In Metropolismania you take control of Metropolis-Maker, trained by the government in the art of building cities while wearing your spiffy bright yellow government issued suit. You were chosen for this task out of a billion people (really, I couldn’t make this stuff up!). The government feels that people are not communicating enough with one another and have asked you to create a city and ensure that people interact with each other. After your top-secret training you are armed with chalk (to build roads, of course!), an applications book, and a cell phone to complete this daunting task.

Now Metropolismania’s controls are very intuitive, as well as quite simple, and they pretty much spoon feed them to you all throughout the first “mission”. Communication is the main goal in Metropolismania, which means you must talk with, learn about, and help solve the problems of the inhabitations of your city. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways, but walking through the streets of your city and asking around seems to be the most common way to accomplish your goals. Gifts also are essential for you to use if you are to accomplish your mission.

Graphically Metropolismania looks like it came out of the Dreamcast era; however the game carries a distinct charm to it. Characters are very anime-like with big heads, big round eyes, and small bodies. Artistically Metropolismania is very bright and cheerful looking; I would even go as far as to call this game cute.

This is one of those niche titles that will quickly find its way into your heart if you let it. Like the other games from Metropolismania’s genre, (Animal Crossing, The Sims, Harvest Moon, Legend of the River King, etc…) there are just some people that won’t grasp the innocent, quirky, and rather simplistic concepts of this game. It is truly refreshing to see a title come out this year that doesn’t focus on killing, racing, or the stopping of world dominance/destruction. Not that those games are a bad a thing, but rather, the change of pace is like a nice breath of fresh air in today’s gaming market of ports and rehashes. All in all, people that have enjoyed the games from Natsume’s library should not hesitate to jump all over this game, and those who just love people simulations need to rush out and give this game a try.