So, without further ado, we present — in no particular order — our selection of the best puzzle games on Switch…
Tetris is one of the greatest video games of all time, and Tetris Effect: Connected is perhaps the best iteration of the classic puzzler yet. While this Switch port doesn’t offer a great deal over existing versions in terms of features, it delivers the one key ingredient that its rivals cannot: portability. Sure, some will argue that Tetris Effect: Connected’s unique brand of synesthesia only really comes alive when played on PSVR or an Oculus Quest headset, but we’d argue passionately that this game benefits far more from the ability to pick it up and play whenever, wherever. Just as the Game Boy and Tetris combined to create an irresistible, world-conquering fusion back in 1989, Tetris Effect: Connected has finally found the hardware that allows it to truly shine, making this an utterly essential purchase for all Nintendo Switch owners. Just don’t forget those headphones.
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Six years in the making, Gorogoa is utterly unique and tough to describe. It requires you to zoom in and out of scenes to make connections between overlapping tableaus displayed in four static windows. Its inked, storybook presentation sees you aligning seemingly unrelated landscapes and architecture, making intuitive mental jumps as you guide a young boy through its pages. A brief, beautiful game that is best experienced unspoiled and in one sitting, do yourself a favour and tap that eShop icon – you won’t regret it.
Originally released on Wii back in 2010, Art of Balance has popped up in some form on every Nintendo console since, and we’re not tired of it yet. It has you fighting that most persistent of foes, gravity, by stacking shapes in such a manner that they don’t topple into a bowl of water. Your construction only needs to survive three seconds without falling, but that can be tough when the shapes become more cumbersome. With a variety of modes, its zen-like setting and chillout soundtrack are the perfect accompaniments to the hair-tearing frustration of trying to balance a triangle on a circle.
Toki Tori has you guiding the titular chick to collect his half-hatched pals as they sit around five worlds of maze-like levels. Starting out on the humble Game Boy Color, Two Tribes’ waddle-puzzler has seen multiple rereleases over the years, each with a fresh lick of paint and quality-of-life improvements, and it’s never looked better than on Switch. The rewind feature is also a godsend – one wrong move or misused power-up can make collecting those hatchlings impossible. If you can’t get enough of cute chicks waddling around punishing puzzle platforms, the sequel is also well worth investigating.
You’ve got to work quite hard to mess up Picross, so whatever version you have handy is sure to be fun. This, like its predecessors and its successors, offers solid, no-frills Picross puzzling…
Hang on! Holy moly, they added touchscreen support! Other than the touch controls, Picross S7 is pretty much the same game you’ve played countless times before; an ‘expansion pack’ with another few hundred nonogram puzzles just like the last several hundred nonogram puzzles. It remains a brilliant puzzle game, though, so if you’re not tired of Picross, we’d recommend S7 for the fact it was the first to launch with touch support.
However, all of Jupiter’s Picross S entries now have touch controls and multiplayer support added, and any of them will go down very nicely with a cup of tea thank-you-vicar.
Releasing towards the end of 2017, this highly polished presentation of a popular early ‘90s arcade game in Japan got buried as Switch releases began piling up. Screenshots show what looks like a Puyo Puyo clone; Soldam is anything but. 2×2 blocks of primary-coloured fruit fall into a well and matching fruit at the far ends of the lines (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal) link together, transforming everything in between to their colour and causing them to vanish if you change an entire line. It’s confusing and counter-intuitive for anyone who’s spent hundreds of hours with Tetris or Puyo Puyo, but its unique take on the falling-block genre is equally addictive. With a whole bunch of modes and some cursory online multiplayer, this is a gem that shouldn’t remain hidden at the bottom of the eShop.
With a wealth of newer titles to choose from, it would be easy to overlook the older gems that have found a home on Switch. Hamster’s ACA Neo Geo releases have been a regular fixture on the eShop from the start and we’ve seen some cracking puzzlers amongst the shmups and beat ’em ups; Data East’s Magical Drop III is a shining example. You control a jester at the bottom of the screen who grabs matching balloons from the descending columns and deposits them together in order to clear them. A simple objective, catchy tunes and a fun cast of characters make this one of the most addictive retro puzzlers on the console (Puzzle Bobble – or Bust-a-Move, depending on your region – is another classic you should avail yourself of).
Battling across a series of conveyor belts loaded with sushi, Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido tasks you with chaining together and stacking matching plates before lobbing them at your rival; the more expensive the plate, the more damage it deals. Sounds simple enough, though a complex system of transformative abilities and sprites multiply the strategies available as you fight. While it’s possible to play on the TV, the touchscreen makes things much easier, so this vibrant, sushi-centric brawler is best suited to portable play.
Your feathered friend in this wonderfully animated game has the ability to lay unlimited bombs in lieu of more traditional eggs. You use this extraordinary skill to work through a variety of installations solving problems by destroying barriers, avoiding traps, and stacking explosives to deal with enemies and environmental conundrums alike. The pixel art looks glorious on Switch, and while it’s not reinventing the wheel, Bomb Chicken is an explosive little puzzle package.
Bigger and more fully featured than ever, BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! marks a high point in this quirky puzzle-platformer series. It’s not perfect — the stripped-back aesthetic and lethargic physics won’t be everyone’s cup of tea — but fans of co-op puzzlers, in particular, should investigate pronto. The ‘Tale for Two’ campaign lets a second player take control of Qucy and you must work together to create strings of boxes and navigate through each 2D level to the exit. It remains a distinctive and deceptively layered puzzler very much in line with the trilogy on 3DS, but the fact that you can now bring a partner in on the fun makes this the best BOXBOY yet.
What happens when you throw arguably the two most popular falling block puzzle games in a blender? It’s a miracle that the result wasn’t a horrible, horrible mess, but Puyo Puyo Tetris mixes the two so confidently that it doesn’t occur to you how catastrophic this cocktail could have been. Sonic Team respects the fundamentals of each series and offers a rock-solid game of both, but isn’t afraid to have fun stirring them together. There’s a bevy of multiplayer options for up to four people, and everything is presented with a vigour and verve which belies the decades-long history behind both puzzle genre titans. The Story mode is… well, it’s a bit nuts, but it’s there if you want it (we were glad for the skip button). Overall, this is a glorious firework of a crossover, uniting puzzle fans of all creeds and it shines very brightly on Switch.
And there’s always the sequel if you simply can’t get enough Puyos and Tetrominoes. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 could never hope to have the same impact as the first game, but it remains a brilliant puzzle title nevertheless. While some may feel it’s not quite different enough from its predecessor, the new single-player story is just as entertaining as the last one, and the Skill Battle mode adds interesting mechanics to the mix. It’s still absolutely packed with content; it’s just that the first game was too, so the impact is lessened slightly.
As is so common in video games, stone blocks are falling from the sky and it’s your job to shoot individual blocks off the bottom row as they slowly tumble down. Shooting three matching colours in a row erases them and the challenge lies in working out the correct order and planning ahead so you don’t shoot yourself into a corner. Despite sounding familiar and this version lacking online play, Tumblestone’s surprisingly engaging story and a raft of additions as you progress make it a very solid contender on Switch and well worth checking out.
Spun out from bonus levels that appeared in Wii U’s Super Mario 3D World, in some ways Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’s diorama puzzle boxes resemble a 3D Toki Tori, and tracking down each level’s gems and Power Star will stretch the ol’ grey matter more than you might expect. Of course, this game throws in some platforming into the puzzling, albeit without any of that ‘jumping’ malarkey. Until the arrival of Dr. Mario (or even Dr. Luigi – we knew we’d missed something off our final Wii U ports wishlist!), Captain Toad is representing the Mushroom Kingdom admirably in the puzzle genre.
Another game for foodies, Battle Chef Brigade is a daring mixture of culinary puzzling and 2D RPG-lite monster battling. In its 2D world, slain beasties drop ingredients and heroes promptly dash to the kitchen for some pot-based match-three puzzling. Combining ingredients enables them to knock up scrumptious stews and other heavenly dishes to appease demanding judges. Its unique blend of Monster Hunter and Masterchef is topped off with a beautiful, hand-drawn aesthetic, making it a particularly tasty puzzling treat.
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