Flip Over Frog

Genre: Board Game / Card Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless / Online)

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Review:

Flip Over Frog is a digital version of the 2018 Board / Card Game that has players placing different animal cards on a board with the goal of getting their own preferred animal to be the one with the most cards remaining once the board is filled.

The Nintendo Switch version of the game switches up the visuals, replacing the different brightly-colored frogs with multiple animals, a lighter more pastel-colored palette, and an art style that feels closer to the Hello Kitty brand. It’s not bad, but I personally prefer the visual style of the board game. However, I chalk that up to personal preference – the Nintendo Switch version certainly isn’t ugly, just different.

Having said that, there isn’t much added to this version of the game visually beyond the new still image visuals – there aren’t any animations, no real visual flair… this is pretty bare bones. The game has fittingly cheerful music, but also perhaps fitting, it’s fairly forgettable.

As for the gameplay, this is an interesting game, but it’s hard to wrap your head around the strategy. As you place cards, you flip over adjacent cards based on the arrows shown on your card. Flipped cards can have a second card placed on their opposite side, making the competition between players result in cards getting flipped back and forth multiple times. It makes for a hectic, back-and-forth game that, while not bad, isn’t very easy to feel compelled to keep playing either.

There are more issues, as well. The game is lacking important features – you can’t change the game rules, and while you can have computer-controlled players, you can’t change their difficulty level. And although this game does have online play, the online servers are currently dead so… don’t expect to be playing this online unless you know someone else playing the game. Oh, don’t expect to play it using just one Nintendo Switch, either – because it involves a hidden role element (which animal is yours), the game doesn’t allow couch multiplayer and needs multiple Switches to play… which as you might expect really limits its appeal.

I know this sounds like a lot of negativity, but Flip Over Frog is a decent board game, even if it’s not a great one, even if this version is lacking features, and even if fans of the actual board game might have mixed feelings about the changed presentation. And then there’s the [problem of actually setting up a game, given the limited multiplayer options. It’s not a terrible game, but it’s hard for me to recommend this to anyone.

tl;dr – Flip Over Frog is a Nintendo Switch version of a 2018 Board Game with Card Game elements where players place and flip over cards with different animals on them. It’s a decent but not great game, and it’s presented here with limited options and a bare bones presentation that deviates from the board game’s look. Also, the dead online servers and lack of ability to play the game via couch multiplayer really limits its appeal. The result is a game that’s not bad, but that’s hard to really recommend.

Grade: C-

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