Kairobotica

Genre: Management Simulation / Turn-Based RPG

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 56 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, 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, and Epic Astro Story established a Simulation style akin to games like Sim City, where you’re building out a town or settlement.

Kairobotica originally released on mobile devices in 2012, then saw a port to Nintendo Switch in 2020, PlayStation 4 in 2021, and PC in 2023, and of the above games I’d say Epic Astro Story is its closest analog. In this game, players control a traveling space colony designed to manufacture and house robots (specifically Kairosoft’s boxy yellow mascot character), and then send them out of missions to help the people of various friendly planets, often fighting off food-based monsters. You’ll be building and upgrading facilities on your colony, selecting which missions to send your bots on, and directing their general strategy during battle.

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 forgettable and somewhat annoying synthesized music, everything about this presentation is really endearing, though by this point we’ve seen more or less the same thing in numerous other Kairosoft games.

I think my issues with the gameplay here are similar to the issues I had with Beastie Bay DX. Namely, while this game has an interesting mix of Simulation and RPG elements, neither seems to be done particularly well. Unlike many of Kairosoft’s other games, where you build things doesn’t seem to matter here, and there’s little you can do to improve things apart from using items earned from missions on facilities to upgrade them.

At the same time, the RPG elements, while somewhat unique, also have minimal player participation – your nameless robots line up in a conga line to fight enemies one at a time, and players treat them more like expendable fodder rather than party members. While unique, there’s little choice in what to do in battle, it’s largely just fight, retreat, use a special ability, or use what is essentially a limit break. That’s it.

Overall, I don’t think Kairobotica is a bad game, there’s just nothing especially compelling here, and I find I’d rather be playing multiple other Kairosoft games rather than this one, because neither the Simulation nor the RPG elements are all that well-done here. You have plenty of better options than this.

tl;dr – Kairobotica is a Management Simulation with Turn-Based RPG elements, and while there are some interesting ideas here, neither side of that formula ends up being very compelling. The result isn’t a bad game, but it’s far from a particularly good one.

Grade: C

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