Azkend 2: The World Beneath (Switch eShop) Review

Match-3 styled puzzle games are a dime a dozen on the mobile and PC market, but Azkend 2: The World Beneath represents the first game of this type to grace the Nintendo Switch. If you’ve ever played a game like this before you’ll know exactly what to expect, but a bevy of interesting mechanics combined with the portability of the Switch means that it may be worth a look.

The main draw of the game is the story mode, which sees your ship caught in a storm and suddenly dragged into the depths below. Your journey through the mysterious world beneath the sea spans 60 levels across 17 chapters, each tasking you with completing a variation on a classic match-3 puzzle. The game starts with levels just as you would expect – line up 3 or more of the same object on the playing board to cause the objects to clear and the panel underneath to turn blue. Turning all the tiles on the board blue before time runs out causes a piece of an item to appear, at which point you’ll continue to eliminate objects until the item piece drops to the bottom of the screen and you finish the level.

Collecting all the pieces of an item will grant you a new power-up of either the active or passive variety, of which you can have one of each equipped at any time. Active power-ups range from hammers that target and destroy pieces that will assist in completing the level objective, to summoning winds that sweep away large portions of the board. The passive power-ups can provide simple boosts such as more time to complete a level, or stopping the game’s streak mechanic “tesla-coils” from losing their charge.

The Tesla coils will build up during a level when a move is made that contributes to the completion goal in a level. Once fully charged, five bolts of lightning will rain down and clear important spaces on the board. It’s a clever idea that forces you to consider each the order in which you will clear spaces as opposed to blindly matching anything, as the lightning bolts can be crucial in completing some of the game’s trickier later levels. Combining this with the substantial number of power-up combinations means that a level of strategic thinking is required to be successful.

The game attempts to shake up the formula by introducing unique level types and completion objectives at a steady drip, meaning the story initially clips along at a nice pace without feeling like you’re doing the same thing for too long. Level types include stopping a fire from spreading across the board, collecting flower petals, eliminating a pre-determined set of pieces on the board, and stopping villainous bugs from reaching the top of the screen. These bugs are easily the most challenging levels in the game. What is normally a relaxing, simple game of puzzle match can turn into a frustrating cycle of bad luck. Most of these levels in the latter half of the game took at least a couple of attempts, as bad fortune would mean that often pieces simply weren’t available to be lined up on tiles adjacent to bugs to stop their advance towards the top. Having to repeat these levels starts to introduce some tedium that can really grate during the second half of the adventure, as the slew of new game types in the first half of the game begin to dry up and it starts getting a bit on the repetitive side.

The levels are broken up between chapters with story segments containing nicely illustrated artwork for each area. Your character narrates your movement through the landscapes with some respectable voice acting. You’ll also be tasked with completing “hidden-object” style challenges where you’ll need to find locations in the environment based on a small clue. Finding these at the start of a chapter gives a boost to your tesla coil charge at the start of each level, and they provide a good change of pace from the standard puzzling levels. That said, halfway through the game they start to rotate the clue images without telling you, which can make finding the correct edge of a rock on a mountain a little difficult.

If your puzzle itch still hasn’t been scratched after the credits roll on the 8-10 hour adventure, there are also two bonus challenge modes. Time mode is simply a classic matching level where you try and get the highest score possible within the time limit, whilst Medal mode asks you to complete each level from the adventure mode within half of the available time limit originally given. These modes are nothing flashy, but if you want to keep getting a quick puzzle fix they do give you something to come back to.

The game’s phone and tablet origins translate well to the Switch. The game can be played with the control stick and a single button, or by using the touch screen in handheld mode. You’ll definitely want to do the latter, as the button controls can be fiddly and lack the speed and precision required to make the game enjoyable to play. It’s also well suited to the pickup and play nature offered by the Switch. It’s a game that’s most fun to play in small doses, sneaking in a quick level or two when you’ve got 10 minutes to kill.

Azkend 2: The World Beneath is an enjoyable if predictable puzzle game that feels right at home on the Switch. It’s polished, it looks and sounds great, and has enough content to justify the price tag. It’s not the most exciting game you’ll play this year, but it’s a solid choice for a casual puzzle fix in between your meatier Switch adventures.

Rating: 3 / 5