Grandmaster Sudoku

Genre: Sudoku Puzzle

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Digital Game Group

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Review:

Grandmaster Sudoku is a Sudoku Puzzle game released on Nintendo Switch in 2021, and right from the start I will point out that this game is obviously making use of a template from the Unite Asset Store, specifically the Sudoku Pro template. The interface is the same, the way the playable Sudoku is displayed is the same… the changes here seem to be primarily to the layout and the addition of a cartoony Indiana Jones knockoff theme.

Does that make this game an asset flip, or is it juuuuust different enough to be its own thing? I’ll let you decide that for yourself, but in the meantime I’m still going to review the game this resulted in. After all, even if a game is an asset flip, that doesn’t mean it can’t be good. I have yet to actually play any asset flips I thought were particularly good, but I’m sure it’s at least possible. Anyway, I digress.

Since it’s the one seemingly original element that was added to this game, we’ll talk about the presentation first, and it’s… not great. The cartoony character dressing up like Indiana Jones and the cartoony jungle background have a static 2D art style that screams “mobile game”, and it does not in any way relate to or mesh with the gameplay, and the same developer has copy-pasted the character in both this game and in Zumatch. What’s more, this game is completely missing music save for a brief, generic victory fanfare. At least, to the credit of the designer of the original Unity Asset Store asset, the functional Sudoku stuff all looks clean and easily-readable, and while it’s not doing anything impressive it all works well enough.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the gameplay.

Right from the start, we’re confronted with a major problem – this game doesn’t work right in docked mode. The game tells players to use the touchscreen, and while it does let you access a few of the menu options using the gamepad (though you need to press the X button first for some reason), there is no way to interact with the actual Sudoku play area other than using the touchscreen.

At the very least, using the touchscreen, everything seems to function as intended. I do think some of the game’s text is too small for the Nintendo Switch’s small screen, and I think the layout of the number selector is poorly-chosen, at least for someone right-handed like me, since it’s all on the left side of the screen. However, it works well enough, and playing this game in handheld mode seems to work functionally too.

You even have a few options here, like the ability to choose whether the game will inform you if you make a mistake, and there’s a hint system as well. Unfortunately, this game is missing a lot of other standard options – there’s no tutorial (just a few pages of instructions), no difficulty selection, no way to save your best times on a puzzle, and in fact there’s no indication if the puzzles you’re playing are premade or procedurally-generated. But if they’re premade, there’s no way to access a specific puzzle again.

In the end, Grandmaster Sudoku does have the bare basics for players who are looking for a Sudoku game on Nintendo Switch… but only if they don’t want to play the game in docked mode, don’t mind a terrible button layout, don’t mind the inability to choose a difficulty, don’t mind the inability to select their puzzle, and don’t mind a nonsensical, ugly mobile-style presentation with no music. That’s a lot of “if”s, so maybe it’s just easier to say this just isn’t a good Sudoku game.

tl;dr – Grandmaster Sudoku is a Sudoku Puzzle game that was clearly made using Unity Asset Store assets, and even if that doesn’t bother you, the bad button layout, the lacking presentation, the inability to play this game docked, and the lack of pretty standard options like a difficulty selection, all make for a game that’s a pretty bad take on the genre.

Grade: D+

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