Let's School is a PlayStation 5 game that aims to simulate the experience of managing a school, attempting to restore it to its former glory. You play as both a former student and the newly appointed headmaster of a financially troubled educational institution. The game tries to position itself as engaging by allowing players to control various aspects of school management.
The core gameplay involves rebuilding your school from the brink of financial collapse. However, the game reduces this experience to a simple business transaction, where students are merely sources of income and teachers are tools to ensure that income remains consistent. Students lack individuality; their needs and characteristics are distilled into stats based on their geographic origins, which dictate the subjects they need to study.
In an attempt to diversify gameplay and keep it from becoming monotonous, Let's School introduces some mechanics that add layers to the management process. These include the ability to schedule classes, manage extracurricular activities, and respond dynamically to student needs by customizing their educational paths based on their application details. This system allows for strategic decision-making regarding when to add or remove certain classes to maximize student performance on weekly exams.
However, this flexibility in management is a double-edged sword. It initially gives a sense of depth and control, but once you find a successful management formula that fosters a high student pass rate, the gameplay becomes repetitive. There seems to be little incentive to deviate from a once-successful strategy, turning the game into an automatic, self-running model where player intervention is minimally required.
Visually, Let's School does not stand out. The game suffers from technical issues such as disappearing rooms and items during building phases, and glitches where deleted items are still treated as if present. These bugs often necessitate restarting the game, creating a cycle of frustration and detracting from the gaming experience.
The audio aspect of the game does not fare much better. The background music is underwhelming, likened to elevator music, which has led to some players muting the game altogether in favor of listening to external audio like podcasts. This choice by the players indicates a lack of engaging auditory experience, further diminishing the overall appeal of the game.
As a management simulator, Let's School has the potential to be an engrossing game that provides insight into the complexities of running a school. However, its execution falls short. It turns the vibrant, dynamic environment of a school into a dry, mechanistic system focused solely on operational efficiencies and profit maximization.
The game fails to capitalize on its unique setting by stripping away the nuances and personal elements that make managing a school potentially interesting and rewarding. Instead of fostering a connection with its characters and immersing players in the life of a school community, Let's School treats every aspect of educational management as purely transactional. This approach misses an opportunity to explore the rich, diverse experiences that could have been portrayed in a school setting, making Let's School a less engaging game that might not hold the interest of players beyond a few hours.
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