Tropical Resort 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.

Tropical Resort Story originally released on mobile devices and Nintendo Switch in 2022, then received a port to PC and PlayStation 4 in 2023, then to Xbox One in 2025. This is a game that fits in that second “cater to guests” category, with players building their tropical resort to attract visitors.

This is overall a solid, by-the-books take on the genre from Kairosoft, or at least as by-the-books as Kairosoft ever gets. You build up and expand your little resort, trying to make it as enticing as possible to draw in visitors and turn a profit, and you can even “decorate” the underwater areas of nearby beaches to attract sea life that can make your resort more popular. There’s very little here that’s truly exceptional, and of course you have the usual odd design choices you find in Kairosoft games, but overall this is an enjoyable take on the genre.

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.

I’m honestly starting to feel like these Kairosoft games are just rehashing what they’ve done before, so it’s hard to describe them in a way that doesn’t just feel like I’m repeating what I’ve said numerous times before. However, for what it’s worth this is a good rehash of the formula. If you particularly enjoy the idea of building up your little resort and don’t dislike Kairosoft’s odd simplified approach to the genre, I think this game will be worth a look.

tl;dr – Tropical Resort Story is a Management Simulation where players manage an island resort, building it up and trying to make it enticing for visitors. This game doesn’t do anything we haven’t already seen countless times in Kairosoft’s Simulation games, but what’s here works fairly well. As long as you don’t dislike Kairosoft’s odd but simplified approach to the genre, I think you’ll find this worth trying out.

Grade: B

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