I hope you have plenty of time to lose because developer Kairosoft is back with another sim game to eat up the hours. In Mega Mall Story, your goal is to take the small building you've been given and turn it into a 5-star ranked mall within the span of fifteen years. Sound like an arduous task? Perhaps, but with the help of your faithful secretary and some wise investment, a great mall is certainly within reach.

For as complex a game as Mega Mall Story is, it sports a mostly intuitive control system. Everything is a touch or a drag away, with sometimes a double touch required to confirm choices such as shop placement. Moving around your mall can be annoying, and the double touch system isn't fool-proof, but these issues aside, the game is a breeze to play.

The flow of gameplay works like this. You build shops in your mall that attract customers. As a shop becomes popular it levels up and can even create regular customers that spend more money. To aid leveling up, shops can research new items that will boost stock and quality (at a higher expense). Researching new shops and items costs hearts which customers give you while using facilities such as rest areas, or while being aided by the staff you hire. Investing in property raises the population of your area, ensuring more customers (that can reach a fever pitch), and certain stores put together will create combos that will boost reputation and sales.

Each star rating on your way to five contains a laundry list of prerequisites including daily sales, number of stores, and number of regular customers, so not only is reaching these new star rankings a balancing act, but expanding your mall to do so can be just as difficult.

The sprite work on display here is appealing, but sometimes it is hard to see what's going on. The music is OK, but like most tracks, can get quite annoying over time (and you will be playing this quite a while if you like what you see). In the end, fans of sim games are going to love Mega Mall Story. It's got loads of content, and an easy to use interface. Perhaps more time could have gone into explaining the game's mechanics in a tutorial, but once you open your mall's doors, you might not put your iPhone down until the fifteen years have passed.