As an enormous fan of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and as someone who closely fallowed the development of RCTW and Planet coaster I can certainly say that a year after the release of both games that Planet Coaster is the obviously superior choice but is nevertheless wildly disappointing.

Planet coaster comes very far along the way to being a great game for it to fall flat on its face to being borderline unplayable by anyone who does not want to commit 100 hours to learning every idiosyncrasy of the oft counterintuitive controls and mechanics. The coaster builder is exceptional, but pretty much everything else is impossible to work with. I feel I am working against the building controls more often than I am using them. The Path builder is inexcusably clunky, and any attempt to build a building is hindered by the lack of edge snapping for surface objects, requiring you to fiddle with each window and lamp for an unreasonable amount of time. Terrane deformation is equally inelegant.
The park management is also a mess, just simple fixes like being able to raise all staff wages together would be a major fix. And the fact that you have to micromanage staff wages and happiness to keep them from quitting right away makes sandbox mode a hassle rather than the free play it should be.

Very few features in Planet Coaster actually feel like a step up from its thirteen year old predecessor.

As an enormous fan of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and as someone who closely fallowed the development of RCTW and Planet coaster I can certainly say that a year after the release of both games that Planet Coaster is the obviously superior choice but is nevertheless wildly disappointing. Planet coaster comes very far along the way to being a great game for it to fall flat on its face to being borderline unplayable by anyone who does not want to commit 100 hours to learning every idiosyncrasy of the oft counterintuitive controls and mechanics. The coaster builder is exceptional, but pretty much everything else is impossible to work with. I feel I am working against the building controls more often than I am using them. The Path builder is inexcusably clunky, and any attempt to build a building is hindered by the lack of edge snapping for surface objects, requiring you to fiddle with each window and lamp for an unreasonable amount of time. Terrane deformation is equally inelegant. The park management is also a mess, just simple fixes like being able to raise all staff wages together would be a major fix. And the fact that you have to micromanage staff wages and happiness to keep them from quitting right away makes sandbox mode a hassle rather than the free play it should be. Very few features in Planet Coaster actually feel like a step up from its thirteen year old predecessor.