Super Box Land Demake Review

There is no shortage of puzzle games on the Switch eShop, and Super Box Land Demake is one of the latest. A simple puzzler from Ratalaika Games, in this game, the only goal is to get to the next area by pushing boxes around. A simple concept.

In order to progress through each of the stages (of which there are a grand total of 100) you need to place a box on each of the points displayed on the ground. Every level follows the same mechanic. Boxes can only be pushed, not pulled, so do try not to get the box trapped or you may find yourself having to restart the stage.

If you do end up in an unrecoverable position, you have a finite number of energy cells that are displayed on the right of the screen. These cells allow you to rewind your previous actions by holding down the A button; I found myself having to make frequent use of this mechanic. Energy can be recovered by running through bushes and praying that an energy cell just happens to jump out. A bit weird, but why argue?

It is unclear when a puzzle will require a second player, but they nevertheless do crop up from time to time; you have to just figure out which puzzles those are. Controlling both characters yourself takes some getting used to, but it is doable. Unfortunately, none of the levels are really all that challenging, with it generally only taking a couple of attempts to trial-and-error your way through some of the harder ones. For a casual player, this won’t be much of a problem.

Since every level consists of just a different arrangement of boxes, buttons, and obstacles, the two-player (or one-player, two-character) mechanic does help to alleviate the repetitive nature of the game somewhat, but not entirely. After getting through about a third of the puzzles, I found them getting a little stale. A third of the game isn’t all that much either, as the game is quite short.

In-between areas there is a minigame that allows you to restore energy, but beyond that there is little in the way of change throughout the game.

Visually, the game utilises a simple pixel art style. It may be basic, but it is very aesthetically pleasing and the more pastel colour pallet has a sort of charm to it. It, of course, runs perfectly well in both docked and handheld because of this. One thing that needs to be said is that the background track in this game sounds as though it is just a short audio clip played on repeat throughout every stage – it gets repetitive and annoying quickly. I found myself having to mute the game after playing for only around 15 minutes.

But with that being said, for the low price, Super Box Land Demake isn’t a bad choice if you’re looking for a more casual puzzle experience on the Switch; but there is likely a better use for your time.