Big Ambitions - Game Review

In Big Ambitions, you dive into the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship, where you build your dream business from the ground up. Set in a bustling, open-world city, this game offers a detailed and immersive business simulation experience. You start small, managing your finances and resources, but soon scale up to a complex empire with real challenges. From negotiating leases to designing storefronts, every decision impacts your success. The game’s mix of business strategy and role-playing elements makes it a unique take on the simulation genre, ideal for players who love micromanagement and realistic challenges.
Big Ambitions, business simulation, open-world game, entrepreneurship game, business strategy, small business, startup, city simulation, role-playing game, economic simulator
Time Stamps:
00:00 - | Start
00:01 - | Introduction
01:02 - | Gameplay and Mechanics
05:46 - | Visuals and Sound
07:09 - | Realism?
09:23 - | Final Thoughts
12:03- | Is it the Best or Worst game ever

[@rodh1404]

The game can be really good, in the beginning. You touched on this in the video but there's really not a whole lot of actual interaction going on. Outside of the tutorial and scripted interactions with rivals, there isn't a whole lot of roleplaying in the game. And that hits hard in the end game because as the game progresses and you accumulate money, the grind gets real. You just wait until you can rent or buy another building and open another shop. That's when the lack of other things to do really shows itself. Your headquarters / warehouse(s) and shop employees should make it so that you never have to deal with your already established stores, so it's not unusual for me to have the character sleep/rest for 12 hours straight. After which it's just have a meal and go back to sleep again. It's a game which is in desperate need of making that end game more meaningful. Rivals do add an end game challenge, but once you understand how the game works it's not especially hard to take them down, it's just time consuming. Another flaw (IMO) is that the best way to play the game is to rent an apartment, but not live in it. You're far better off if you spend your resting time in the two parks the game provides. Likewise, I find that having a car is a huge disappointment. The car handles terribly, and as you've mentioned it gets expensive because it's so easily damaged. I just sell it immediately in the tutorial and mostly use the subway since it's SO much better. You will have to buy big trucks and drive them to your warehouse(s) in the mid and late game, but aside from that I don't drive vehicles at all.

[@ChronicFroggy]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts-it’s clear you’ve put a lot of time into analysing the game. I completely agree, especially about the lack of late-game interactions. The grind really does become noticeable, and the rivals, while a good idea does not feel complete yet. I hope with updates this will be expanded on. Your point about sleeping in parks rather than using an apartment made me smile-it’s such an odd thing, but you’re right. And the vehicles! They’re such a letdown. Like you, I ditched the car early but stuck with the taxi or the scooter. Thanks again for your detailed comment-hopefully, future updates will address these quirks and bring more depth to the end game! I still think it could be a really good game :)

[@rodh1404]

@@ChronicFroggy Agreed. I've mostly played version 0.5, and 0.6 has some huge improvements on that. They solved some major issues with that update and my list of problems would have been easily twice as long if it was still 0.5. And the devs are very active when it comes to patching the game. My main concern is that once you're in the mid game (warehouse and HQ), you start to get into a position where there's not a lot to do. End game just magifies that problem where your character may as well sleep/rest the whole day most of the time. I can see a couple of things on the roadmap which might help with that, but right now I'm not sure the devs have an answer to that problem. Mind you, that's not unique to Big Ambitions. Lots of games have a problem with what happens once you've made a lot of money. I haven't played enough with factories to know whether they help solve that problem, but I'm not convinced factories are all that necessary anyway. It might be that I'll just avoid building factories entirely since they seem to add complication without providing significant benefits. It's very possible they'll get readjusted to become more useful, or that I'm not fully understanding just how beneficial they are right now.