Mega Mall Story 2 Review (Nintendo Switch)

Placement is key. For example, putting high-Reputation shops upstairs encourages customers to shop in less attractive stores they pass along their way there. You can rearrange shops at any time, if you have the moolah. Beware, though, that the further you build from ground floor, the more expensive it is. This applies not only to brand-new shops but also to shops you’re relocating! Yep, you’re always paying for something, be it new staff, new stairs, or new steak houses. But at least demolishing shops costs nothing; in fact, you get a little cash back!

Cash will be slightly tight at first (but never too scarce), though in later years you’ll probably have way more money than you need. MMS2 isn’t a punishing or difficult game. Money isn’t all-important here; it’s a Rank 5 title you’re after, and MMS2 gives you 15 years to do this, which is a very generous amount of time.

The monotony is broken by exciting moments of “Frenzy,” which is when the music picks up and a flood of customers pour in and shop like crazy. It’s also fun to welcome new customers, who arrive after you’ve added new stores and fulfilled customer requests. Most are human customers, your ordinary grandpa or high-schooler. But there’s an occasional animal or man-in-costume, which is super cute. I was surprised to actually spot specific customers zooming around my mall after they had become regulars.

Besides a better tutorial, here’s what else I wish the game had. More than anything: an alphabetical list of shops, not just shops listed by floor, because it takes ages to track down shops when you have a sprawling 23-floor mall.

Next, I could really have used a fast-forward button to skip animations and messages. In the Settings menu, there’s an option for “Fast” speed gameplay, but it’s locked until you finish the game once. Why not make it available from the start? Lastly, the game should allow players to relocate shops one tile away.

Currently, there’s an absurd rule where you can’t relocate a shop if the new location overlaps even slightly with the current location.

But like so many obsessions, MMS2 is both fun and fatiguing. Sometimes it’s hard to draw a line between the two. Though, when my mall grew into a massive monster (I named it “Tyrannoshoppus” Mall, by the way), it crossed the line to fatigue. Tapping through repetitive screens and animations, waiting ages for VIPs to show up, the toil of relocating stores yet again . . . it felt too much, almost like trekking through a needlessly oversized mall I know in real life (also aptly named Mega Mall). By the time I hit Rank 5, I didn’t feel like using the remaining years to enjoy the rewards unlocked by my victory: new stores, new floors, new customer requests.