8/10 Roleplay Driven Game – Mega Mall Story Review

After just finishing my first (and most likely only) playthrough of the game, i figured i had enough expirence with it that my opinion might either convince people to get it or leave it alone. Contexts: 1. Gameplay. 2. How to play. 3. Why you should get this game. 4. Reasons to not get the game. 5. Small nit-picks. 6. Sunmary. Gameplay: While the gameplay is pretty simplistic, to create a really good mall that you will be proud in takes a little more thought than your average casual Iphone game, though not as much as any worth-your-time stratagy or card Iphone game. And because of that, it's my opinion that the thing that is the best thing about this game is the roleplaying. If the prospect of starting out from pretty much scratch, turning it into a fifthteen story super-mall, all while investing in cities and parks, fighting off other competing malls, and more, intrests you, than you will probably like this game. You can even get pigs, alians, ducks, ninjas, and other strange customers. But if you want something that requires a lot of stratagy, and a quick app you can open and test your mind, this is definetly not the app for you. In this app the majority of thought goes into where to place your stores ahead of time. But even if you mess that up, you can move pretty much all of your stores around for a measly 5k (not all that much in this game). How to play: I played this game through four long nights of playing this on my phone, lying on my couch, thrusting upward to the beat of music I was singing too. And I believe that is one of the best ways to enjoy this game. If you have long periods where you sit around doing nothing, this is a great game to fill that with. Maybe if you have your computer is sitting around rendering video, if you're over at a friends sleep over and everyone else has fallen asleep. If you're at school in classes which are easier than this game. That is how this game is meant to be enjoied. If you plan on finishing this game in short intervals spread over a long period of time, I would bet you will get bored of it really fast. This game is a time sink. A good time sink, but a time sink. I enjoied it because it put me in a mood i enjoied, more than because the game was in any way immersing. Why you should get this game: 1. This game is not a time based game, even though it plays like it. You wont have to wait around hours everyday to be able to do things. If you have played games like Tiny Tower or Pocket Planes, you know exsactly what I mean. Even though this game gives you the satisfaction of sinking so much time into a game you can do whatever you want in it, you don't have to wait to put time into it. 2. There are no IAP. This I am very pleased with Kairosoft for. When most other games are plagued by pop ups, adds, or IAP, to make an extra buck off of players, Kairosoft does none of these. Even though this contributed little to the actual game, I thought it was worth it pointing out. 3. It's cheep. I got a good 10+ hours of not bad entertainment, for a really good price. Reasons to not get this game: 1 It's repetitive. Both in gameplay, and out of gameplay. At times I felt myself falling asleep and setting the game to give me a noise when I got the next game-pausing pop-up, because I knew missing the few store level-ups wouldn't hurt me too badly at the stage I was in. 1a. You probably wont play through the game more than twice. The replayability in this game is practically zero. Even though the game had a New Game + mode that activates automatically when you start anouther playthrough after beating it once. This mode lets you keep all of your stores (but not your special stores) and combos. That is actually a pretty big deal, but is it enough to warrent anouther 10 + hour game? Even in Pocket Academy you had other schools to play after you finished the first... If it is however, enough to warrent it you will find serious trouble playing it a third time. I might play a second one myself, but I will probably just buy anouther Kairosoft game instead. 2. The last three hours were a bore compared to the rest of the game. It feels drawn out in a bug way. The first seven hours I was working on getting more regulars, and investing in parks, and buying combos, and moving around stores. The last thee house though, I had all the combos, I had all of the investments finished, I had my entire mall organized to the last squre. It felt like a Where's Waldo, where the objective was to find the store that flashes Level Up. There is no hurrying to buy the last combos, there are no close competition malls if you have your fountains and other one square rep. Boosters placed correctly (which is all in one corner in a combo behind elavators, if you were wondering). The only reason I even stuck with this portion of the game was because I wanted to say that I beat it after putting seven hours into it already. The game would have benifited greatly from a hurried ending where you couldn't have all the stuff on time, or even some choices that affected gameplay im some way. Small nit-picks: 1. It would be nice if I had known the extent of size my mall would grow to when I started. This doesn't really affect how much time I spent, and Kairosoft actually has really good reasons to keep that mechanic in the game. 2. It's almost impossable to play without having the controls up, which take up about a third of the screen. Summary: I would give this game an 8/10. It's a nice charming game that knows what it wants to be. It leaves you somewhat unsatisfied at the end, and will not want you comming back, but for a cheep game that comes with 10+ hours of roleplay driven gameplay, I would recommend it.
Review by I like ile on Mega Mall Story.