Around the World in 80 Days

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Wireless)

.

Review:

Around the World in 80 Days is a Match-3 Puzzle game released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2015 and also released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game intersperses story tidbits from the classic Jules Verne novel with Match-3 Puzzle gameplay reminiscent of games like Bejeweled, with the game played in book-style, with the Nintendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS held sideways.

The presentation here is decent, but nothing extraordinary, using 2D visuals with hand-drawn artwork depicting the characters and locales from the story in the background. You’ll read through brief snippets from the story and then be tossed into the Puzzle gameplay, which has relaxed but forgettable instrumental music. Overall, this isn’t anything particularly memorable or interesting, but it works.

The same can be said for the gameplay here, which does little to shake up the Bejeweled formula. You’re mainly aiming to lower specific tiles to the bottom of the screen by matching everything underneath them within a time limit, and you have a few other elements such as special abilities you charge up over time. Beyond that… yeah, this is Bejeweled. There’s not much here in the way of game modes or features. It’s just the same sort of Match-3 Puzzle you can find in countless other knockoffs.

Is that worth $5 to you? Honestly, I think Bejeweled is a pretty lackluster Puzzle game to begin with, so the thought of buying a knockoff with minimal features does not strike me as at all appealing, and there are multiple other games like this on the Nintendo 3DS even. As such, while there’s nothing technically wrong with this game, I can’t really recommend it.

tl;dr – Around the World in 80 Days is a Match-3 Puzzle game that intersperses story tidbits from the classic Jules Verne novel with Bejeweled-style gameplay. While it’s perfectly functional, there’s not really anything this gameplay does that you can’t find in countless other games, and if you want to read Jules Verne, I suggest you just get the book and skip this uninspired feature-poor game.

Grade: C-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}