Station Manager

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 60 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.

Station Manager originally released on mobile devices in 2016, then saw a port to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2021, then to PC in 2022 and to Xbox One in 2023. And this is one of the “cater to guests” sort of Kairosoft games, with players building and managing a train platform and its amenities, trying to grow the number of people who use it and turn increasingly greater profits in the various sales stalls, vending machines and so on.

I’m of mixed feelings about the gameplay in Station Manager, which seems to be much more slow-paced than many of Kairosoft’s other games. On the one hand, this can be pretty relaxing, to just see the daily flow of people in and out of your station as you gradually build it up. On the other hand, it can be frustrating if you want to progress but just cannot amass the resources to do anything substantial for a while.

All of this is on top of the usual “Kairosoft jank”, with the game not being clear about its mechanics or how to do simple things. At one point I was told a shop I wanted to build couldn’t be constructed on a platform, but try as I might I could not locate anywhere else to build, and the game certainly wasn’t giving me any indication what I would need to do to correct this. This feels particularly unfortunate, because I can tell there has been some effort made here to try and guide users through the game’s mechanics and features, but it just isn’t enough.

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.

Overall, I did like Station Manager, but I was frustrated with it at the same time. I think there’s a place for this game’s more relaxed pace, but the lack of proper communication to the player of what they need to do to accomplish what they want will never not be frustrating. If you’re a Management Simulation fan considering this game, I do think it has some good qualities, but be prepared for some disappointment as well.

tl;dr – Station Manager is a Management Simulation where players develop and manage their own train station and its amenities. This game’s relatively slow pace may frustrate some players, but others may find it endearing. However, I think everyone is likely to be disappointed at how poorly this game communicates to the player how to do things. The result is a game that, while not bad, certainly feels lacking.

Grade: C+

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