When a review is marked as ‘in progress’, it is done on the basis that enough time has been invested to obtain solid impressions even though we have been unable to beat it. This may be down to an extreme length or brutal difficulty, but either way it is a title that has overcome us… at least for a period of time.
Games marked as such will receive the usual review treatment, plus some additional footage to help give you a general idea of what to expect. These games will likely be finished at some point, and the review will be updated accordingly. As such, keep checking back if you want to keep a track of our full final thoughts when we have them!
Many thanks to liica for the review code.
Whilst I used to use my Nintendo Switch in handheld mode quite a bit, I find myself straying away from the portable side of things more and more as the years go by. Now that I have a secondary television in the living room specifically for my Switch, I rarely feel the need to pull the system out of its dock. This isn’t helped by the lack of games that really utilise the portable mode to the best of its abilities.
That’s where Q Remastered comes in! Appearing on the upcoming section of the e-shop, complete with a demo, it promised hundreds of bite sized puzzles that have you doodling shapes to solve puzzles. Sure, everything works perfectly fine using a controller (and can even be used in gyro mode too!), but this game is at its best in handheld mode using your finger or stylus as the controller.
YOU DID IT
Starting out, the game eases you in gently with its minimalist look and control scheme. It advises you that shapes can be drawn on the screen, which will then appear inside the game as an ‘object’. An almost sarcastic “YOU DID IT” congratulates you for simply doing what the game tells you to do. Then things get more difficult as it tasks you with making your object touch the left wall, which is what makes you realise that Q is a physics-based puzzle game! Great!
And then the game catches you off guard by presenting you with the simplest of tasks: you’re given a bowl with a solitary marble inside and are told to get it out. There are, as you may expect, multiple approaches to achieve this – but it requires far more logical thinking than the prior tutorial stages.
What seems like a simple, charming game gets quickly thrown out of the window once you get through the tutorial as many, many more stages get unlocked for your to test your wit. Whilst it only unlocks around a third or so of the possible worlds, there are still hundreds of levels here for you to attempt. Locked categories can be unlocked by ‘simply’ beating at least 14 of the 20 levels from the previous set with a whopping 1280 potentially available.
What really impresses, however, is just the sheer variety of stages on offer. From guiding floppy mannikins to chairs, to balancing scales, fighting Godzilla, re-enacting Mario, and more, there’s just so much to play around with considering the relatively limited moveset you have at your disposal. Some later stages do add in some extra functionality, such as being able to grab and move objects, but for the most part you’ll be relying on shapes you’ve drawn to overcome physics puzzles.
Even though this may not seem like much, the only real limit is your imagination. Going back to that bowl puzzle mentioned earlier, you can create a lever to flip the bowl over, create more marbles in the bowl that will allow you to push it out (or create a large one that will effectively ‘splash’ the red marble out), … or you can just push the bowl over.
It sounds simple, but in reality the game is brutally difficult. Solving the game’s many puzzles will require patience, skill, and the odd bit of luck to get through. The sheer quantity on offer means that that there’s more than enough here for all skill levels for the cheap asking price, so don’t worry if you don’t think you’re not quite skilled enough to get through everything – you’ll certainly get your money’s worth!
Q Remastered is silly fun that makes great use of the touchscreen, whilst still being almost as effective using the controller. With over 1000 levels, expect to be busy for a while – especially considering the game can be hard as nails!
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