasting 20 hours just for there to not really be an ending. The end of the game feels the same as beginning except you have more tools that allow you to end things pretty much instantly.

I bought it because of nostalgia for the flash game and I played and completed it for the same reason. I don't regret the time I spent on the game, but I don't think I'd ever do it again. It helps I got the game on sale.

A clunky, user-combative, UI-troubled, extremely simplistic sim game that doesn't have a single legitimately interesting or distinctive thing to offer. Beyond that, it's not terrible- there's nothing overly damning, and the game does barebones base itself on well established Populus-esque sim genre foundations- but "derivative prototype flash game with copious polish issues that intentionally tries overly hard to feel dated and lacks in depth or engaging elements" isn't generally warranting of a positive review, nevermind a price tag.

These four negative reviews already do a decent job covering the game's issues in more detail, so I'll just leave the rest to them:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198023823057/recommended/319560/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993619651/recommended/319560/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197967581813/recommended/319560/
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Kantyash/recommended/319560/

If you do end up getting the game, there're various online guides (official and unofficial) that can help you make sense of the many confusing UI elements that the tutorial doesn't adequately cover. Which mostly just leaves you with the terrible flattening tool, the overly zoomed-in visuals, and the notable lack of game depth to deal with.

This game is extremely frustrating. Biggest problem seems to be a glitch or bug.
If you decide to leave the tedious task of flattening your land for a moment and try to inflict some terror on your opponent, the problem shows. Your Mana is not growing steadily. Say, you want to save up to 300 Mana to cast a thunderstorm, your Mana may grow from 0 to 200 continously, then may go down and then up again. The rate of growth may vary, it may stagnate and stay at 215 (or whatever) for a while, to start growing again after a few seconds. It's completely opaque what's going on with Mana. For the later levels within the tutorial levels, it's "unplayable".

A Populous throwback where you oversee a tribe of peoples, and have them expand to be the only tribe left by giving them overarching commands and using miracles. My problem is that the gameplay is pretty simple and so gets repetitive. The commands are settle, conquer, or go to a specific point you mark, and the miracles are terraforming or sending disasters at your enemies for the most part. The gameplay is about expanding as quickly as possible so you can snowball, and preventing your enemies from doing the same. But as I said, the gameplay doesn't change very much from one map to the next and gets old quickly.

Stars received: 1.4/10 _ Note: v.5 [0.0 to 1] = personal impressions

[0.2] Controls & Training & Help
[0.1] Menu & Settings
[0.4] Sound & Music
[0.1] Graphics
[0.2] Game Design
[0.2] Game Story
[0.2] Game Content
[0] Completion time (level/game)?
[0] is it Enjoyable & Fun?
[0] Could it hold a spot in Favorites? (& if the Game can be repeatedly played again)
[0] BONUS point: Multi-Player related
[0] BONUS point: Review for VR
[N] - if Registration is required with providing PII

Game description key-points: create a New earth there

Overview:
Sim with divine hand to guide and help humans evolve, yeah BUT is Not cool

pixeled content with a high scale view
uniquely inadequate menu and options
brings no value for entertainment and content manageability

Game starts out fun and challenging, then the difficulty spike hits and becomes unplayable. Fighting the other three tribes at once, all of whom have it out for you specifically, and seem to have an infinite amount of mana . . how is that suppose to be fun?