When I first saw Let’s School, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Based on the name alone, I figured I’d get some cheap attempt at a sim game by some no-name developer. Little did I know that this was developed by the same guys that made My Time at Sandrock: Pathea Games.
So my expectations were certainly heightened once I started playing despite both my and CGM’s Remington Joseph’s feelings on Pathea’s games, you can’t say they don’t put their heart into making them—for better or worse. I was largely unaware of Let’s School so much so that I had completely missed that it had already been reviewed for CGM by our very own Steven Green.
However, as Let’s School finds its way onto the Nintendo Switch—expert on all things Nintendo that I am—it falls to me to be the judge of quality. It’s been quite a while since I played a good building sim on the Switch—I grabbed Cities: Skylines when it was ported back in 2018 and remembered really loving it there. So I had hoped Let’s School would provide me with similar satisfaction.
“Furthermore, Let’s School is just another sad example of a Switch port that does nothing with the Switch’s unique features.”
But honestly, Let’s School left me wanting a little bit, not just as a game in itself but also as a Switch port. To echo my colleague’s sentiments somewhat, Let’s School isn’t really a terrible game, but it pales in comparison to not only some of the other examples in the genre but those that have found their way onto the Switch.
I won’t go into too much detail because you can still read Steven’s review, which is a pretty fair criticism of the game. But since you’re here, let me break it down for you. You’re the headmaster of a school that’s in desperate need of repair, with teachers and, of course, students. You’re responsible for rebuilding the school, staffing it with the necessary people and managing its day-to-day operations. There’s no real overarching story or big end goal, just… make a good school—which in our current socio-economic climate is a fantasy worthy of a video game.
It’s a moderately interesting game that offers a fairly simple-to-use building system to create their school. However, it can quickly bombard the player with a litany of systems they’ll need to understand in order to manage the school. Fairly early on, it seems like they start throwing issues at you faster than you can even approach them, and basic things like a place for students to eat or a schedule that consists of more than four subjects need to be unlocked through incredibly slow progression.
It was something that quickly took me out of Let’s School. Too many of the basic constructs you’d think a school would need require an immense amount of investment and waiting for money to come in. On top of that, you have to manage every single teacher because not all of them are up to the task and need extreme investment and improvement.
However, regardless of how I feel about Let’s School, the purpose of this review is to ascertain how it functions as a Switch port, and the reality is…not very good. Navigating the game’s many menus is cumbersome and split between seemingly unnecessary button presses. Let’s say you want to add some windows to a room. You need to select the room with A and then press Y to enter edit mode.
However, you then need to immediately press B to exit the default room extension mode and gain access to the cosmetic options. This of course exists outside the second build menu which is selected through a wheel using the L button but only lets you add functional rooms to your school and not edit anything. And since several buttons are pulling double duty, it can easily get confusing what does what.
Furthermore, Let’s School is just another sad example of a Switch port that does nothing with the Switch’s unique features. You’d think a game like this would at least make use of the touch screen for easier control and access to information, but instead, you have to scroll around with the incredibly imprecise Joy-Con sticks. It doesn’t even use the HD Rumble to construct rooms.
While I’d say the game has a unique aesthetic that’s clearly going for something silly and fun, it can’t help but look a little cheap – something that seems to be exclusive to the Switch version. The resolution is a little low, not so much that it goes against the game’s intended style, but enough to be noticeable, and certain textures, such as grass or others, cut through the ground, ignoring the structures built on top of them. It’s just unfortunate.
Also, I think it needs to be said, but the music is just grating. As I said, I get that it’s going for a silly, playful vibe with that kind of wah-wah trumpet and kind of whimsical flute and triangle pings but there’s a certain point where something stops being cute and starts becoming annoying—especially when the music unceremoniously loops. A game about building a place of learning really needed music that was a bit more dialled down—think the Professor Layton soundtrack.
I really wanted to like Let’s School. Believe me, no one is more disappointed than me writing this review because, in theory, this game has everything I would love about a school-based sim builder. Maybe if I tried the PC version, I would be able to enjoy it a bit more, but based on everything else, I doubt it. To borrow a quote from my colleague, “Let’s School doesn’t come close to getting to that upper echelon of the genre,” especially on the Switch.
