World Cruise Story

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Without a doubt the most prolific developer and publisher of Management Simulation games on Nintendo Switch is Kairosoft, who specializes in games with a retro-style isometric pixel art style, often with the word “Story” in the title. As of this writing, Kairosoft has released 55 games on Nintendo Switch, most of them Management Simulations.

After their earlier games, Kairosoft had established a few templates for their Simulation games that later games would largely follow. Game Dev Story established a Simulation-style game more focused on managing employee time and focus, while Hot Springs Story established a Simulation style in line with Theme Park Simulators where you try to cater to guests’ tastes to maximize attendance and income.

When World Cruise Story was released on mobile devices in the US in 2011, with ports to Nintendo Switch in 2019, PlayStation 4 in 2020, and PC in 2022, it went for the latter of those two templates, being a game about plotting out the layout of rooms, facilities, shops, and restaurants in your cruise ship, as well as building relations with the various countries within the game (all clearly based on, but named slightly different than, real-world countries).

As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals presented in an isometric view, paired with repetitive chiptune music and sound effects. Apart from the annoying music, everything about this presentation is really endearing, although of course by this point anyone playing Kairosoft’s games will have gotten used to this visual style.

As I mentioned in my review of Hot Springs Story, one of the major omissions of the prior game, Game Dev Story, was the inability to design the game’s workspace. And once again in World Cruise Story, things have been flipped around – you’re entirely focused on plotting out where you will install facilities and build the different rooms of your resort, but now you’re limited by an inability to set prices, and to hire and fire staff.

To World Cruise Story’s credit, this game isn’t a by-the-numbers Management Sim that’s just missing a few options. There are a few clever gameplay elements here that keep things interesting. You have different guests types, each with their own interests, and you’ll need to ensure that you’re properly catering to everyone. For optimal performance, you’ll need to carefully think through where you place everything.

There’s also a day-night cycle, though I’m not sure how much this matters, as guests will be trapped on your ship as it’s moving, and it doesn’t seem like it matters much what time of day they’re active. There are also occasional events which will effect how many visitors will show up, and players can also invest in the growth of local economies, ensuring that guests from those locations have more to spend on your ship.

While this game does have its charms, it definitely has its flaws too. It’s not clear when selecting an item from a menu what its benefits and drawbacks are – sometimes you can only find this out once you highlight it after it has been placed. And it’s not always clear what’s holding you back from being more profitable. Far too often, it’s not clear what effect your choices are having on your facility, save when it’s made glaringly obvious such as an up arrow appearing when your placement improves the rating of other local placements. Also, I’m frustrated that this game doesn’t let you directly control facility prices – you can only increase them, and only by using items that permanently raise their value.

Compared to Hot Springs Story, I think World Cruise Story has a bit more variety and creative gameplay ideas going on here, but otherwise it’s pretty similar in its design and mechanics, meaning most positive and negative qualities of Hot Springs Story are present here, and those who played that earlier game will definitely get a sense of deja vu here.

Overall, I think World Cruise Story has some interesting gameplay elements that set it apart within the Management Simulation genre, but overall its positive qualities are largely balanced out by its flaws, such as the lack of control over multiple facets of your operation’s performance and the lack of clear indications how certain elements affect your resort. In the end, genre fans looking for something quirky may find this game worthwhile, but most will find there are better entries in the genre on Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – World Cruise Story is a Management Simulation where players manage a cruise ship, deciding what facilities to build and where to place them. This game is sadly lacking a lot of options, and other gameplay elements aren’t made clear enough. Fans of the genre may find this game worthwhile for some of its more unique elements, but most are better off getting another game in the genre.

Grade: C

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