My Played Video Games Review: Populous for the Sega Genesis

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Populous is a creation simulation video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts. It was released originally for the Amiga personal computer in 1989. A Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version was released in 1990.

This was the first video game in which you play as a kind of deity or god creating/directing the progress of your chosen race or tribe. I could not appreciate/understand its gameplay back then as a teen. But now I understand its misunderstood greatness.

The Story

Now is your chance to play as some kind of a deity/god! Create a world to your liking in a week and destroy it on an ego trip. Conquer hundreds of hostile worlds. Unleash various calamities! See why it sold over hundreds of thousands of games worldwide!

Sega Genesis box, manual and cartridge of the game (image source)

The Graphics and Sound

The graphics are always a top-down 3D isometric view of a landscape. A small area of the world map can only be viewed in detail at a time. The graphics are not that bad but not what you call good either.

Music is scarce. The title screen music is there but not during levels. But is alright because it makes it easier to hear when a calamity strikes. The sound effects are kind of okay.

Gameplay sample of Populous on the Sega Genesis

The Gameplay

As a deity in the game, you have limits in the control over your chosen people. They are on their own but you can change their overall focus. A building is a group of settled people. A person is a group o nomads. If the unsettled people get unsettled for too long, they die of weather exposure. Settled groups of people expand their population. For people to settle, they need some empty, flat and fertile land for their settlements to grow.

You have a selection of godlike spells available to use. The most common used is for flattening out the landscape. The larger the flat land area is, the larger a settlement can grow. The castle is the largest settlement. Large settlements help develop the technology of your people which makes them better in combat.

Other magic powers to use include natural calamities (e.g. floods and earthquakes), turning your people’s chief into a war hero and the critical spell Armageddon. Casting it causes everyone to leave their settlements and move to the middle of the level for the final battle. Using it is the quickest way of finishing a level. Spells require some damn mana in order to be cast. Mana is generated by your people praying to you. The more people you have the quicker that mana bar fills up.

Each of the levels has its own enemy deity opposing you and its own set of rules. The landscapes of each level vary in form like desert, snow, or plains. There are around hundred of worlds to beat so replay value is damn high.

My Verdict

Populous on the Sega Genesis is a good game. I have not seen another real-time strategy game like this with such indirect control over its people units except on its successor game Populous II.

Go play this creation simulation classic on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play it on your emulators. See where those god/creator deity games on PC get their crazy ideas from.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!