Legends of Heropolis DX

Genre: Management Simulation / 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.

Legends of Heropolis originally released on mobile devices in 2016, then saw a port to Nintendo Switch in 2024 (now with “DX” added to the title), and of the above games I’d say Epic Astro Story is its closest analog. In this game, players are building up a town while also managing a group of Super Sentai-style heroes (like the Power Rangers) and sending them to fight enemies sent to harass your city. You’ll be building and upgrading facilities in your city, selecting which missions to send your team 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 chiptune music and sound effects, with this music taking on the form of the sort of bombastic themes you see in Sentai-style shows. 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 other than making “combos” of synergistic buildings that increase their effectiveness, and there’s little you can do to improve things.

At the same time, the RPG elements also have minimal player participation – your teams fights automatically without your input, and there’s little choice in what to do in battle, other than change your team’s strategy (which seems to have minimal effect), use resources to heal your team, or retreat. Later on, you get access to a Voltron-style giant robot to take on kaiju-size threats, but otherwise it feels like there’s little in the way of choice or agency here.

Overall, I don’t think Legends of Heropolis 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 – Legends of Heropolis DX is a Management Simulation with Turn-Based RPG elements that’s a take on the “Super Sentai” genre, 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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