Mega Mall Story is a simulation game from Kairosoft, similar to Game Dev Story and The Sushi Spinnery, except this time, you are managing a shopping mall. Like Kairosoft's other ventures, Mega Mall Story is extremely addictive. This is no joke as you will find yourself playing and playing, falling into the trap of thinking "it's just another ten minutes" over and over again. This is definitely not a game you want to start when you need to be doing work or studying. The key thing to this game's success is the simplicity and ease of learning how to play the game. It's only once you've learned the basics, getting deeper into the game will you realize that it's a lot more complex than it initially lets on. You can control the game either via the touch screen, tapping wherever you need, or you can bring up a D-pad (in portrait mode), which makes it much easier to pick the specific shop or menu item you want.
You start off with a small mall containing a few empty blocks which you can fill with shops. While the initial variety is understandably limited, the range explodes almost immediately. You will have to work hard to obtain all the shops since they are expensive but it is this approach where the next objective is only a little bit ahead that keeps you going and addicted. The shops that you can have in your mall can be your typical ones such as a supermarket, butcher, hair salon and the like. However, there are some more unusual ones such as an aquarium, planetarium and an observation deck. Stores can level up based on how many people purchase from there. Once leveled, their stats increase such as reputation, which determines its attractiveness to customers (e.g. customers will trek up four flights of stairs to go to) and quality which determines how much of each item a customer will buy at once. Furthermore, you can improve these stats through adding services, which also have the benefit of increasing the maximum amount of stock it holds.
The game goes through a yearly cycle, with monthly profit periods. At the end of each month, you get a quick summary of how much your sales were and how many expenses, to get to a profit figure. This is extremely important if you don't want to run out of money. The game uses two currencies, one of your normal dollars which is used to build and invest, and the other is Hearts. These Hearts are earned from happy customers, which are used to research and upgrade shops, thus it is harder to obtain and the key mechanic blocking your progress. The level of your shop determines how easy it is to upgrade them, since when you try and get the better upgrades at a low level, you will end up failing and having to dump Hearts repeatedly until you succeed. This is somewhat annoying when stores can level up so slowly.
Mega Mall Story adds in other aspects to improve the realism of the game, including the economy cycle by going into a bubble then trailing down into a depression. These have a noticeable effect on your sales and profits. There is a simple weather system, if it rains, you get fewer customers and if it is good weather, you can more customers. Of course, your mall will not stay small forever. There are heaps of opportunities to expand your mall. Apart from the obvious ways such as expanding upwards and outwards to get more shop space, you can invest in transport options. By the end of the game, you will have a bus stop, subway stop and even a helipad for your customers to come via! Your mall can go up to a maximum of 15 floors: 12 above ground and 3 basement floors, with 18 blocks per floor.
The limited space links to investing your money into the nearby areas to boost up your population and potential customer base. You will build schools, buildings and the like to get more customers, who will in turn recommend other customers. These investments will also help decrease bad effects from the weather and economic downturn. However, you have to be wary of rival malls that will turn up from time to time and fight for their market share. You could be earning $5m per month and then suddenly a rival mall will turn up, take more than 60% of your market share and you're suddenly earning less than $1m per month. It is brutal and you will need some strategy and time to drive your rival out of business. You have the option to advertise which can cost a lot of money. This will eventuate into a "Fever Time" in which you earn Hearts easier and customers purchase more items. Furthermore, you can hire Mall Managers; they basically boost the qualities of your shops and help earn Hearts from customers.
The other strategic element the game has is the inclusion of combos. By placing certain stores next to each other, you get synergies and their stats significantly increase. The game officially ends in March of Year 16, displaying the high score you've achieved. However, it is very easy to unlock everything there is to get or at least the majority by the time Year 10 is over. After "beating the game", you gain some perks such as increasing the speed of the game, as well as continuing on as long as you wish, with the only difference being that you don't accrue any points for your high score anymore. There is a New Game Plus option which allows you to carry over some items but as no new gameplay is introduced, it can get boring. The graphics are nothing spectacular; being the same pixilated 8-bit inspired graphics from all of Kairosoft's other games. The same few pieces of music are played but thankfully, they are not annoying and you enjoy the tunes a fair bit. Overall, Megal Mall Story is a fantastic game that will keep you addicted for at least a few hours. While you can see all there is to see in around 5-8 hours, there's just something about watching your tiny pixilated customers buying items from you shops that makes you want to keep going. Highly recommended you give this game a try!
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