Heian City 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 64 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.

Heian City Story originally released on mobile devices and Nintendo Switch in 2024, then received a port to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2025. This is a game that fits in that third “city management” category, with players building their feudal Japanese town and catering to its citizens’ needs.

This isn’t the first time that Kairosoft tackled this formula, with Oh!Edo Towns having a very similar premise. However, I think Heian City Story is much more successful for a few different reasons.

First, while this game’s mechanics are still a bit unclear, you can at least see how different building types affect your city in different ways. Each building type is associated with a particular type of measurement of the city’s success, whether that is related to relaxation and enjoyment or commerce or cultural enrichment. This game is also much more forgiving about placement – you can move placed buildings without penalty if you find out later that somewhere else will be more ideal.

Heian City Story also has an interesting minigame of sorts that you can activate to turn your city into a Tower Defense game where you must defend against invading spirits. I don’t think this game mode is as well-crafted as a game specifically meant for Tower Defense, but it’s a good bit of variety to make things a bit more interesting, and it’s largely optional so if it doesn’t appeal to you, there’s no requirement to engage with it.

Besides this, Heian City Story is overall a simple but well-made city Management Sim, where you’re trying to plan out your city’s layout, ensure residents have ready access to the places they work and spend their money, and gradually build up your city’s amenities to attract more people and pull in more money.

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 synthesized music designed to imitate traditional Japanese music, which gets a bit repetitive and annoying before too long. 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.

In the end, I think Heian City Story is one of Kairosoft’s more successful city builders. There are parts of the game that are poorly-explained, it’s nowhere near as in-depth as other more expansive city builders, and it’s still full of Kairosoft’s usual eccentricities, but overall this is a satisfying simplistic take on the genre with enough unique elements to make it stand apart. Add to this the fairly unique feudal Japanese setting, and if all of this sounds appealing to you, I think Heian City Story is well worth a try.

tl;dr – Heian City Story is a Management Simulation where players plot the layout and management of their feudal Japanese city. There are gameplay mechanics here that could be better-explained, and this game has many of Kairosoft’s usual eccentricities, but overall this is a solid simple take on the genre that’s really satisfying, and there are even some memorable elements here such as some optional Tower Defense gameplay. Overall, if you’re open to a unique take on the genre with a historical theme, I think this game is well worth trying out.

Grade: B+

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