Amazing Brick Breaker

Genre: Unlimited Pattern Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Amazing Brick Breaker, confusingly listed alternately with both that title and just Brick Breaker, is an Unlimited Pattern Puzzle that has you aiming a series of balls at blocks descending from the top of the screen, hoping to ricochet them in such a way that you can hit them as many times as possible with just one shot. This sort of game has been pretty common on Smartphones for years now, but this is a rare example of this sort of game on Switch.

This game’s visuals are colorful and appealing, designed in a way that makes the blocks look like Lego pieces against a light-colored background. While this all looks nice, it does interfere with the gameplay somewhat, as these pieces are irregular in their shapes, and two pieces of the same color next to each other can make it difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. Rounding out the presentation is some lighthearted music that suits the game fine, but is pretty forgettable.

In terms of the gameplay, this game is playing with a well-established formula that’s pretty fun, but since there are countless games like this, the question becomes, does this iteration of that formula do things well, and does it offer anything different or unique?

While the game’s Arcade Mode is a pretty standard version of this sort of gameplay, Amazing Brick Breaker also offers a Vs. Mode, and here there has been some attempt to do something a bit unusual for the genre, actually adding in two-player competitive play. The game actually does this in a clever way too, making it so that when players reach a specific score threshold, it drops the blocks down a row on the opponent’s side, ensuring that players have to act quickly, even as they carefully judge their shots. This multiplayer mode is a great addition, though it’s a bit basic and lacking in options to have much longevity.

In terms of how the game does the formula overall, I have a few issues. Firstly, unlike most games of this kind, Amazing Brick Breaker is pretty stingy when it comes to the angle you’re allowed to use – you can’t aim too low, which really limits your options when the bricks get close. However, the big omission here is the lack of touchscreen support in portable mode, which seems like a pretty major feature to be missing as this sort of game was originally designed around touchscreens. It also bears mention that players can find countless versions of this sort of game for free on smartphones, so the $5 price tag seems a bit too high. This is a $1-$2 game, not a $5 game.

Overall, Amazing Brick Breaker deserves credit for bringing a competitive multiplayer mode that works very well to this popular style of puzzle game, but at the same time I can’t overlook how it’s missing features common to countless other games exactly like it, and the $5 price tag makes it one of the more expensive games of its kind. This is a decent game, but it’s not the best version of this formula, and you can get better games cheaper on your Smartphone.

tl;dr – Amazing Brick Breaker is an Unlimited Pattern Puzzle that has you aiming to ricochet a series of balls at descending blocks, like in numerous Smartphone games. This is a decent iteration of the formula, and it even adds in a good 2-player competitive mode, but the $5 price tag and lack of features compare poorly to the numerous games like this already on Smartphones. Unless you absolutely need a game like this on your Switch, stick to the Smartphone games.

Grade: C

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