Puzzle Adventure Blockle (Switch) Review
Every now and then you play a game and it’s just so…. competent. It doesn’t do anything horribly wrong to leave a bad impression, and it doesn’t do anything amazing that stands out. Puzzle Adventure Blockle is one of those games, and I have struggled to write about it since playing.
It’s a puzzle game. A screenshot will tell you 90 percent of the information you need to know, and the other 10 percent is me saying you can press L/R to rotate the stage 90 degrees and everything moves like you would expect. I may sound negative, but like I said, it works. It mixes it up by having ice physics and warps, and keys that you need to end the stage – it’s a very competent game.
There are objectives to complete in each level, a 3-star system, complete under x moves, y rotations, get all the crystals. There’s also a heart system that’s kind of baffling why it’s even included because it doesn’t penalise you at all, and just is there to fill screen space and lines of code. The old saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, seems appropriate for the game as it shoves everything together for seemingly no reason other than to tick features off a form.
Then there’s the story that happens between levels. You can skip it. It’s cute at first, but it overstays its welcome fairly quickly. This is where the anime girl comes in, a goddess, a human, a way to widen appeal to certain audiences? Your guess is as good as mine. The narrative doesn’t add anything to the game, and in a way, takes away from times where you can be solving more puzzles.
There are 80 puzzles in total spread across 8 worlds and most can be done under 15-20 moves. I breezed through half the game in about an hour, albeit not always collecting all three stars in each level. There’s not a whole lot of replayability here either and while it’s only $10 on the eShop, I feel an iOS app at a fraction of that amount holds numerous more value and content.
Going back to my opening, this game isn’t bad, this game isn’t great. It’s just there, I played it, and I won’t be going back to it. I find it hard to recommend to anyone with a smartphone since there are similar if not better experiences out there already. If you like puzzle games and want a few hours to kill between shooting squids and Rabbids, pick it up, just set expectations accordingly.
Rating: 3/5
