Storm Tale

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Storm Tale is a Match-3 Puzzle released on PC in 2018, ported to mobile devices in 2020, and then ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021. This game takes the basic gameplay of Puzzle games like Bejeweled and uses it to create a challenge where players must clear specific spaces from the board to complete a level.

This game makes use of cartoony 2D visuals with a medieval fantasy motif that are pretty unimpressive, with an interface that is reminiscent of a mobile game. This is joined by decent voice acting and backed by an extremely repetitive instrumental soundtrack. There’s very little about this game’s presentation that’s appealing.

At the very least, the gameplay is surprisingly engaging, but it’s made unnecessarily frustrating by the prominent role luck plays in the gameplay, as multiple levels have pieces you need to destroy but can’t unless you get a specific piece to fall in a specific place. At times this will mean that you’ll need to restart a level multiple times, not because you weren’t skilled enough to complete it the first time, but because you weren’t lucky enough.

There’s another issue here too. The game’s controls are buggy, and often select the wrong piece, forcing players to deselect and select again. It’s not a game-breaking flaw, but it’s extremely annoying, and very frequent.

In the end, Storm Tale just doesn’t have a whole lot going for it. At its core is a decent Match-3 Puzzle game, but one that doesn’t really stand out among so many other Puzzle games on the Nintendo Switch. And that’s before taking into consideration the buggy controls and lackluster presentation. This isn’t a terrible Puzzle game, but you have so many better options on Nintendo Switch that I don’t know why you would bother with this game.

tl;dr – Storm Tale is a Match-3 Puzzle game similar to Bejeweled, and while the core gameplay here is good, it’s marred by buggy controls, an ugly presentation, a lack of anything noteworthy to set it apart from the crowd, and luck playing far too major a role in the gameplay. You have better options than this on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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