Super-Box-Land-Demake LadiesGamers.com

Super Box Land Demake Review (Switch)

Game: Super Box Land Demake
Genre: Puzzle, box-moving, sokoban
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS4, PS Vita, and Xbox One)
Developer/Publisher: lightUP | Ratalaika Games
Age Rating: EU: 3+| US: E for Everyone
Price: £ 3.99 | $ 4.99 | € 4,99
Release Date: 11th October 2019

Review code courtesy of Ratalaika Games.

Super Box Land Demake is a box-moving puzzle game that offers both solo and cooperative play. In the tradition of sokoban games (Japanese for “storehouse keeper”), you complete puzzles by pushing boxes to designated spots.

Super Box offers a decent set of 100 puzzles in a cute graphical throwback to the Game Boy era. And that’s all there is to it—no more, no less, no frills.

Co-op sokoban

I played most of Super Box co-operatively, with my husband. It was more fun than playing solo, partly because you can push boxes much faster between two people. As they say, many hands make light work! And it’s satisfying when you succeed at communicating as a team.

On the flipside, it can be annoying if each player is doing their own thing and messing up the puzzle. The game is very forgiving of mistakes, though.

You can reset the puzzle without cost (except to the timer, which keeps record of how long you’ve spent on the game overall). Or, you can hit the “A” button to rewind your last few steps, at the cost of batteries. Batteries can be collected from random bushes.

Tip 1: You can switch between three Game Modes on the fly by pressing “X”: single player; single player controlling two avatars; or, two players controlling an avatar each.

Tip 2: If you’re stuck and need to reset the puzzle, exit the area by moving your avatar through the bottom “road” and re-enter. This way, you avoid having to reconfigure your Switch controllers.

(Before we figured out Tips 1 and 2, we struggled for half an hour with the controls and controllers.)

100 puzzles, 5 worlds, but not much variety

The game’s 100 puzzles are divided into 5 worlds (20 puzzles per world). The worlds are merely varying backdrops and don’t offer anything new in terms of game mechanics.

But a change in backdrop is certainly needed—it would be boring to see the same landscape again and again—and in fact, I wish backdrops varied more within each world. I quickly tired of the game’s soundtrack as well, which is the same song throughout the entire game except for the final puzzle of each world.

These minor annoyances don’t detract from the meat of the game, though, which is the puzzles themselves. I thought the puzzles were good and liked that they weren’t arranged in order of difficulty. Easier puzzles are interspersed among tougher puzzles, which I think decreases the likelihood of players getting tired and, instead, provides momentum to keep playing the game.

After completing each world there’s a plane-flying, balloon-shooting act. Shooting balloons gets you battery refills. It’s a little pointless to me since batteries aren’t hard to come by during puzzles, but I suppose looking at the blue sky is a nice breather after you’ve done 20 puzzles in a row.

Conclusion

80 puzzles in, I’m keen to push through to the end of Super Box Land Demake. I reckon playing co-operatively takes 3 to 4 hours in total, which is nice if you’re looking for a short game to share with a friend or family member.

Super Box is low-key and unexciting, but it achieves what I think it set out to do: provide a moderate, pleasant challenge in the sokoban tradition. If Normal Mode isn’t quite right for you, give it a try on Easy or Hard Mode, which adjusts your ability to rewind mistakes.

Verdict: I like it

I like it

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *