Ok this is a long one, but I wanted to breakdown the two zoos of Zoo New England. So that would be Stone Zoo and Franklin Park Zoo. Before my breakdown, I’ll give a tldr:
TLDR: with broad strokes you will do alright recreating them, but as you can all imagine I would say, lack of suitable birds makes this a massive struggle. Mods can help, but that’s putting a bandaid over an issue Frontier should have at least helped to address.
I’ll begin with Franklin Park Zoo:
Like I said, focusing on broad strokes you will do alright. As you can see, PZ has a lot of the more major mammals you would need. Gorillas, giraffes, lions, hyenas, red pandas, kangaroos. You could at the very least, get a pretty close summation of FPZ. Even more shocking was surprise animals like the prairie dog! The barnyard I have listed as “close enough” as the breeds from the Barnyard pack are “close enough” in use it shouldn’t be an issue. Except for two things: the Poitou donkey, a very famous endangered breed. Also, the barn owl. Otherwise, won’t be too bad.
However, here is where the issues begin:
Now we move on to Stone Zoo.
Once again, Stone Zoo I would actually place lower than Franklin Park Zoo. It would be a 4/10. I messed up a bit on my cruddy note taking, but the more I look at it the more that is missing. Once again, I’ll cover the areas.
Sooner or later I might make one for Buttonwood park zoo.
TLDR: with broad strokes you will do alright recreating them, but as you can all imagine I would say, lack of suitable birds makes this a massive struggle. Mods can help, but that’s putting a bandaid over an issue Frontier should have at least helped to address.
I’ll begin with Franklin Park Zoo:
Like I said, focusing on broad strokes you will do alright. As you can see, PZ has a lot of the more major mammals you would need. Gorillas, giraffes, lions, hyenas, red pandas, kangaroos. You could at the very least, get a pretty close summation of FPZ. Even more shocking was surprise animals like the prairie dog! The barnyard I have listed as “close enough” as the breeds from the Barnyard pack are “close enough” in use it shouldn’t be an issue. Except for two things: the Poitou donkey, a very famous endangered breed. Also, the barn owl. Otherwise, won’t be too bad.
However, here is where the issues begin:
- In the children’s area is a meshed in aviary for waterfowl. As you can imagine you are just out of luck. Nothing you can do. The mute swan wouldn’t make sense for an area made for ducks.
- In the African area there is the wattled crane and the Kori bustard. Once again, out of luck.
- In the Australian section is the budgie habitat, black swans, and a cockatoo. Nothing can be done there.
- With the tropical forest you can honestly get pretty close. Though issues show up once again. No monkeys, so no debrazzas or cotton top tamarins. No birds like the yellow billed or saddled storks. No waterfowl. No Pygmy falcon. Once again, on broad strokes you can recreate the most famous area of Franklin Park Zoo.
- Finally, the bird area. You are just screwed. Ain’t no two ways about it. No ducks, no flying birds, no condors, no kea. Nothing.
Now we move on to Stone Zoo.
Once again, Stone Zoo I would actually place lower than Franklin Park Zoo. It would be a 4/10. I messed up a bit on my cruddy note taking, but the more I look at it the more that is missing. Once again, I’ll cover the areas.
- The Caribbean section is just a big, fat, NO. If we got the American flamingo I honestly think it would be fine. But no flamingo, scarlet ibis, macaw, bush dog, or goldeneye ducks is not cool. In this area is the Jamaican iguana, but with the Antillean iguana is alright.
- The Yukon Creek also suffers a lot. No Canadian lynx, no black bear, no porcupine, no bald eagle. Yes to the reindeer and the arctic fox. Specifically the black bear is a huge loss, they are fairly popular and famous amongst the animals in the zoo, being rescued as cubs.
- Of all the places in the game, the Sierra Madre is probably the closest in broad strokes. The jaguar, peccary, cougar, and Gila monster and other exhibits can help make a fairly accurate recreation. Once again though, no birds hurt a bit, namely the roadrunner. The lack of coati, peregrine falcon, coati, and free tailed bats also doesn’t help.
- I messed up my notes a bit here, but the windows to the wild + surrounding areas also suffer greatly. Here is what we do have in Planet Zoo: the large tortoises. That’s it. Now I haven’t mentioned substitutions a lot, but using the Asian small clawed otter and lar gibbon over the North American river otter and white cheeked gibbon can work. In terms of purpose and looks they may be deemed close enough. Now for what we don’t have: hyrax, Brazilian porcupine, two toed sloth, macaws, hornbills, agoutis, tamarins, colobus monkeys. It suffers greatly.
- Finally for the last area it is the himilayan and Mexican wolves. For the himilayan area we don’t have the yak. But with the markhor and snow leopard I’ll still say it’s good enough. Likewise we don’t have the black necked crane or muntjac, but use the red capped crane as a substitution can work. Likewise, while it may specifically be Mexican wolves, use of the timber wolf will work perfectly fine.
- The barn area has a zebu, but once again the available barn animals can get the vibes across fine as is.
Sooner or later I might make one for Buttonwood park zoo.
