Theme Park Simulator Review ( Nintendo Switch)

Game: Theme Park Simulator
Genre: Simulator| Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch ( Also on Steam and Mobile)
Developers|Publishers: Best Ride Simulators| Badlands Publishing Press
Age Rating: EU 3| USA E | AUS G
Price: EU € 14,99| USA $14.99| AUS $21.99 | CA $20.99 |UK £ 12.99
Release Date: 17th April 2020

Review Code used with thanks to Badlands Publishing Press

Originally released on mobile and then earlier this year on Steam, it’s now the turn of the Nintendo Switch to host Theme Park Simulator.

Not A Management Sim

Like me, do you remember the days of Theme Park and Rollercoaster Tycoon? Both of them are theme park simulation games where it’s the players’ task to build and manage a thriving amusement park. From the positioning of the theme park rides to managing a budget to making sure your customers are happy with their amusement park experience.

By reading the title of this game, Theme Park Simulator you might think that this game is a management game to, along the same lines as both the Sim games I have mentioned above. At least, that’s what I thought. Unfortunately, if that is what you are looking for in this game you will be sadly disappointed.

Theme Park Simulator is solely an amusement ride simulator, there isn’t any  building, managing, budget or anything that is familiar in a simulation game. Instead what you do get is 11 prebuilt amusement rides:

  • Bumper Cars
  • Inverter
  • La Olla Tagada
  • Wild Mouse Roller Coaster
  • Techno Jump
  • Twister
  • Kamikaze
  • Takaido Roller Coaster
  • Viking Ship
  • Love Express
  • Ferris Wheel

Not Quite All the Fun of the Fair

In Theme Park Simulator there is no protagonist and no gaol. To be honest, there is not much actual gameplay either. The core gameplay experience for the player is engaging with each individual amusement ride in a variety of ways. You can control the capacity of visitors on the ride, the direction and speed, add lighting effects and smoke effects and where appropriate, adjust the rotation of the ride. You also control opening and closing the gate of each ride to allow the visitors on and off. There is an option to view each amusement ride in daylight or nighttime when you see the full effects of the amusement’s flashing bright lights.

Once you have set up the ride with the options detailed above you can view each ride in motion from different camera angles and hear the visitors screams as they enjoy the ride. And you can take a ride yourself on each amusement, with a third or first person view to experience the ride from the visitors point of view.

For the most part the experience from the visitors point of view is fine, until you yourself take a ride on the Ferris wheel. You would expect to see a  fantastic view from the top of a Ferris wheel but not in the case of Theme Park simulator. A lot of thought has gone into the actual amusement rides as they are replicated in good detail and bright colours but the same can’t be said for the background.

As the picture above shows the background is blurry with very little actual detail in it, which I found gave me the impression that the game has been taken directly from mobile and ported to the Nintendo Switch without much thought to how the draw distance would look on the Switch.

Visuals and Controls

The controls on Theme Park Simulator are via the touchscreen with minimal input from the Joy-Cons, since all you do as far as gameplay is concerned is press some icons on the screen. It works fine.

Varoius sound effects and music are heard through out the game and they are what you would expect to hear at an amusement park with lots of screams from the visitors. The sound effects and music are fine, but they do get repetitive very quickly.

 

Conclusion

There really isn’t much to write about Theme Park Simulator as there isn’t much to the actual gameplay. Once you have checked out each ride and fiddled around with a few settings for each of them the game is over.

There isn’t much to justify the price of this game, nor is there much gameplay to hold the players attention for any length of time. And there certainly isn’t any replay value in Theme Park Simulator.

Which only leaves me to say that my score is …..I Don’t Like It.

5 comments

  1. I am so disappointed with Theme Park Simulator. I purchased this game via Nintendo Switch store. I have the switch that is both dock and handheld. If I had known I could not play it from the dock and it’s only touch screen, I would have never purchased it. I had it on my wish list for approximately a week before buying it. I think you should make updates to this game to permit owners of the dock Nintendo Switch to have that option as well. Any intentions of making it playable via dock in the future?

    1. Hi Tonia,
      Thanks for reading the review and commenting.
      I’m sorry I can’t answer your questions about further updates to Theme Park Simulator as that would be up to the game’s developers who are Best Ride Simulators, as here at LadiesGamers we have no say in the development of the games as we only review and write about them.
      My advice if you are looking an answer to your question would be for you to get in touch with the games developers.
      All the best.

  2. I heard a lot of people saying it’s a game of the year. I don’t see it that way, I find that to be obnoxious and very stupid. I know it’s a joke but That game should never exist.

  3. I downloaded the game onto my switch. The game has a glitch where in the Takaido Roller coaster ride. You can only load the passengers into the ride about 2 or 3 times. Then on the 3rd time when the passengers are loading, one all of a sudden the passengers stop getting on the ride. Even though there are seats left on the train. This happens every time. I even re download the game still a problem.
    The problem is with the wild mouse on , is that passengers sit on top of each other, when getting into a carriage. This game is boring and I only bought it as it was on special.

  4. Hi Alexie,
    Thanks for commenting. That indeed does sound like a glitch in the game.
    I don’t know what would be causing the glitch as I didn’t have that happen during the time I was reviewing the game. And I haven’t played it again since as once was enough!

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