Pocket Academy Zero

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.

Pocket Academy Zero originally released on mobile devices in 2012, then received a port to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2023. This is the prequel to the first Pocket Academy game, which first released earlier that same year, and as such it shares a lot of similarities with that game. 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.

There is one thing I should note that distinguishes Pocket Academy Zero from not only all games in its series, but every Kairosoft game published as of this writing – its price. Where all other Kairosoft games on Nintendo Switch are normally-priced at $12 or $14 (or in the case of Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story, $20, no doubt due to the cost of the license), Pocket Academy Zero is priced at a mere $4, certainly more tempting than it would be otherwise.

Having said that… I think the Pocket Academy series is generally sub-par within the Kairosoft catalog, so while I do think the low price makes it more tempting than other Pocket Academy games… this is still not a great Management Simulation, and unless you’re seriously short on cash, I would highly recommend you get another game in the genre. Or, if you absolutely must have a scholastic-themed Management Simulation, get 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. In any case, the low price is the only reason I think this game is even worth considering, which I expect tells you something about the quality of the game itself.

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

Grade: C+

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