Flipon [Switch] Review – Flippin’ Good?

Flipon is a fast paced puzzler that’s fun enough while you’re playing it, but struggles to make a lasting impression. Which is a shame, as in terms of presentation it’s no slouch. It boasts a sharp and colourful cast of …

By
Share this
  • Share this on Facebook
  • Share this on Twitter

Flipon is a fast paced puzzler that’s fun enough while you’re playing it, but struggles to make a lasting impression.

Which is a shame, as in terms of presentation it’s no slouch. It boasts a sharp and colourful cast of characters who inhabit every one of its many modes – including a hefty campaign as well as standard fare such as score attack, challenge, and versus options.

In terms of gameplay it’s incredibly simple, and requires faster reactions than you might expect. You’re faced with a well that is filling with coloured boxes, arriving from the bottom of the screen.

You can rotate two blocks with each other, but only horizontally. Once three of the same colour line up – horizontally or vertically – they disappear.

So it’s a mix of match-3 and Tetris Attack (or, sigh, Panel de Pon if you’re feeling pedantic), and on a certain level it works quite well. It requires constant quick thinking and you need to often string chains while other blocks are disappearing if you’re to avoid the well filling up.

It can feel a tad one note at times though, largely because of the amount of squares allowed in the well. Often you’re waiting on a certain block to arrive, and because of the limited number of colours in play – four – it can occasionally feel like a game of luck rather than skill.

Yes, the well does expand in size in certain modes, such as versus – but it’s still hard to avoid the nagging feeling that this isn’t as tight a concept as it needs to be to stand out in the genre.

Just because it doesn’t match up to the likes of Puyo Puyo, Tetris, or Puzzle Bobble doesn’t make Flipon a failure though.

It does everything it can with a fairly limited concept for a reasonable price, and is undeniably fun in short bursts – with its frantic gameplay perfectly suited to multiplayer battles with friends.

So as long as you don’t expect it to revolutionise the genre Flipon is perfectly serviceable.

The good

  • Fast paced
  • Fun with friends

The bad

  • Not a huge amount of depth
  • Struggles to match up to its inspirations
70 out of 100