Snipperclips - Review
The launch of a new console is the perfect time to launch a new franchise and it is even better when it’s a new digital title, Snipperclips fits both of those criteria, it’s both all new and digital only and while the premise is simple, the game is nothing but.
Snipperclips is designed to be played with more than one player, though you can do that, if you want, but two players are the best way to play it. The entire theme of the game is solving little puzzles, from matching a shape, too getting an object to a goal, the mix of objectives keeps things fresh, but also keeps the challenge coming. You take control of a piece if paper, if you play solo, you can control them both, but swapping between the two of them, in multiplayer you control one each. Your paperling (that is what I am calling them) can jump, crouch, stand on the tiptoes, rotate and cut, each of the moves can be chained with the others and when you combine them together, you can solve the puzzles.
The first world is going to be your basic puzzles, matching a shape or feeding an item to a goal and while they seem easy, there is no single solution to solve them and you are better off experimenting here than in later levels. The first level requires you to match a shape, nice and simple, you line up your paperling to cut the other one, to get their form into the requirement that you need, while they then in turn cut you to match and when you overlay the design, you can see how close you are. If you get it right, then you succeed and you can move on, if not you then need to consider what you are missing or where you cut too much from and try again. Given that it is a mix of trial and error, if you do cut too much, you can just respawn your missing paper and try again, no reloading of the level, just hold the button down and your right.
The fun comes from working with someone to try and solve the puzzle, I also played through them solo before I did them with someone else, but trying to get another human to do things my way, in anything, is always a challenge, so basically stating I knew how to solve it, always resulted in people not listening and trying their own ways, which would also work. The fun also happened to be from the random attempts that did not work, but still resulted in smiles on faces. Perhaps the best part, is not in solving a puzzle, but in seeing the faces on the player you are with, as you cut their paperling to nothing, watching the humorous faces the paperlings pull as they meet their demise.
In fact, the visual style of the game is one that is pure colour and simplistic, the paperlings themselves have no arms, only legs and a face, but how expressive that face is. If you jump, crouch or perform any other kind of movement, your character’s face will react, jump on top of someone and again, the face reacts, sometimes it’s a funny face, sometimes an angry one. The levels themselves also work from this simple art style, there are many elements that sit as part of the background, but you can still interact with them, just moving them around, but it works. The first world is themed around paper, so everything has this paper look to it, the second world is retro video game themed, so there is a filter view applied to everything, giving them an old 8-bit feeling the world.
Snipperclips has two drawbacks, the first is that while you can play solo, it’s nowhere near as much fun as it is when playing with others, all the charm in the world can’t make the game interesting, when you spend most of your time swapping back and forth between each. The other drawback is that there are only a handful of puzzle types, which repeat multiple times a world and then in the next world and the next. Once you understand the right type, its just a matter of working out the final adjustments.
Snipperclips is a game of almost infinite charm, the whimsical style works well for the gameplay on offer and while the game supports solo play, it’s something that really must be played with two players or more. If you are looking for something to begin your digital experience on Nintendo Switch, you can’t go wrong here.
