Snipperclips Review - A Cutting Edge Good Time With Your Friends

Written by Brandon Hofer on March 16, 2017

Reviews: Snipperclips is a fun little puzzle game where you will have to solve increasingly difficult puzzles by communicating and working with friends.

Snipperclips is a fun Switch exclusive whether you are trying to solve the puzzles on your own or with friends. Of course it is more fun if you are playing the game with some friends but the game does support 1-4 players. I played it in both modes and noticed some of the differences in the experiences. Whether you choose to play solo or play with a friend you will encounter the same puzzles to solve. There is a difference though between you controlling everything on one controller as opposed to having it divided amongst two controllers when you are playing with a friend. For starters two minds are better than one and there might be a puzzle that has you stumped that a friend might be able to figure out quickly and vice versa. In two player mode you each control one character on the screen while single player mode has you controlling both of them. In solo mode you control both characters on the screen but only one at time.

If you are playing this game solo there are a number of different things to consider. First of all you look at the puzzle and try to determine what you need to do to solve. Once you think you have an idea of what you to do you take the character you are controlling over to the other character and cut him into the shape that is needed to solve the puzzle. Once that is done you hit a button to change characters and you are the character that was just reshaped. You go to where you need to go and then begin to set things in motion and see what happens. One of the early puzzles is trying to get a basketball in a hoop. So the way I solved it is I took my yellow character over to my red character and lined them up perfectly. Then I jumped up and using the bottom portion of the yellow character I cut a u-shaped hole in the red character. After I did that I took control of the red character and went to where the basketball was going to drop down. Then I switched back over to the yellow character to hit the button to release the ball. Once that was done and the ball landed successfully in that u-shaped hole I just created in the red character, I took control of the red character once again and slowly walked over to where the basket was. Once I was there I did a bit of a running jump and was able to catapult the ball into the basket and pass the puzzle. That is one way that you can do it and it can be fun experimenting and seeing which method works best for you. Now obviously if you are playing two player on that level you can solve it the same way but one person would be controlling the yellow character and the other person would be controlling the red character and you need to communicate and work together to get everything done. It is a lot fun and some of the craziness that will ensue definitely had my friends and I laughing as we were bumbling around the stage trying to determine what to do.

As one would expect the game gives you some easy puzzles at first to try and get you used to the gameplay. There are different “notebooks” that you will visit that will have a number of different puzzles for you. As you get further in the notebook the puzzles become more challenging. I remember doing a puzzle that had a jumping frog that needed to be reunited with his friends. In order to do that I needed to clear an obstacle that was blocking the way but I had to be really careful because the aforementioned frog wouldn’t stay still and so I had to find some way to control him while setting up the route for him to get back to his buddies. There is a nice sense of satisfaction when you figure something like that out. As you clear stages you will get a checkmark to indicate you solved that particular level. Once you get enough checkmarks you will unlock a level that is somewhat like this game’s version of a boss fight. In most normal levels you solve the one puzzle and you are done. These “boss levels” are multi-layered where you have to solve multiple objectives. There was one that took me quite a bit to figure out where I had a blue egg at the top left of the screen but I needed to get it to the bottom right and then a pink egg at the top right of the screen and I had to get it to the bottom left portion. My characters were standing on a platform at the top of the screen, controlling to platforms each below. I had to cut the appropriate shapes and rotate all the icons at the same time so the egg could fall from above and somehow travel the screen to where it needed to be. The first segment of that had four smaller platforms I had to deal with, the second had two giant platforms to deal with and then the third segment had two big and two small platforms. There is definitely quite a bit of trial and error as you see what works and how the eggs in this instance react to the environment. Once again though once I finally figured everything out I had this great sense of accomplishment. After two “boss fights” in a notebook you will unlock the next one which will have a different theme. The first couple themes are “Noisy Notebook” and “Retro Reboot” so you kind of get an idea of what I am talking about.

Outside of the main “story” there is also a 2-4 player mode where you can play against your friends in a few different modes. There are three options here where you can choose to play hoops, hockey or dojo. With hoops it is you against your friends to see who can be the first to score three baskets. The basketball will fall from the top of the screen and you will need to find a way to get it in the basket whether it is just jumping up and trying to get the ball to bounce a certain way or whether you work together with friends to cut a hole in the characters so you can actually catch the ball and then try to score. The hockey game is basically air hockey. You each guard your own goal while at the same trying to hit the puck so it goes in your opponent’s goal. It is a good amount of fun and had a bit of nostalgia for me as I remembered playing air hockey against friends back in the day in arcades. This one was definitely my favorite of the three activities. The way that the dojo works is that it is basically a free-for-all. You win by racing over to your opponent and, basically, cutting them out of existence. Once you have completely cut everything away from them then you get a point. The first person to three points wins.

There are a few other games you can play with friends but I think you get the point. Snipperclips is a really fun game, whether you are playing it solo or with friends. There is more fun to be had if you do play with friends but I was pleasantly surprised how well it works solo as well. The only complaint I could have with this game is I would like more content and, hopefully, we will get some more in the future. The overall concept though is a lot of fun and at a its current price point it is cheap enough to where people will hopefully check it out. There is also a demo on the Nintendo Switch eShop if you want to try before you buy. This is definitely going to be a game that I bring out when I have friends over and it is a great addition to the Nintendo Switch library.