Genre: Simulation
Developer: Kairosoft
Publisher: Kairosoft

Ask ten modern game designers to make pixel art that isn't obnoxiously pretentious, and odds are nine of them will fail. Kairosoft's artists, however, seem to have the style down to, well, an art form; Beastie Bay in particular is super bright and colorful, well animated, and wonderfully expressive. The only thing that lets it down is the low-budget presentation, particularly with the stock Android font usage in the menus.

Beastie Bay's soundtrack is a fusion of something akin to carnival and contemporary pop music, with a lot of experimental accordion and xylophone. It really fits the zany, non-sequitor style of the game's writing and character designs. Sound effects are also quite memorable, and the whole aural package comes together as very complete-- uncommon for a mobile title.

Take two copies of Sim City, three copies of any Pokemon title, add a pinch of Theme Park, and just a sprinkle of Minecraft, mix it up, and bake it for a few hours. The result? A game that manages to have many mechanics from all of those titles, yet is just not watered down enough to ruin the whole thing.

The amount of depth in Beastie Bay is fairly staggering; not only could min-max type gamers completely level up their army of critters, make the optimal island configuration, and fully explore and maximize investment abroad, but they could do all of that in new game plus fashion, competing via leaderboards. The problem is, the game isn't quite fun enough to make that worthwhile; but even though it wears a bit then by the end of a single playthrough-- never mind several-- Beastie Bay is still a very sophisticated mobile package.