Boxing Gym 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 62 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. And then there’s a template that has you managing not employees but members of a sports team, something we first saw in Grand Prix Story.

Boxing Gym Story originally released on mobile devices in 2021, then received a port to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2022, then to PC 4 in 2023, and then to Xbox One in 2025. And as you might have guessed, this is a game that fits in that last “sports team management” category, with players training their fighters to build up different stats to compete in fights with opponents, while also increasing your funds by turning your gym into a popular workout spot.

As Kairosoft games go, this one avoids a lot of the confusing menus and odd choices that these games often have, but this seems to be because there are few choices to be made here, with some really slow pacing. Rarely do you feel like you’re meaningfully guiding the progress of your fighters or your business, rather than just doing what few options are available to you at a given time.

As for the presentation, this is in line with what we’re used to from Kairosoft. As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals (here presented in a side-view perspective), paired with bouncy synthesized music that works well enough but is largely forgettable, along with simple sound effects. For the most part, 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, Boxing Gym Story more or less transitions the usual Kairosoft Sports Management Simulation formula to Boxing, but without any meaningful choices playing this game feels like just going through the motions. I suppose you could do worse for this sort of thing, but it’s hard to recommend this game to Management Sim fans or to Sports fans.

tl;dr – Boxing Gym Story is a Management Simulation where players manage the training of fighters while also building up a gym to make money. This won’t satisfy players looking for an in-depth Sports Simulation title, and even within Kairosoft’s standard formula this game is mediocre, offering players far too few choices to feel truly engaging. Unless you’re a fan of this style of game who really enjoys Boxing, this is a game to skip.

Grade: C-

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