The first Sim City will always be the best.
Gameplay - 7/10
As far as features goes, I probably wouldn't put it past the first Sim City to blow the others out of the water in this category. The gameplay is pretty simple, which makes building cities even simpler. Residential, Commercial and Industrial(RCI) are built by blocks of 9x9. I mean how easy is that?! You got street and railroad as the only means of ground transportation. And compared to the sequels of the Sim City series, this game had it right... in an awkward sense. You pretty much had the choice of massing streets, railroad or a mix of both. However, unlike the sequels, in this Sim City, you can mass railroad and it would literally act as street, minus the pollution and "traffic". You never had to worry about either of those. In Sim City 2000(that I know of), building railroad as the main transportation in a city does absolutely NOTHING. Not a single bit of growth will ever take place in your city. Roads are an absolute must. Which makes sense, but in Sim City it was truly fun to abuse this. Railroad cost a bit more than streets, but it was well worth it in the long run.
Besides the basic building blocks of a city, RCI, you had a few other things that made a city what it was in this version of the game. Police stations, fire stations, Airports and the Powerplants. Heck, you even had to work for most of your gifts too. Police Headquarters, Amusement Parks and Casinos to really drive the city wild. The only cheats in this game was a way to abuse money. Money only helps you build more, not get anything secret. Slap in a code on Sim City 2000 and the whole game unlocks before your eyes. BORING.
Also, unlike the sequels, you can separate RCI as much as you friggin want. You don't need to put any Industrial next to Commercial and Residential alike. You can send it all to one half of the map and have the actual "city" itself across a river and it'll grow just fine. This really helped things out as far as pollution goes. You just have to be smart with how you place gifts like Amusement Parks and Casinos. Spread them out a little bit. More overall growth the more you spread out.
That honestly is all there really is to this game. Besides trying to manage an impossible cash flow that gains at SUCH A SLOW RATE IN AN SIM CITY GAME. I always cheated in this Sim. It just is no fun to be 20 years down the road on a city and have a couple thousand people bored out of their minds as you wait for more cash to fill your pockets. Honestly, who doesn't cheat in Sim City? Mayors? That would really be sad if they did...
Controls - 9/10
This game is on the SNES. How many buttons did that controller have? A,B,X,Y,L&R? That's about it. Oh and select and start. Compare that with the controllers these days and you're one lucky person. One button does it all. Actually I can't say for sure anymore really. I haven't played this game in YEARS. But please, don't second guess me when I say this game is easy to learn, especially the controls.
Graphics - 7/10
Not bad for an old game. What I actually REALLY enjoy the most about the graphics in this Sim is when you get 2 Level 5 tops of either Residential or Commercial next to each other and they merge together. it looks so awesome. When you have a massive section of your city just sprawling with conjoined buildings, you know there is some heavy love down there. Not to mention the number of people living in those things. Now if only you can keep those things around and add more of them around the map... then you might reach a pretty rare population. Oh, one other thing, Bowser is funny as hell. Cause a disaster on purpose and just look at him!
Sound - 5/10
I never liked the music or sounds in Sim City games. They are so cheesy. The only thing sounds might ever have a purpose for in this video game is alerting you when something bad happens. You can hear an Earthquake shaking your city, or hear Bowser blasting his horn off when he enters your city. If you enjoy corny elevator music... well then I don't know what to say.
Replay Value - 8/10
The one thing this game truly excels in. I mean, why stop at one city? Did you max out the map with as much as you can and still didn't get the population you were looking for? Then do it again on another map! Change around the way you group blocks. Strategize and think how you can maximize growth and land value. You got 999 maps to build on. Heck, if you figure it out, there's actually another 999 maps to build on. Oh and a secret map. But you'll only get this map when you beat all the scenarios. Which can be pretty interesting in testing your skills as a Mayor as you try and prevent major disasters from overtaking the city.
Overall - 8/10
I probably won't ever review another Sim City game because I have nothing good to say about them. This one is just so classic. However, one thing I really disliked about Sim City on a cartridge was the fact you could only save 2 cities on the game at any given point. So if you started a new city and wanted to save it, guess what? You will have to override one of your other two. It sucks, but you really shouldn't be working on more than one city in this game. Once you max the map, it is pretty much over as far as growing goes. Unless you really messed up the landwork and want to "reorganize" your blocks to try and make it a little more efficient. If I can recall, the highest population I ever had I think was right around 180,000 people. I remember I came close to 200,000 a few times. But I don't quite recall ever reaching it. A very far stretch from 500,000. And if you ever reach that amount... damn you, damn you!