LIMBO (Switch eShop) Review

Limbo became an Indie hit in 2010. Since then it’s shown up on any platform it can run on, and now it’s the Switch’s turn. It is available now along with the developers’ follow up game Inside, and while it is the weaker of the two it provides a good chance to see what had people talking all those years ago.

Limbo is a puzzle platformer set in a monochromatic world bathed in a film grain filter, with much of the world appearing as silhouettes. You play as a boy who’s woken up in a foreboding forest, there’s no text or dialogue to explain what’s happening, you just go with it. Looking outside of the game to get a better idea of the story, the boy is looking for his sister. To find your sister involves facing a ruthless world with death ever-present, it will often come out of nowhere too. Hazards and swift ends are hidden in the environment. Bear traps are an early and regular threat which will get you used to popping your clogs in a violent fashion. Just like with Inside, Limbo doesn’t hold back when the boy is killed, whether it’s dismembering or having him impaled on various spiky things.

Even though it isn’t detailed, it still manages to look like a horrible death. If it does bother you it is possible to turn off the death animations. Something you’ll find early on is that Limbo likes to play with expectations, and it will punish you for treating it like any other game. When you think you have it worked out that’s when it throws an extra trap at you. Sometimes it’s clever, too often it can feel cheap. The cheap deaths are usually sudden or unavoidable deaths. You don’t see them coming the first time around, but then you’re unlikely to be fooled again. Luckily, checkpoints are never far from where you died and it doesn’t usually take long to get back into the game.

The adventure doesn’t go for too long, it’s a good three hours and if some of the puzzles trip you up it can be another hour or so. The first half of the game feels like it’s over too soon. As you travelling through the wilderness, the boy encounters obstacles that are actively trying to stop him from moving forward. The second half then feels like it goes for a bit too long. The environment becomes more industrial and the game suffers. It becomes more puzzles and drags more. The game is about the right length all up, it still manages to do plenty with that amount of time.

Something that you’ll notice quite early in the game is that there isn’t really any music. Most of the sound is ambient environmental noise. This helps every sound cue stand out, whether it’s something incoming or to help solve a puzzle. It also adds to the games’ constant sense of dread. The art style that the game uses just naturally instills unease, and it doesn’t take long to see what a dark and unforgiving world it is. The sound throughout helps to ratchet that unease and creepiness up another notch.

While I have my nit-picks about the pacing and cheap deaths, Limbo still stands up.  Maybe not as much as it used to (8 years is a long time). It took six years for the studio to follow it up with Inside to come along and knock some of that shine off. Limbo is still a great single player platform puzzler, and a game capable of sitting in the back of your head for some time. Even eight years after playing it the first time I can never forget the giant spider.

Limbo runs perfectly fine on the Switch and still looks great, even in handheld. It is even already very reasonably priced. If you’ve somehow missed this notable indie title now is a great time to see what you’ve been missing. At the very least it would hopefully encourage you to buy Inside afterward.

Rating: 3.5/5