Puzzle & Dragons Gold

Don’t waste your time or money on this poor approximation; go download Puzzle & Dragons for free on your phone for a much more enjoyable experience and save your money for much more worthwhile releases for the Switch.

Puzzle & Dragons Nintendo Switch Edition brings the popular mobile game to the Nintendo Switch. It comes at a low enough price to give puzzle fans something to play for a few hours. Making your own levels and downloading others is a fun distraction, but overall there's nothing new on offer here.

Puzzle & Dragons on console could be and should be so much more than this. The base game - the puzzling action itself - is so good, and we've already seen the proof that it works in a more expanded, ambitious project. Dumping the mobile game on Nintendo Switch, meanwhile, seems odd and pointless. I can't even play the mobile game here in Australia and I was still left wondering why anyone would think something this shallow and featureless would work on console.

It took me a while to pick up the game’s battle system due to my being a foreigner to this franchise, but once I figured out how to play the game, I got very, very tired, very very quickly. & seems to be a game made for fans who can get behind this battle system, but with no real characters or a reason to really play, I had no incentive to care once I’d cleared out the story battles.

Puzzles and Dragons is probably best know as a mobile game and the 2015 3DS release of Puzzles and Dragons Super Mario Edition. I played both versions over the years and I particularly enjoyed the 3DS Super Mario Edition. When Gold was released on the USA Eshop, with no European release scheduled I downloaded it from the USA shop. The story mode is very short, but after it’s finished you can play against the AI and unlock more teams and believe me, there are plenty to unlock. Visuals and sound effects are top notch and the core gameplay is interesting and enjoyable.

With some great games in the series' past, Puzzle & Dragons Gold is disappointingly stripped down yet it still offers an exciting combat dynamic, especially for those who prefer to flex their skills online.

It's neat that they brought the core game to the Switch, but I doubt anyone who's put an extensive amount of time (or, Naga forbid, money) into the mobile version won't have an incentive to make the jump. This is likely why my online requests keep timing out: there's not really a market here. And that's sad.