Pocket Academy 3

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.

Pocket Academy 3 originally released on mobile devices in 2022, then received a port to PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023, then to PlayStation 4 in 2024. This is the sequel to the first Pocket Academy game, which first released a decade earlier in 2012, and there doesn’t appear to be any Pocket Academy 2 (though PC did receive a game called Prestigious Pocket Academy 2). This is a game that fits somewhere between in the second “cater to guests” category and fourth “managing a team” category, with players building their school and building up their students’ skills to win competitions.

Looking back at my review of this game’s predecessor, all of my complaints still apply here. This game is unnecessarily confusing about how to accomplish certain goals. If you want another one of a certain type of room, you have to unlock it… somehow. And you’ll need to staff rooms with teachers which you unlock access to… somehow. And there are classrooms and student activity rooms, which are different… in some way. The in-game tutorials aren’t helpful in answering these questions, leaving me frustrated.

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 an isometric overhead view perspective), paired with upbeat synthesized music that’s largely forgettable. 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.

This is Kairosoft’s second crack at doing a school-themed Management Simulation, and honestly it doesn’t seem like they’ve learned much from their first attempt. While Pocket Academy 3 is still somewhat enjoyable in its limited way, at this point it’s hard for me to think that anyone would want this restrictive, confusing game over something like Two Point Campus, which has its own problems but at least doesn’t lock the player behind milestones to accomplish goals and then fail to tell them what those milestones are. And while I’m sure Kairosoft fans may be okay with this sort of thing, there are numerous other Kairosoft games that don’t feel nearly as restrictive as Pocket Academy 3. Play one of those instead.

tl;dr – Pocket Academy 3 is a Management Simulation where players manage a school and try to improve its students’ skills. While it’s somewhat enjoyable, Pocket Academy 3 suffers all of the same problem as its predecessor, and it restrictive and confusing to the point where players can be easily confused about how things work, and in the dark about how to access the things they want to do. If you’re looking for a school Management Simulation game, you have better options.

Grade: C

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