Terribly broken game. They insist there have been localization updates and bug breaking fixes, but I've yet to see it.
You play as a political party starting in 1992 in a nation simply called "The Republic," and have to survive (and get into office) the next 12 years. You typically start out fighting for power, but understand that the first 2-years is the hardest, especially if you are lucky enough to get a majority in office.
However, for some strange reason in this game, the options do not tell you exactly what you are doing, you have little to no idea of what the consequences of your choices are (90% of the time) and what significance anything has. One of my biggest gripes is the clear plagiarism from Suzerain in the start of the game. Now, Nostalgames has a tradition of having a prologue in which you have certain questions about your nation's past, however this one is about your leader's past.
As you choose your character's history, you meet someone in your schooling/university named Sergei. He becomes a close friend but is one that tries to exploit the nation during the Soviet-era. He introduces you to none other than a woman named Nina (assuming you chose to play as a man), who becomes your future spouse...
"She said that she had come from the East of Republic to enter the same university... She also left you her address and invited you to come for a cup of tea somehow...
A. Her beauty
B. Her mind
C. Her friendliness"
Now, prologue questions what ever until you encounter the same exact questionnaire in Suzerain. During your character's backstory of three choices, you are greeted with a few options. You have a childhood friend named Petr who introduces you to Monica.
"In one of the meetings, Petr Vectern introduced you to a classmate of his, Monica. You were immediately attracted to...
A. Her intelligence.
B. Her beauty.
C. Her diligence."
Now, this is only the start. Later in the questions of both Suzerain and Collapse, you find yourself answering a similar vein of questions, both of which you are asked to spend more time either with your family or to give yourself to the party. You "lose family relations" if you choose to continue working in politics in both games, however in Suzerain it plays a very big role. In Collapse, it has absolutely zero impact whatsoever.
It feels as if somebody played Suzerain, took those games and moments and then ran it through a translator from Russian to English to get the very same synonyms as in Suzerain. I think that these sorts of questions are great for video games, but it is the very exact same situation with the same impact as you receive within Suzerain - it just matters there and makes zero difference here.
In Suzerain, you are rewarded by choosing the party and receive nominations or cabinet positions. In Collapse, you aren't chosen for anything and are constantly passed up, meaning that the entire interaction was worthless except for some lore building.
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These aside, some other issues are the gameplay itself. If you are attempting to win an election through rallies, you best have an autoclicker because by the mercy of the Virgin Mary herself, you are going to do a lot of clicking to ensure your party is victorious. Even then, the results are minimal. Before each election, you are going to be debating a single opposing party. You are unable to view any of the backstories, positions or stances of these parties and they are simply referred to by their acronym.
Hope you've read through enough to remember them! Assuming so, you better remember their stances. You pick a stance of your own and go head to head with theirs, hoping that your position "wins" the voters. Only, I have only won this interaction once because randomly, my political debate opponent was none other than my own damn party. I won with 72% of viewers thinking I was right. Yet, the actual impact of this was a mere 2% increase of voter support across the lower, middle and upper classes.
I carried on and won the Presidency and I was left with a political dilemma. My country was in possession of nuclear weapons that were housed from the Soviet times, and as part of START I between Russia and the US along with other nations in the same position, I was being asked to ratify START. The options were as follows,
A. Sign the agreement (Giving away your nuclear weapons)
B. Create an administration board (Thereby keeping the weapons and giving it to your military - after all, it is in your country's borders. You will become the newest and smallest nuclear power in the World at the expense of trade and global relations)
C. Appeal to the Superpowers for some guarantees (A historical option, it seemed. Ukraine agreed to this on the principle that Russia would protect them were they attacked and honor Ukraine's sovereignty)
D. Some other option I forget.
Wisely, it seemed, I chose C. Yet, in the dialogue, I appealed to the United States and asked for NATO to come and help me out. I had signed and ratified the treaty after that, but there was no word as to what happened until a year later. Apparently, despite signing, I failed to maintain the nuclear weapons that I had already negotiated to get rid of and blew the entire nation up in a chain reaction of explosions.
There was no opportunity to change the funding, no chance to rid myself of it. A major choice such as that was simply locked in the one single dialogue. It was the most disappointing hour I had ever spent playing a political game.
In short, not only is this not ready, it is completely unplayable. Walkthroughs are literally recommending you use CheatEngine to "experience the game." I like Nostalgames, I like their works, but this game was abysmal. Crisis in the Kremlin 2 can't come out early enough.
