Dream Town Island

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 63 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.

Dream Town Island originally released on mobile devices and PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023, then received a port in 2024 to PlayStation, then to Xbox One in 2025. This is a game that fits in that third town-building category, with players building their town and managing its populace.

This is an odd take on the city-building genre in multiple ways. For one thing, this game uses no less than four different currencies, with different currencies required for virtually anything you want to do. Frustratingly, this game isn’t really clear about how to obtain more of any specific currency, so you just have to hope that you’ll acquire more whenever a citizen or visitor is out shopping or checking out your town’s facilities.

You’re also oddly involved with individual townsfolk throughout the game, intervening directly to ensure they get work, and pushing them to participate in competitions that you reap some reward from.

The pacing is also an issue here. At the start, this game is absurdly fast-paced, with notifications popping up one after the other, before you’ve had the chance to address the last thing you unlocked. But after a while, things slow down too much, to the point where you’re waiting for some currency to accrue just so you can afford to do anything. More than anything, it is these inconsistent and extreme pacing issues that drag down Dream Town Island.

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 repetitive 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.

Overall, Dream Town Island has some enjoyable town-building elements, but its enjoyment is ruined by its absolutely terrible pacing issues and confusing currency situation. Players looking for good city builders have multiple better options, even within Kairosoft’s own back-catalogue.

tl;dr – Dream Town Island is a Management Simulation where players build and manage their own town. While the core gameplay here works well enough, this game is dragged down by some extreme pacing issues, being far too fast at first, and then agonizingly slow later on, largely due to a bottleneck with its multiple currencies. While there’s still fun to be had here, you have far better options in this genre.

Grade: C+

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