Grid Mania review

Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

A puzzle game to buy with the change left over in the eShop.

Grid Mania’s concept and aesthetics are not as effective at attracting the attention of avid shoppers at Nintendo’s little store as its price is. In practice, it is an addictive exercise in logic and reasoning with very well-balanced progression. There are 170 puzzles (not counting the automatically generated ones), split into 4 quite distinct modes: Casual Puzzle, Quick Challenge, Grid Madness and Chain Reaction. In all of them, the goal is to move spheres of different colors on checkered boards with sizes ranging from 4×4 to 8×8.

Mechanics: 8

The proposal seems simple and similar to previous games. But you immediately notice that the pieces move in rows and cannot be moved individually. It’s almost like a Rubik’s Cube. To move the cursor, you use the d-pad or the left analog stick. To move the pieces, you use the action buttons A, B, X and Y or the right analog stick in the direction you want to move the row or column. In Casual mode, for example, you must arrange the pieces so that all of them sit on squares of the matching color. Quick Challenge, although similar, has a counter that limits the number of moves allowed, which considerably increases the challenge. In all the options, there are only red and blue pieces at first. Then everything starts to get complicated with more colors appearing on the screen.

Audio and visuals: 6

There is nothing beyond the absolute essentials in the graphics. Even very old puzzle games like Bejeweled 2, from 2004, had beautiful and elaborate backdrops and effects, things that simply don’t exist in this Switch game. The simplistic look, however, doesn’t get in the way at all and doesn’t stop Grid Mania from being engaging. The atmosphere provided by the soundtrack is certainly a positive point, although the loops are rather short, which makes the sound repetitive, but not to the point of becoming unpleasant. Any of the songs could have been the B-side of some random 90s Depeche Mode single and nobody would have minded, because the sound is similar.

Grid Mania is great for trips or long waits in doctors’ offices, since it’s very easy to start and finish a session. It would play the role of a default app very well if it were included from the factory on the Switch, as Solitaire and Minesweeper were on the Windows system. At the price of 3.99 dollars and 150MB of the console’s internal memory, with all its qualities and small flaws, the game is a must for all fans of the style and for anyone wanting to increase the variety of titles stored and ready to play anywhere. I recommend it.

Overall: 7