Limbo Nintendo Switch Review

Playdead’s 2010 breakout hit Limbo has been ported to just about every device imaginable, it’s available on all major consoles, phones, iPad, even the PlayStation Vita so it comes with little surprise that the team has now ported not just Limbo but their followup success Inside to the Nintendo Switch.

If you haven’t played Limbo it’s well worth the 4-5 hours or so it will take to get through it. It’s one of those games that is more of an experience rather than a deep defined narrative driven adventure. The key enjoyment for me when playing Limbo has always been the gameplay. It’s a platformer with some great puzzles, many of them not having obvious solutions until you’ve been through a few trial and error loops. As with the follow up game Inside, Limbo doesn’t hand feed you the story but instead let’s you learn about the world and it’s ambiguous ending via environmental storytelling. Leading to some incredible fan theories for what both games are actually about on the internet.

As mentioned Limbo is a platformer that would fit into what people consider a 2.5D game. The player character and the main interactables such as item’s, switches and enemies are all viewed on a 2D plane but the world via some cool depth and parallax effects seems 3D.

One thing that makes Limbo instantly recognisable is it’s monochromatic art style which has since been replicated by quite a few games since 2010 trying to capitalise on Limbo’s success. Having the world be a series of silhouetted layers leaves the player to fill in additional details with their own mind and also helps you relate to the boy character where everything in the world is new and unknown, never knowing if you’re about to stumble into an environmental trap or if a piece of the stage is movable until you attempt to interact with it.

While the game’s controls are very simplistic the game itself can be quite the challenge at times with it’s environmental puzzles leaving me stumped and scratching my head for a while, until after numerous death’s I finally figured out what I was meant to be doing to process to the next area. The puzzles towards the beginning of the game are quite simple and focus on teaching you the simple mechanics of the game. There is only left and right movement, jumping and pressing the A button allows you to interact with items in the world such as dragging boxes or logs around, climbing ropes and pulling levers. The puzzles in the later half of the game require a bit more brain power but aren’t insanely difficult, though they do leave you with a sense of accomplishment when you finally do succeed with one that initially had you stumped.

The journey through Limbo is a sequence of puzzle after puzzle that allows you to venture further through the dark and misty world. the game does a great job of autosaving after each puzzle area meaning that death has little consequence. At most taking you back 10-20 seconds to give you another go at the puzzle. This is great because on your first playthrough you will be dying a lot while you work out the dangers of the world.

The port for the Nintendo Switch runs fantastically, which I had little doubt it would seeing as the game has been running on mobile phones since 2013. The game looks great both in handheld and docked mode but unless you’re playing in a darker room playing in handheld mode can become difficult because it’s dark art direction leaves details obscured when too much light hit’s the Switch screen. This makes it hard to play on public transport for example. I had the same issue years ago when playing it out and about on the Vita as well.

Final Thoughts

Limbo on the Switch makes perfect sense, playing it on the Switch feels great and give’s you the option of playing the game at home in front of your TV or anywhere you can take your Switch. If you haven’t played Limbo before and own a Switch I highly recommend picking it up here. However if you have previously played the game on another platform just be aware that it’s the same experience here, there’s no additional DLC or change-ups for the Switch version meaning you’ll need to weigh up for yourself whether it’s worth a re-purchase. But it continues to be one of the greatest puzzle platformers that still has people talking about it’s story to this day.

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