I don’t like using the phrase ‘one of the worst games I ever played’ to describe any game. In fact, I rarely use it as is, even some of the bad games out there I still found some enjoyment or I question why said game is considered by many to be bad. However, this game is one of those rare exceptions: Democracy 4 is, without a doubt, one of the worst games I’ve played in a long while and, no joke, a game that made me rethink on how I do future reviews.
First off, this is one ugly game. All the menus are simplistic and feel right at home on a mobile game and, at times, are confusing to decipher, especially regarding the graphs and charts. The “human” characters, on the other hand, are ew. Maybe they’re supposed to look like caricatures of political people but, if that was the idea, then why not go like what the puppet show Splitting Image did and go for cartoony caricatures, not whatever this art style is? The only one that looks somewhat decent is your main avatar, but you barely see them at all. Outside of that, there are no animations, other than charts moving, as every character is a still portrait and all ‘actions’ are displayed by pop-up windows.
As for the main gist of the game, you play as the President of any country you choose and of any party, custom or premade, which is a cool touch, and you rule the country. That’s it. On paper, this sounds like a cool idea and, indeed, many games, like the Civilization series, have done this concept amazingly well. But there is a huge difference between those games and Democracy 4: They were fun as this game is not. I kid you not when I say you’ll mostly be trying to read graphs and sliding a bar back and forth and trying to figure out just what in the dook to do. You can also improve your image by going on TV or showing yourself watching a sports game, though the latter is very much built around RNG. During my gameplay, I tried improving my image by having my president go on TV, only to be told it failed badly. I did see there was a bar that showed how successful it could be, but I tried one that wasn’t going to be successful and it ended up being a success, so I really don’t know. Speaking of ‘fail’, if you don’t keep some of your members of your cabinet happy, they can leave and you have to get a new one. Which, on the one hand, is a neat idea and could lead to some interesting ideas. However, the issue arises when you have no idea how to keep them happy/loyal to you. Example, I had one who was threatening to leave, so I went into his menu and fiddled with an option and I thought “Ok, that should work”, only to see that nothing had changed and they had left. It really feels like this game punishes you for being ‘nice’ and forces you to go against your morals most, if not, all the time. As someone who loves playing as a nice person in various games (aside from punching Khalisah in Mass Effect as, come on, we all like doing that), being forced to be the bad guy is not fun.
Is there anything in this game I liked? Well, I do like how there are the occasional choices, which boil down to A or B, and I did kinda like when these popped up, even though it feels like the game wants you to make the ‘wrong’ choice in order to make the ‘right’ choice. I like how you can customize your political party with a custom name, even though you can’t customize much of anything else…huh…even the stuff I ‘liked’, I still had issues with. Guess, I should rephrase the question: Is there anything redeemable in this game? The answer? No. Even its price point of $26.99 feels too high for what’s on offer here. Again, I want to stress that I did not go into this game wanting to hate it. I wanted to try this game as I wanted something outside my comfort zone of shooters and I thought something like Democracy 4 would be something different. But, alas, it just wasn’t meant to be. I feel like this game would be better suited for those who took Politics 101 in College, not the average video gamer like myself. Look, just take my advice: if you want a game that allows you to be a political leader and shape the world to your content, play the Civilization games, especially with Civilization VII on the way. Just don’t bother with Democracy 4.
