The Ramen Sensei

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 59 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.

The Ramen Sensei originally released on mobile devices in 2015, then saw a port to Nintendo Switch in 2020, then to PlayStation 4 in 2021, PC in 2022, and Xbox One in 2024. And of the above templates, this game seems to stick fairly closest to the formula laid out in Game Dev Story, with players mostly mixing and matching broth and noodle combos to find ideal pairings that also appeal to different customer types, and then adding topper ingredients to make them tastier or more appealing.

There is a bit more to it than that, of course – you’ll regularly be investing in “researching” new ingredients and new upgrades for your shop, and you’ll eventually get to expand to additional locations, but the core gameplay here definitely seems to be centered on finding good pairings of ingredients.

And honestly, this works pretty well. I don’t think this appeals to me quite as much as Game Dev Story, but that’s more due to the topic matter and personal preference. For someone who really enjoys their ramen, I could see this absolutely being a fun business Simulation, though that caveat does make this game just a bit more niche. Also, this game bears one of Kairosoft’s frequent issues, which is not making information easily available to players – I wish this game let players do things like directly compare and contrast stats on two dishes they’re considering putting on the menu, and it’s not clear what purpose the ramen critics serve when they can be less enthusiastic about your new dish even when all of its stats are higher than earlier dishes.

As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals, paired with repetitive chiptune music and sound effects. Apart from the forgettable 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. One exception I’ll note here are the 2D pixel art representations of the dishes you’re preparing, which look great.

Overall, I think The Ramen Sensei largely succeeds at providing players with a Ramen-centric business Simulation, where the focus is squarely on making the best combination of ingredients. This game still suffers from some of Kairosoft’s usual issues, but overall fans of the genre (and particularly those who enjoy ramen) should find this worth checking out.

tl;dr – The Ramen Sensei is a Management Simulation where players manage a ramen shop, with most of the game’s focus being on developing ramen dishes with the best mix of ingredients. While this game bears some of Kairosoft’s frequent issues (namely, important information not being provided to the player), overall this is a solid business Simulation, and one ramen fans in particular may want to check out.

Grade: B-

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