Showndown With the Scribblenauts

The Scribblenauts franchise has never been super popular but it has always  been unique and interesting. One of my favorites was the Scribblenauts DC Universe game for the Wii U. Things haven’t looked great for the franchise and I doubted we see another game. And so it was a surprise when Scriblenauts Showdown was announced for the Nintendo Switch. The game is out now and I received a review copy of the game! My review isn’t ready yet, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the game so far.

Scribblenauts Showdown has the same graphics that every other Scribblenauts game has had. It is cartoony, it is simple, and still unique. It also looks really good on the TV and in the Switch’s handheld mode. Unfortunately though, the developers decided to change one of the best aspects of Scribblenauts: its touch screen gameplay. Showdown does not use the touch screen…

In this Scribblenauts, you still use words to create objects but you use a joycon instead of the Switch’s touch screen. There isn’t even an option to play Scribblenauts Showdown in handheld mode. You must have the two joycons seperated from the screen. So you can play table top mode and on the TV. Thats it. I would have loved to have played this game in handheld mode with the touch screen.

As for how you create words, you have to use a very cumbersome and flawed system that has you typing in letters one at a time using the analog stick and the buttons on your joycon. It just doesn’t work as well as having a touch screen to type in letters. The game does give you words to choose from after you’ve put in so many letters though. That helps some, but I can’t say I’m that happy with the way this game controls.

That said, I really like this game’s Sandbox mode! I am having fun just toying around in that mode despite the controls. The other modes are alright and some of the mini-games are neat, but I think they would be a lot more fun playing with someone else. Showdown is obviously a game that was meant to be played in multiplayer more than single player. Its different from the other Scribbenauts games, though that doesn’t mean its bad.

My review of this game isn’t ready yet. I want to play even more of it before I come to a final conclusion. Please keep an eye out for my review of Scribblenauts Showdown for the Nintendo Switch!