Review Date: May 7, 2021
Release Date: August 23, 1991
Platform: SNES
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Simulator
Anecdotes: My brother and I had a lot of fun with this game, starting with naming the towns after ourselves. My name worked well, as it was the start of a real village name, but his was a groaner-level bad pun where he changed the first syllable of a major U.S. city to his first name. I’d let readers just see how terrible the pun is, but I don’t want to give away his name. Anyway, we also had disagreements on how to build. He thought parks were a waste and never built them. I used parkland liberally. He liked to put down lots of railroad tracks. I preferred lots of roads. Either way, we just kept building cities. I even tried building an area that resembled my own, which had mixed results.
Description: It’s nice to see something different. Instead of fighting enemies, players in this game take the role of mayor of an undeveloped town. The idea is to draw as many people into the town as possible while keeping the town running. It’s a simple concept and players can play for as long as they like. The game has no ending.
Positives:
-As a weather and nature fan, I really like the fact that the game uses different colors depending on the time of year. It’s most notable with unbuilt or park land, especially with the park trees. They used a flower-like pink for spring, a solid green for summer, a brown for autumn, and a snow effect for winter.
-It’s fun to build a town using creativity and logic. It’s fun to try to draw residents into town and even place things like zoos, banks, and casinos. It’s nice to watch hospitals and schools pop up. However, eventually everyone gets bored with it. So what comes next at that point? Simple. Players can start destroying it all by sending disasters into town. There are six to choose from, including earthquakes and tornados. I even sent Bowser in to cause destruction.
Negatives:
-If there’s one thing I could improve with this game, it would be the ability to manually place hospitals and schools where I want them. Those two places only pop up in residential zones and they appear semi-randomly. The only thing players can do is make sure that residential zones are growing because that’s the only way they appear.
Screenshots:
Final Opinion: I enjoy this simulator. It’s mostly realistic and can help people think about what goes into building a town. It also avoids getting overly complex. It is worth buying.
Grade: A