Ara is a nice 4x game with lots of economy management and fun visuals where you can zoom in quite close and see your people using the buildings you build. The game excels at having lots of things to craft and ways to use the things you craft to build wonders, make things more efficient. It is a little fiddly, and if you're more of a war player you might not enjoy it as much (although I haven't played a very military game yet), but I think with some getting used to it is fun to manage.

Some negatives: I think the leaders unique skills could be better differentiated, and have more personality. The soundtrack is a little lackluster and the encyclopedia could use better depth, both with better gameplay explanations and historical background.

My big tip for playing this game is to regularly use the anvil icon in the top right, it will help you manage your buildings much better.

Different than any other 4X out there.

Ara: History Untold is a triumphant strategy game that focuses on systematic and visual depth. The developers look at what competition does to the genre and seem to deliberately do everything just a little differently. For example, the liveliness of the world is immediately noticeable because of the amount of wildlife running around, people in the cities and naturally shaped borders. The crafting system gives an enormous depth of micromanagement to the game, allowing you to directly influence most different aspects within your industry and cities. Not only is your brain regularly overwhelmed by the game, the performance also struggles every now and then. However, give Ara: History Untold a chance. This game puts you at the helm of your own empire and lets you tell your own complicated history, and that's the real purpose of a 4X game.