Animated Jigsaw: Beautiful Japanese Scenery

When I got a review code for Animated Jigsaw: Beautiful Japanese Scenery on the Switch, I initially figured that I would have nothing to say. I mean, it's a virtual jigsaw puzzle with moving images of gorgeous Japanese vistas, what more needs to be said? But then I decided to actually play the game and realized almost immediately that maybe I do have something to say after all. I'll try to make this quick.

As the name suggests, Animated Jigsaw: Beautiful Japanese Scenery is a game where you solve a series of jigsaw puzzles with gorgeous moving images from the country of Japan. That's all it is. There's no story or hidden complexity, it's just a series of simple jigsaw puzzles that you can play either on your TV or in handheld mode.

While I've never been a big fan of jigsaw puzzles, I can certainly see the value in having a version for the Switch. It allows players to put together puzzles with more than just boring old pictures and even lets four players get involved without crowding into a small table. Plus, it has ten different puzzles and you can take it wherever you go. If I was a big fan of putting together jigsaw puzzles, I would probably see this as a good deal.

But before you rush to the eShop and plop down your hard-earned money, there are a few things we need to talk about. I hate to say this, but Animated Jigsaw is a terrible game that makes putting together a simple puzzle a lot more frustrating than it needs to be. What we have here is the video game equivalent of that "You Had One Job" meme.

Like I said before, you can play this game on both the TV and in handheld mode. What I didn't mention is that both of these modes are broken in entirely different ways. Let's start with the handheld mode, which is the better of the two options. Using the touchscreen makes moving and placing pieces fairly painless, even if the point and press gameplay isn't as precise as you would like. The problem is that you don't have a lot of room to work with and the puzzle pieces are a little too small for their own good. This is especially true when you graduate from the 60 and 120 piece puzzles to the 240. Picking up and placing the exact tiny piece you want becomes a nightmare on the Switch's screen.

You might think that moving the game over to the TV might solve this problem, but all it does is create a whole new set of issues. You do not want to control this game using the Joy-con. No, I'm serious, and it bears repeating: You do not want to control this game using the Joy-con. Even if you can get beyond the slow and sluggish cursor movement, you're going to quickly discover that picking up and moving pieces doesn't work. I mean, you can grab a piece and move it a few inches, but the game has a bad habit of letting go for no reason. It will just drop the piece for no reason. And this isn't an isolated instance, it happened over and over and over. It's like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle using only your feet.

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And that assumes you can pick up the piece in the first place. This is not always a given, as I ran into a lot of problems where simply getting the game to register my button press was too much to ask. And much like handheld mode, the problems are only amplified when you're asked to put together a 240 piece puzzle. It may take you a half hour to complete a puzzle, but that's only because you're spending 20 of those minutes fighting the damn controls.

On the dimly-lit bright side, I do like that the pieces will snap into place and that you can sort based on edge and inner pieces. I also think the locations and moving images are lovely. There is a nice variety featuring famous Japanese locations taken from all seasons. The best thing I can say about this game is that the subtitle is accurate; this is indeed a game filled with "beautiful Japanese scenery." Too bad the rest of the game is so hard to control.

There's a bit in the press notes suggesting that Animated Jigsaw is a fun and "stress-free experience." I assure you, there is nothing "stress-free" about this game. If anything, the imprecise and often broken gameplay made me angrier than I've ever been while trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle. Animated Jigsaw: Beautiful Japanese Scenery may be an accurate name, but that doesn't make it a good game.